An electrical controller for electric rotating machines is provided. A control system for electric rotating machines transmits a controlled quantity of current to or from different windings of the electric rotating machine at any given time. Furthermore, the amplitude of the current is independently variable of the timing and duration of the transmission of the current to or from the windings. This allows increased control of the electric rotating machine and facilitates the operation of the electric motor at high mechanical and/or electrical speeds.

The method is for making an electric motor more efficient by iteratively changing when a processor sends activation signals to transistors to minimize a current required to rotate a rotor at a constant rotational speed. The method is also for changing a rotational direction of the rotor by switching the order in which activation signals are sent to the transistors.

The present invention is a high efficiency permanent magnet machine capable of maintaining high power density. The machine is operable over a wide range of power output. The improved efficiency is due in part to copper wires with a current density lower than traditional designs and larger permanent magnets coupled with a large air gap. In a certain embodiment wide stator teeth are used to provide additional improved efficiency through significantly reducing magnetic saturation resulting in lower current. The machine also has a much smaller torque angle than that in traditional design at rated load and thus has a higher overload handling capability and improved efficiency. In addition, when the machine is used as a motor, an adaptive phase lag compensation scheme helps the sensorless field oriented control (FOC) scheme to perform more accurately.

The present disclosure describes a two-stage method for estimating an angle offset of an angle sensor in a system comprising a permanent-magnet synchronous motor. An initial value for the estimated angle offset is first determined with a short circuit test. Next, a torque of the motor may be controlled so that the motor is maintained at a zero speed. Minor adjustments are made to the value of the angle offset to find a minimum magnitude of stator current. A value at which the stator current is at its minimum is used as a final angle offset.

The present disclosure describes a two-stage method for estimating an angle offset of an angle sensor in a system comprising a permanent-magnet synchronous motor. An initial value for the estimated angle offset is first determined with a short circuit test. Next, a torque of the motor may be controlled so that the motor is maintained at a zero speed. Minor adjustments are made to the value of the angle offset to find a minimum magnitude of stator current. A value at which the stator current is at its minimum is used as a final angle offset.

A motor control unit having a motor structure that rotates a rotor by voltage excitation includes a photo interrupter, a slit rotation plate, a comparator, and an encoder circuit in order to obtain a position detection signal corresponding to a rotational phase of an output shaft. During a period of time from the motor stopping to the change of the output of an encoder circuit after the supply of a drive voltage waveform, a CPU supplies a drive voltage waveform that is advanced by an advance angle amount that has been set in advance to the motor, and after the change of the output of the encoder circuit, a drive signal by which the advance angle amount is controlled based on the output of the encoder circuit is supplied to the motor.

A motor control unit having a motor structure that rotates a rotor by voltage excitation includes a photo interrupter, a slit rotation plate, a comparator, and an encoder circuit in order to obtain a position detection signal corresponding to a rotational phase of an output shaft. During a period of time from the motor stopping to the change of the output of an encoder circuit after the supply of a drive voltage waveform, a CPU supplies a drive voltage waveform that is advanced by an advance angle amount that has been set in advance to the motor, and after the change of the output of the encoder circuit, a drive signal by which the advance angle amount is controlled based on the output of the encoder circuit is supplied to the motor.

An energy-efficient and accurate torque control system and method for multiphase nonsinusoidal PMSM with or without open-circuited phase(s) under time-varying torque and speed conditions is based on orthogonally decomposing a phase voltage vector into two components, which become primary and secondary control inputs for torque control and energy minimizer control. The primary control system includes nonlinear feedback from measured phase currents, motor angle, motor speed, and instantaneous value of reference torque and a signature vector indicating which phase(s) is/are open-circuited to establish a first-order linear relationship between reference and generated torques. The secondary control system includes an estimator to estimate a system costate from measured phase currents, motor angle, motor speed, and instantaneous value of reference torque and the signature vector and a linear programming module with equality/inequality constraints to calculate the secondary voltage input to optimally align the overall phase voltage for maximum efficiency without saturating the inverter voltage.

An energy-efficient and accurate torque control system and method for multiphase nonsinusoidal PMSM with or without open-circuited phase(s) under time-varying torque and speed conditions is based on orthogonally decomposing a phase voltage vector into two components, which become primary and secondary control inputs for torque control and energy minimizer control. The primary control system includes nonlinear feedback from measured phase currents, motor angle, motor speed, and instantaneous value of reference torque and a signature vector indicating which phase(s) is/are open-circuited to establish a first-order linear relationship between reference and generated torques. The secondary control system includes an estimator to estimate a system costate from measured phase currents, motor angle, motor speed, and instantaneous value of reference torque and the signature vector and a linear programming module with equality/inequality constraints to calculate the secondary voltage input to optimally align the overall phase voltage for maximum efficiency without saturating the inverter voltage.

A current controller for an electric machine that includes an input, an output, a threshold generator and a comparator. The threshold generator stores a scaling factor and includes a PWM module that operates on a reference voltage to generate a threshold voltage. The duty cycle of the PWM module is then defined by the scaling factor. The comparator compares a voltage at the input against the threshold voltage and causes an overcurrent signal to be generated at the output when the voltage at the input exceeds the threshold voltage.