A flexible high performance advanced controller for electric machines

This paper presents an advanced controller for electric machines (ACE) developed at the Ford Research Laboratory to meet the demanding needs of application and algorithm development. It is based on the TMS320C31 floating point DSP and Motorola 68F333 microcontroller. The focus has been in the electric machine research area, principally for hybrid, electric and fuel cell vehicles. Unique features of the system, both in terms of hardware and software are elaborated. The ACE is a very high performance, rugged, rapid prototyping tool that implements advanced control algorithms and interfaces without any traditional programming. The user, through the graphic user interface (GUI), is able to change various reference inputs and system parameters while the program is running in real-time, and hence observe the effects through the on-board data acquisition. Experimental results for characterization of an induction motor are presented in order to illustrate these features and the advantages of the ACE development system.