Hybrid sensorless motor control in aerospace applications, a survey in sensorless control, optimizing for availability and acoustic noise

Skoulaxinos, Stefanos; Wheeler, Pat; Vakil, Gaurang

Abstract

A wide range of aerospace applications previously based on hydraulics including the control of aerodynamic surfaces are being actively replaced by lighter, more intelligent Motor Drive Electronics (MDEs). However, motor resolvers commonly used to provide the rotor's position to the MDEs are sensitive devices susceptible to extreme temperature and vibrations, conditions commonly encountered in aerospace applications. This weakness can lead to resolver failures and reduction in system availability. In DALA safety critical motor control designs, system availability is paramount. Following a survey of sensorless methods, this paper proposes a hybrid motor control solution where sensorless rotor position calculation is run in parallel with the resolver interface, monitoring the resolver. In the event of a resolver failure, the sensorless motor control takes over controlling the motor. Furthermore in order to suppress acoustic noise produced from High Frequency injection, a variant of the Pseudo Random High Frequency injection method is also proposed.

Citation

Skoulaxinos, S., Wheeler, P., & Vakil, G. (2021, April). Hybrid sensorless motor control in aerospace applications, a survey in sensorless control, optimizing for availability and acoustic noise. Presented at Proceedings - 2021 IEEE Workshop on Electrical Machines Design, Control and Diagnosis, WEMDCD 2021, Modena, Italy

• Presentation Conference Type: Edited Proceedings
• Conference Name: Proceedings - 2021 IEEE Workshop on Electrical Machines Design, Control and Diagnosis, WEMDCD 2021
• Start Date: Apr 8, 2021
• End Date: Apr 9, 2021
• Acceptance Date: Mar 2, 2021
• Online Publication Date: May 11, 2021
• Publication Date: Apr 8, 2021
• Deposit Date: Sep 3, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 3, 2021
• Pages: 175-180
• Series Title: IEEE Workshop on Electrical Machines Design, Control and Diagnosis (WEMDCD)
• Book Title: 2021 IEEE Workshop on Electrical Machines Design, Control and Diagnosis (WEMDCD)
• ISBN: 9781728176161
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/WEMDCD51469.2021.9425663
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/6141144
• Publisher URL: https://ieeexplore-ieee-org.nottingham.idm.oclc.org/document/9425663
• Additional Information: © 2021 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.