Real-time fault diagnostics for a permanent magnet synchronous motor drive for aerospace applications

This paper describes the development and implementation of a permanent magnet synchronous machine controller for safety critical applications which embeds independent real-time mechanical-fault diagnostics into the drive controller. The drive is intended for aerospace applications and therefore must employ an ASIC or FPGA as the main control “processor” to provide a more suitable route to flight-product certification. Motor Current Signature Analysis (MCSA) is employed to indicate the development or existence of faults within the drive system and this is achieved by embedding a real-time frequency analysis of the motor current within the FPGA, operating independently of the motor control. Experimental results are provided to validate the proposed control and condition monitoring.