The invention relates to a method for operating a rotating electric machine (1) having a rotor (3), a polyphase excitation winding (5) and a commutation apparatus (9) for commutating excitation winding currents of the excitation winding (5) depending on rotor position values (R) for rotor positions of the rotor (3). First measurement values (A) for the rotor positions are detected by means of a first sensor apparatus (13) and second measurement values (B) for the rotor positions are detected by means of a second sensor apparatus (15). For the commutation of the excitation winding currents, the rotor position values (R) are formed from weighted mean values (M) of the first measurement values (A) and the second measurement values (B). In a first rotation speed range of rotor rotation speeds of the rotor (3), the first sensor apparatus (13) has a higher resolution of the rotor positions than the second sensor apparatus (15) and, in the first rotation speed range, the first measurement values (A) are given more weight than the second measurement values (B) when forming the weighted mean values (M).

An electric power steering apparatus including: a steering torque detector to detect a steering torque of a driver; a motor to assist a steering force of the driver; an estimated speed calculator to calculate an estimated speed, which is an estimated value of a rotation speed of the motor; an estimated speed corrector to correct the estimated speed based on the steering torque; an estimated angle calculator to calculate an estimated angle of the motor by integrating the estimated speed after the correction; and an electric power supply to supply electric power to the motor based on the estimated angle, wherein the estimated speed corrector corrects the estimated speed when a determination signal, which is based on a value obtained by removing a frequency component of steering of the driver from a derivative of the steering torque, the steering torque, and the estimated speed have the same signs.

An abnormality determination means performs detection of abnormality of one of the pairs of detection means at a normal speed, and performs detection of abnormality of the other of the pairs at a speed not higher than the normal speed, and, when a sign of abnormality of the detection means is detected at the normal speed, a CPU performs switching to the other normal pair and continues control, and the abnormality determination means performs detection of abnormality of the other normal pair at the normal speed, and meanwhile, continues to perform detection of abnormality of the abnormal pair at a speed not higher than the normal speed.

An adjusting unit of an internal combustion engine is provided, comprising an electric motor and a transmission interacting therewith, an adjusting shaft of the transmission being coupled to the rotor of the electric motor. A drive shafts of the transmission is coupled to the shaft which is to be adjusted. For controlling the electric motor, a sensorless control unit is provided outside of a housing of the electric motor which encloses the stator of the electric motor.

A control system for monitoring operation of an electric motor includes a plurality of position sensors configured to measure a position of the electric motor, an indirect position estimation module configured to indirectly estimate the position of the motor, and an error monitoring module. The error monitoring module is configured to perform at least one of: comparing a measured position from the plurality of position sensors to an estimated position from the sensor position estimation module, and detecting a failure of at least one of the one or more position sensors based on the comparison; and calculating a difference between the measured position from one of the plurality of position sensors and the measured position from another of the plurality of position sensors, and causing the indirect position estimation module to initiate estimation of the position of the motor based on the difference.

A machine tool includes three mutually independent data transmission mechanisms. The data transmission mechanisms include respective transmission units which assign codes for detecting errors to data acquired from the output of sensors, and which transmit the data. A machine controller includes an operation judgment unit which judges whether operation of a feed axis motor is continued. The operation judgment unit judges that operation is continued when there are two pieces of data for which a relationship between the data and the code matches a rule, and the two pieces of data are within a predetermined judgment range. The operation judgment unit judges that the feed axis motor is stopped when at least one of the pieces of data for which the relationship matches the rule deviates from the judgment range.

A wiper system including a brushless DC electric motor having a rotor, a stator having coils for electromagnetically exciting the rotor, a device for determining the angular position of the rotor with respect to the stator, a control unit configured to generate control signals for supplying power to the electromagnetic excitation coils according to the angular position of the rotor determined by the device for determining the angular position of the rotor, a reduction gear mechanism linked, on one side, to the rotor of the electric motor and, on the other side, to an output shaft that is intended to be linked to an external mechanism. The rotor includes at least one Hall effect sensor associated with a control magnet that rotates with the rotor and the gear motor also having a processing unit connected to the device for determining the angular position of the rotor.

According to the present invention, in position sensorless control for switching between a 120-degree energization scheme for a low-speed region and a 180-degree energization scheme for a mid-to-high-speed region, stable and highly accurate speed control characteristics are provided by suppressing speed deviation r in the low-speed region, and by preventing current jump-up caused by a discontinuous rotational speed occurring during switching to the mid-to-high-speed region. In the case of driving in the 120-degree energization scheme, a voltage command value is corrected such that an estimated speed value or a detected speed value follows a speed command.

A motor controller includes current measurement circuitry and estimation circuitry. The current measurement circuitry is adapted to be coupled to a motor, and configured to measure current in the motor. The estimation circuitry is coupled to the current measurement circuitry, and includes a memory, current computation circuitry, and summation circuitry. The memory stores coefficients of a function for estimating current related to variation of inductance of the motor. The current computation circuitry is coupled to the memory, and is configured to compute a compensation current value based on the coefficients. The summation circuitry is coupled to the current compensation circuitry, and is configured to generate a position error signal by subtracting the compensation current value from a measured current value generated by the current measurement circuitry.

A power tool is provided including a housing, a brushless motor disposed within the housing, a power switch circuit that supplies power from a power source to the brushless motor, and a controller configured to apply a drive signal to the power switch circuit to control the supply of power to the brushless motor. The controller is configured to receive at least one signal associated with a phase current of the motor, detect an angular position of the rotor based on the phase current of the motor within a variable speed range of zero to at least 15,000 rotations-per-minute (RPM), and control the drive signal based on the detected angular position of the rotor to electronically commutate the motor within a torque range of zero to at least 15 newton-meters (N.m.) and a power output of zero to at least 1500 watts.