Control apparatus for electric motor of inverter system and control apparatus for electro mechanical brake

• US 7,215,090 B2
• Filed: 02/09/2005
• Issued: 05/08/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 02/27/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Inventors: Kuramochi, Yuichi, Manaka, Toshio
• Primary Examiner(s): Donovan; Lincoln
• Assistant Examiner(s): HORN, ROBERT WAYNE
• Application Number:
  US11/052,742
• Publication Number:
  US 20050189890A1
• Time in Patent Office: 818 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 318/139
• CPC Class Codes: H02P 3/04 Means for stopping or slowing by a separate brake, e.g. friction brake or eddy-current brake

Abstract

A relay switch for selectively connecting a power supply line of an inverter to a ground line is inserted between the inverter and a power source, and a power consumption unit such as a resistor element is inserted between the relay switch and ground line.

Claims

1. An electromechanical brake apparatus comprising:

an electric power caliper which includes brake pads for sandwiching a disc rotor therebetween to press the disc rotor, and also includes a three-phase AC motor for generating a rotation torque, the caliper containing therein a structure for converting rotational motion of the rotation torque into a linear motion and a spring for separating the brake pads from the disc rotor;

an inverter which supplies to the motor electric power for driving the motor from DC power supplied from a battery power source mounted on a vehicle;

a capacitor coupled in parallel to the inverter;

a power consumption circuit which consumes power accumulated in the capacitor;

a switch circuit;

a microcomputer; and

a sensor which detects an operation state of the electric power caliper;

wherein,

the microcomputer performs feedback control of the inverter such that an operation state of the caliper coincides with a command value for the operation of the caliper, based on the command value and an output of the sensor;

upon occurrence of abnormality, i) the switch circuit stops the supply of the DC power to the capacitor and couples both the inverter and the capacitor to the power consumption circuit, and further stops the supply of the DC power to the inverter, and ii) a spring contained in the electric power caliper separates the brake pads from the disc rotor; and

the apparatus further comprises an abnormality detection circuit which detects an abnormality when a thrust force detected by a sensor deviates from a setting value, thereby to control the switch circuit.

2. The electromechanical brake apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the microcomputer i) performs PWM control of the inverter, and ii) performs the feedback control of a duty ratio of the PWM control based on the command value and the output of the sensor, such that the operation state of the caliper coincides with the command value.

3. The electromechanical brake apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the caliper includes a plurality of sensors containing a sensor for detecting a rotation position of the motor and a sensor for detecting a driving current of the motor, and,

the microcomputer performs the feedback control based on the command value of the operation of the caliper and outputs of the plurality of sensors.

4. The electro mechanical brake apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the caliper includes a plurality of sensors containing a sensor for detecting a thrust force, and

the microcomputer performs the feedback control based on a command value of a thrust of the caliper, and outputs of the plurality of sensors.

5. The electromechanical brake apparatus according to claim 1, wherein:

the inverter includes positive and negative power supply lines and three sets of switch circuits coupled in parallel between the positive and negative power supply lines, each of the three sets of switch circuits being constituted by two switching elements which are coupled in series, with the motor being supplied with electric power from a coupling point between the two elements; and

the capacitor is formed by a plurality of capacitance elements coupled in parallel between the positive and negative power supply lines, so as to be in parallel to the three sets of switch circuits.

6. The electromechanical brake apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising another microcomputer;

wherein, the abnormality detection circuit which detects the abnormality based on a calculation result of the microcomputers, to control the switch circuit.

7. An electromechanical brake apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the abnormality detection circuit detects the abnormality in accordance with a continuous time period during which the thrust force detected by the sensor deviates from the setting value thereby to control the switch circuit.