TI sees breakthrough in motor control technology
Insta-SPIN FOC (field oriented control) is a ROM software upgrade for TI’s Piccolo microcontrollers that allows the encoder in three phase motors to be eliminated in many applications.
"For energy saving, then field oriented control is the right thing to do and that’s what three phase motors do," said Michael Seidl, Business Development Manager for 32bit MCU and Motor Control Solutions at TI. "For this you need a very good understanding of the position of the motor. The sensors are the main challenge for FOC as they need to be precise and are quite expensive, starting at $30 and you need to be careful about the lifetime and the temperature range. So the market wants to get rid of these sensors which is where you got the linear sliding motor stator, but that has challenges in starting up. There are also challenges in switching between motor and generator modes and switching direction, and it needs to be very carefully tuned. This is what we believe we do significantly better with FOC and we make it very easy for custmers with no knowledge of motor control to take advantage of the increased performance as we provide automatic tuning."
Many industries have delayed the use and adoption of sensorless FOC motor techniques because of the lack of motor control system knowledge, despite the many system benefits these techniques provide. InstaSPIN-FOC eases development and reduces system cost and complexity for designers — even those with limited motor control experience — and enables solutions that improve motor efficiency, performance and reliability in all variable speed and load motor applications. In traditional FOC motor designs, the use of a rotor sensor can impact a system with increased costs (sensor, power supply, special cabling and connectors, installation and maintenance) and potentially lower reliability (performance degradation in harsh conditions, electrical noise, temperature and humidity). In addition, using a sensor in many applications, such as an enclosed compressor or a large traction machine, is also completely impractical.
Designers can now identify, tune and fully control (through variable speeds and loads) any type of three-phase, synchronous or asynchronous motor in five minutes or less and removes the need for a mechanical motor rotor sensor to reduce system costs and improves operation using TI’s software encoder (sensorless observer) algorithm. The FAST (flux, angle, speed and torque) algorithm is embedded in the read-only-memory (ROM) on the C2000 Piccolo microcontrollers. InstaSPIN-FOC joins the previously introduced InstaSPIN-BLDC technology and will be followed with future InstaSPIN variations to make motor control development easier and more efficient.
InstaSPIN-FOC is available today on the production-ready, 90 MHz, 32-bit floating point Piccolo F2806xF microcontrollers starting at $6.70 USD per 10 Ku. InstaSPIN-FOC will be featured on several other Piccolo microcontrollers in the near future. Designers can begin motor designs with a low-voltage, low-current motor control kit for $299 (DRV8312-69M-KIT), low-voltage, high-current motor control kit for $299 (DRV8301-69M-KIT) or high-voltage motor control kit for $699 (TMDSHVMTRINSPIN). If designers have a previously purchased a TI motor control development kit, they can order the modular InstaSPIN-FOC-enabled Piccolo controlCARD for $99 (TMDSCNCD28069MISO).
www.ti.com
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