Apparatus for controlling electric motors and related control method
AssigneeSTMicroelectronics S.r.l.
InventorMarco Viti
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An electric motor controller controls the currents flowing through the phase windings of an electric motor. The electric motor controller includes driving stages for driving respective phase windings of the motor and a memory for storing samples of reference signals. The driving stages force currents corresponding to the reference signals through a respective phase winding of the motor. The electric motor controller includes circuitry to determine subdivision degree intervals of an electric rotation and circuitry for comparing one of the currents flowing through the respective phase windings of the motor with at least one of the samples of the respective reference signal in at least one portion of each one of the degree intervals.
Claims20
A method for controlling an electric motor including a plurality of phase windings and a rotor, comprising:
- providing a plurality of reference signals;
- forcing a current according to each one of the reference signals through a respective phase winding of the motor;
- generating degree intervals of a subdivision of an electric rotation;
- and
- comparing one of the currents flowing through the respective phase winding of the motor with at least one sample of the respective reference signal in at least one portion of one of the degree intervals such that only two of the currents flowing through a respective motor winding are controlled by selecting a maximum current and a medium current.
An electric motor controller comprising:
- a memory for storing samples of a plurality of reference signals;
- a plurality of driving stages for driving respective phase windings of the motor according to each one of the reference signals;
- circuitry to determine subdivision degree intervals of an electric rotation;
- and
- circuitry to compare one of the currents flowing through the respective phase windings of the motor with at least one of the samples of the respective reference signal in at least one portion of one of the degree intervals such that only two of the currents flowing through a respective motor winding are controlled by selecting a maximum current and a medium current.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.