The present invention is concerned with the fast control of current in inductive electrical loads, such as solenoids, particularly but not exclusively in automotive electronic control systems.
Inductive loads, such as solenoid coils, are typically controlled by means of a switch, such as a switching transistor, connected in series with the load across a voltage supply. In automotive applications, one side of the load (referred to as the “low side”) is normally connected to ground/chassis and the other side (referred to as the “high side”) is coupled to the non-grounded side of the voltage supply. For the purpose of monitoring/measuring the current through the load, a sensing element such as a resister is placed in series with the load and the voltage drop across this resistor is measured.
Traditional technology often used current sensing near the load driving transistor, such that current monitoring was only available when the drive was turned on. When the level of the monitored current was to be used for control of the switching transistor, this arrangement therefore had poor control.
Some known arrangements have used high side control of the load using P channel MOSFET devices, but these are relatively expensive.
As is well known, the current in an inductive load decays with time when the voltage supply is removed and special circuitry must be provided to dispose of this current. The conventional practice is to achieve this by the provision of a recirculating diode disposed in parallel with the load which turns on automatically to provide a current path back to the supply. However, the rate at which a diode disposed across the load in this manner can dissipate the recirculating current is relatively poor and the current in the load therefore falls off only slowly (see curve X in
Known means for achieving faster control of the current turn-off in inductive loads have typically used two MOSFET devices per channel, which has an attendant cost.
In accordance with the present invention, fast dissipation of the stored magnetic energy in an inductive load controlled by a first switch is enabled by the provision of a high-voltage-drop energy dissipation path across said first switch and a second switch by which a constant-voltage diode drop path across the load can be selectively opened.
In one preferred embodiment, said first switch comprises a switching transistor and said high-voltage drop energy dissipation path comprises a voltage regulating diode, such as a Zener diode, in parallel with the switching path of said switching transistor.
Advantageously, the switching transistor is a field-effect transistor such as a MOSFET, and the voltage regulating diode is connected between its source and drain terminals.
In another embodiment, the switching transistor is a field-effect transistor, such as a MOSFET, and the voltage regulating diode is connected, in series with a first diode, between its drain and gate terminals.
The second switch can, for example, comprise a MOSFET in series with a second diode across the series combination of the inductive load and a current sensing element.
In some particularly advantageous embodiments, said second switch commonly controls the opening of a plurality of said constant-voltage diode drop paths across a plurality of respective inductive loads, each of which is switchable by a respective first switch across which there is disposed a respective high-voltage-drop energy dissipation path.
A number of other advantageous features can be obtained using a circuit arrangement in accordance with the present invention;
(a) Phase locked current control. A small amount of ripple is allowed on the incoming demand signal, which causes the control loop to synchronise its control oscillation to that of an incoming PWM signal. This allows the external current control loop to have software controlled phase relationships between channels.
(b) Frequency locked current control. A small amount of ripple is allowed on the incoming demand signal, which causes the control loop to synchronise its control oscillation to that of the incoming PWM signal. This allows the external current control loop to have a software controlled oscillation frequency.
(c) Phase staggered control. The phase of individual current control channels is under the control of software. By software control, the control channels can be phase staggered. This results in the energise part of the control cycles being distributed evenly through time. The total current demand of the circuit is therefore more evenly distributed. The high frequency current demands of the circuit are reduced, and the frequency is raised. The reduction in peaks and the higher overall frequency allows for easier filtering and reduced electromagnetic emissions, without any additional hardware costs.
(d) Spread spectrum control. The frequency of the current control channels is under the control of software. By software control, the control channel frequencies can be changed dynamically over time. Electromagnetic emissions from the current control circuit are composed mainly of harmonics of the control frequency. By dynamically changing the frequency of control, all resulting emissions are modulated over a wider bandwidth. This reduces the peak energy of the emissions over a set measurement bandwidth, without any additional hardware costs.
Various objects and advantages of this invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment, when read in light of the accompanying drawings.
Referring first to
Reference is now made to
In this case, a MOSFET switching transistor T2 is included in series with the recirculation diode D1 to enable the conduction of the recirculation path through D1 to be controlled by the ECU via a matching amplifier A2. Thus, when the switch T2 is closed, the diode D1 provides a constant-voltage drop recirculation path in the normal way. However, when the switch T2 is open-circuit, then the normal recirculation path is broken. This can be arranged to take place, for example, when it is detected via R1 that the current IL on the load L1 is too high (above a predetermined threshold). In this case, the recirculation currents which are de-energising the load L1 are dissipated to ground by way of a high voltage drop energy dissipator, such as a Zener diode D2 disposed across the MOSFET T1. This allows the stored magnetic energy in the inductive load L1 to be dissipated from the load at a much greater rate than using the constant voltage drop diode D1 and a curve such as that shown at Y in
Thus, the present circuit provides a means whereby, in the event of high induced currents in the switched load, the constant-voltage-drop diode D1 can be replaced by the high-voltage-drop Zener arrangement D1 by opening the switch T2.
A particular advantage of this arrangement is that the same single recirculation switch T2 can be used for a plurality of solenoid drives at once, for example as shown in
The system of the present invention for enabling fast switching can be applied to any of the solenoids in the arrangement of
In accordance with the provisions of the patent statutes, the principle and mode of operation of this invention have been explained and illustrated in its preferred embodiment. However, it must be understood that this invention may be practiced otherwise than as specifically explained and illustrated without departing from its spirit or scope.
This application is a continuation of International Application No. PCT/GB01/04640 filed Oct. 17, 2001, which claimed priority to Great Britain Patent Application No. 0025832.7 filed Oct. 21, 2000, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference.
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Number | Date | Country | |
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20040057183 A1 | Mar 2004 | US |
Number | Date | Country | |
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Parent | PCT/GB01/04640 | Oct 2001 | US |
Child | 10418960 | US |