System and method for determining angular position and controlling rotor orientation

A method for measuring the angular orientation of a rotor, said method comprising the steps of:

• providing a rotor assembly comprising a plurality of annularly disposed motor field pole magnetic domains;
• providing a sensor module having at least two HEDs disposed at a specified relative angular separation with respect to each other, wherein the sensor module is suitably configured to produce a plurality of input signals in response to magnetic flux variation corresponding to axial rotation of the motor field pole magnetic domains;
• and
• providing a position measurement module suitably configured for:
• processing said input signals to produce converted sinusoidal reference signals, wherein said sinusoidal reference signals have at least one of an offset scale factor and an amplitude scale factor;
• determining an error term by processing said converted reference signals to produce a position estimate signal corresponding to an approximate measurement of angular orientation of the rotor;
• and
• subsequently producing a refined measurement of angular orientation of the rotor by processing the error term.

A method for controlling an electric motor, said method comprising the steps of:

• providing a rotor assembly comprising a plurality of annularly disposed motor field pole magnetic domains;
• providing a sensor module having at least two HEDs disposed at a specified relative angular separation with respect to each other, wherein the sensor module is suitably configured to produce a plurality of input signals in response to magnetic flux variation corresponding to axial rotation of the motor field pole magnetic domains;
• providing a position measurement module suitably con figured for:
• processing said input signals to produce converted sinusoidal reference signals, wherein said sinusoidal reference signals have at least one of an offset scale factor and an amplitude scale factor;
• determining an error term by processing said converted reference signals to produce a position estimate signal corresponding to an approximate measurement of angular orientation of the rotor;
• and
• subsequently producing a refined measurement of angular orientation of the rotor by processing the error term;
• and
• providing a control module responsive to the position measurement module, wherein the control module is suitably configured to actuate at least two motor field pole magnetic domains for angular positioning of the rotor.