Integrated Digital Control Platform for Flywheel Systems with Active Magnetic Bearings

Active magnetic bearings (AMBs) have advantages of no contact, low power loss, lubrication free, controllable dynamics, active unbalance compensation ability and so on. They are attractive for high speed flywheel application as key technologies. A digital control platform for flywheel AMBs based on a single-core digital signal processer (DSP) could not satisfy a high speed flywheel system with high dynamic complexity for its low integration, complex structure and inadequate interaction performance. An integrated digital platform for AMBs was designed based on a double-core DSP. A digital control board, a power amplifier control board and a displacement sensor board were integrated into a new board for the platform. The platform could run real time control codes with a higher speed. At the same time, it could transfer data quickly between the DSP and foreign digital systems by a network interface. A special data acquisition system for AMB condition monitoring was not needed anymore. The new platform owned the ability of adjusting parameters of an AMB controller on-line without influencing its real time operation. The new control system would be applied to the developing high-speed flywheel system with AMBs.