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US 8,796,977 B2Granted
Voltage regulator for DC motors
AssigneeGate S.R.L.
InventorsMaurizio Barbero, Franco Quagliata
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A voltage regulator for a pair of electric motors has an input for a signal indicative of the desired speed for the motors and a pulse width modulation control circuit device. A control module provides a conditioning signal to the control circuit to output to the motors a square wave voltage having a duty-cycle which varies according to a predetermined function of the signal applied to the input of the regulator. The control circuit device has first and second electronic solid state switches associated with the motor and controlled by the control module.
Claims5
A voltage regulator, comprising:
- a PWM control circuit device for connecting the positive pole of a DC voltage source and comprising a first and a second MOSFET transistor;
- a first and a second connection branches connected to the PWM control circuit device for connecting two motors in parallel with each other;
- an input for a control signal indicative of the desired speed for the motors;
- a control module connected to the input and the PWM control circuit device and providing the PWM control circuit device a conditioning signal so that the PWM control circuit device applies to the motors a square wave voltage obtained from the voltage source via the first and second MOSFET transistor and having a duty-cycle which varies according to the control signal applied to the input of control module;
- a shunt resistor that a terminal thereof is for connecting the two motors and the other terminal is connected to the earth;
- a current comparator connected to the two terminals of the shunt resistor;
- two motor voltage monitoring devices each configured for connecting two ends of a respect of the two motors and measuring the voltage of the respect motor;
- two first switch voltage monitoring devices connected to the first and second connection branches respectively for monitoring the source voltage of the first and second MOSFET transistors;
- a second switch voltage monitoring device connected to the PWM control circuit device for monitoring the drain voltage of the first and second MOSFET transistors;
- a processing module connected to the current comparator, the motor voltage monitoring devices, and the first and second first switch voltage monitoring devices and configured for:
- acquiring and processing signals representative of the current and of the voltage of the two motors coming from, respectively, the current comparator and the motor voltage monitoring devices;
- acquiring and processing signals representative of the voltage associated with the MOSFET transistors coming from the first and second switch voltage monitoring devices;
- and
- sending to the control module at least a control signal based on the current and voltage signals.
11 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.