SENSOR-LESS CONTROL METHOD FOR LINEAR COMPRESSORS

Abstract

A method of protecting a cylinder of a compressor comprising a piston, a linear permanent magnet (PM) having a coil and a magnet, and a sensor-less control of the PM for moving the piston in and out of the cylinder. The method including the steps of receiving a reference position of the piston from a temperature control loop; deriving a compensation voltage and a load spring effect information from a current through the coil; providing a model input voltage to a model of a mechanical structure of the compressor for predicting position of the piston, the model input voltage comprising a first voltage derived from the reference position; a compressor input voltage comprising the first voltage and the compensation voltage; and using a position control loop to recognize when the maximum compression ratio is desired and controlling the piston to achieve maximum compression ratio without causing damage to the discharge valve.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a diagram of a prior art linear compressor structure;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a prior art control structure for a linear compressor;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an improved control structure for a linear compressor in accordance with the present invention; and

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of the observer model of FIG. 3.

Claims

1. A method of protecting a cylinder of a compressor comprising a piston, a linear permanent magnet (PM) having a coil and a magnet, and a sensor-less control of the PM for moving the piston in and out of the cylinder, the cylinder having a discharge valve and the piston being coupled to a spring, the compressor achieving a maximum compression ratio when the piston reaches a Top Dead Point near zero, the method comprising the steps of: receiving a reference position of the piston from a temperature control loop, the reference position indicating a compression ratio;deriving a compensation voltage and a load spring effect information from a current through the coil;providing a model input voltage to a model of a mechanical structure of the compressor for predicting position of the piston, the model input voltage comprising a first voltage derived from the reference position;providing a compressor input voltage to the compressor, the compressor input voltage comprising the first voltage and the compensation voltage; andusing a position control loop to recognize when the maximum compression ratio is desired and controlling the piston to achieve maximum compression ratio without causing damage to the discharge valve.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the model includes digital control hardware having coupled electrical-mechanical equations describing the linear compressor, the equations having extremely fast computation speed.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the model further includes a model of a motor.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein high frequency components of an error between a first current from the compressor and a second current from the model include information about the compressor, and a current resonance frequency of the first current is same as mechanical resonance of the spring coupled to the piston.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising a step of optimizing the compressor to work with any resonance frequency by taking advantage of the computation speed of the equations, wherein a mechanical resonance of the compressor is not constrained to a line frequency.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the compensation voltage is derived by a function that keeps a current error between the first current and the second current at zero.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising a step of the model estimating a position of the piston to be used as a feedback signal in the position control loop.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the function that keeps the current error at zero reduces a mismatch between the first and second currents to zero, the current error being different from zero for any possible mismatch between the compressor and the model, whereby an error between the estimated and the actual positions of the piston are thus reduced to zero.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising a step using a mono-phase inverter selected from one of Full-Bridge and Half-Bridge types as an actuator that is fast enough to react to high frequency components of the error between the first and second currents.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising a step of controlling the piston to achieve piston position at a distance relative to the Top Dead Point when less than maximum compression ratio is desired to provide variable capacity of the linear compressor.

11. A compressor comprising a cylinder, a piston, a linear permanent magnet (PM) having a coil and a magnet, and a sensor-less control of the PM for moving the piston in and out of the cylinder, the cylinder having a discharge valve and the piston being coupled to a spring, the spring providing a mechanically resonant system movable by a force that is provided by an AC current flowing into the coil interacting with a flux generated by the magnet, the compressor having an unpredictable gas spring effect not symmetric with respect to a position of the piston when a current through the coil is equal to zero and achieving a maximum compression ratio when the piston reaches a Top Dead Point near zero, the compressor comprising: a temperature control loop for providing a reference position of the piston, the reference position indicating a compression ratio,a model of a mechanical structure of the compressor for predicting position of the piston,a controller for receiving the reference position and providing a model input voltage comprising a first voltage derived from the reference position to the model;a process for deriving a compensation voltage and a load spring effect information from a current through the coil, the compressor receiving a compressor input voltage comprising the first voltage and the compensation voltage; anda position control loop for recognizing when the maximum compression ratio is desired and controlling the piston to achieve maximum compression ratio without causing damage to the discharge valve.

12. The compressor of claim 11, wherein the coil and the magnet are selected from a combination of one of: a fixed coil and a moving magnet and a fixed magnet and a moving coil.

13. The compressor of claim 11, wherein the model includes digital control hardware having coupled electrical-mechanical equations describing the linear compressor, the equations having extremely fast computation speed.

14. The compressor of claim 13, wherein the model further includes a model of a motor.

15. The compressor of claim 11, wherein high frequency components of an error between a first current from the compressor and a second current from the model include information about the compressor and a current resonance frequency of the first current is same as mechanical resonance of the spring coupled to the piston.

16. The compressor of claim 15, wherein the compressor can be optimized to work with any resonance frequency by taking advantage of the computation speed of the equations, wherein a mechanical resonance of the compressor is not constrained to a line frequency.

17. The compressor of claim 1, wherein the compensation voltage is derived by a function that keeps a current error between the first current and the second current at zero.

18. The compressor of claim 17, wherein the model estimates a position of the piston to be used as a feedback signal in the position control loop.

19. The compressor of claim 18, wherein the function that keeps the current error at zero reduces a mismatch between the first and second currents to zero, the current error being different from zero for any possible mismatch between the compressor and the model, whereby an error between the estimated and the actual positions of the piston are thus reduced to zero.

20. The compressor of claim 19, wherein a mono-phase inverter selected from one of Full-Bridge and Half-Bridge types is used as an actuator that is fast enough to react to high frequency components of the error between the first and second currents, the actuator is operated by an inverter running at switching frequency that is much higher than the mechanical resonance frequency.