Some of the recent research activities in the area of electric motor drives for critical applications (such as aerospace and nuclear power plants) are focused on looking at various fault tolerant motor and drive topologies. After discussing different solutions, this paper focuses on a miniature PM stepper motor design which falls in this fault tolerant category by providing an increased redundancy.
Safety critical systems are taking on increasing importance in the industrial world. Some examples of such systems are aerospace, transportation, medical and military applications, and nuclear power plants. These all accommodate a number of electric motor drives installed to a point where the plants rely heavily upon them. Any failure in these drives may cause catastrophic failures in the plants, which may be very costly in term of human resources and capital cost, and clearly undesirable.
Techniques behind most of the electric drives on the market today are not adequate for safety-critical applications. Therefore, there is a need to improve the survivability of critical systems given the increasing dependence on them, and the serious consequences of their failure. One of the common tools used in the design of safety critical systems is redundancy. Ideally, many fault-tolerant systems should mirror all operations; that is, every operation should be performed on two or more duplicate systems, so if one fails the other can take over. Therefore, redundancy within the system is an essential aspect.
Safety critical systems are taking on increasing importance in the industrial world. Some examples of such systems are aerospace, transportation, medical and military applications, and nuclear power plants. These all accommodate a number of electric motor drives installed to a point where the plants rely heavily upon them. Any failure in these drives may cause catastrophic failures in the plants, which may be very costly in term of human resources and capital cost, and clearly undesirable.
Techniques behind most of the electric drives on the market today are not adequate for safety-critical applications. Therefore, there is a need to improve the survivability of critical systems given the increasing dependence on them, and the serious consequences of their failure. One of the common tools used in the design of safety critical systems is redundancy. Ideally, many fault-tolerant systems should mirror all operations; that is, every operation should be performed on two or more duplicate systems, so if one fails the other can take over. Therefore, redundancy within the system is an essential aspect.