Patent ID: 9139294
Filing Date: 2015-09-22
Classification: B64C,G05D,Y02T

Abstract:
1. An aircraft motor control system for controlling a drive motor associated with at least one aircraft nose wheel to drive the aircraft independently on the ground in a selected forward or reverse direction without the use of the aircraft main engines in accordance with one or more operational states, wherein said motor control system comprises: (a) at least one electrically powered drive motor drivingly housed within at least one aircraft nose wheel, said drive motor including a stator-rotor combination configured to generate a requested nose wheel torque or speed in response to one or more aircraft operational states to drive said nose wheel, and drive electronics electronically connected to said stator-rotor combination; (b) a pilot interface operationally connected to said at least one electrically powered drive motor comprising a plurality of input devices and a plurality of notification devices designed to overlap with said input devices, each of said input devices being configured to actuate a power command and to move the aircraft at a drive motor torque in a selected direction as required by a selected aircraft operational states; (c) a plurality of sensors in connection with said input devices, said at least one nose wheel, and said at least one electrically powered drive motor adapted to provide information relating to said selected aircraft operational state; (d) hardware drivers electronically connected to said input devices and said sensors and adapted to calibrate power commands and sensor information to produce input device variables relating to said selected aircraft operational state; (e) control loop means electronically connected to said hardware drivers, said sensors, and said input devices, wherein said control loop means comprises state change law means for defining state change laws for said input device variables, system state means for applying the state change laws to determine an aircraft nose wheel operational state, first parameter filter limit law (PFLL) means for filtering selected ones of said input device variables according to a first set of out-of-bounds conditions, first calculation means to determine a torque or speed request to apply to the drive motor in accordance with filtered selected input device variables, second parameter filter limit law (PFLL) means for filtering a requested torque or speed, second calculation means to determine a motor drive frequency and motor voltage to produce the filtered requested torque or speed, motor command generator means for producing lower level commands to drive the drive motor based on a determined motor drive frequency and motor voltage corresponding to the filtered requested torque or speed, and motor commander means for formatting said lower level commands for said drive motor; and (f) drive electronics connecting said input devices, said notification devices, said sensors, said hardware drivers, said control loop means, and said drive motor adapted to supply electric power to the stator-rotor combination of said drive motor in accordance with said lower level commands to move said aircraft nose wheels at said requested torque or speed in accordance with said selected aircraft operational state.