Evaluation board for High current/ power BLDC motor control

[vipin_mohan]

HI all,

Selecting the right Evaluation Board is important in the pre-development stage. Unfortunately, I am new to the Motor Driver and controller area. My plan is to develop a motor controller for a BLDC motor (48V, 5KW) for Automotive Application. Since the output current is very high, I am not finding the exact Eva. Board. But I am sure that, working on an Eva. Board with low power output can be used to my High Power application (Correct me if I am wrong!). Can someone suggest me the an Evaluation board for my application?  (The requirement for my actual project is as given below)

Input : 40V- 48V
Motor : 5KW BLDC motor/ 3phase PMSM (4 quadrant operation) 
Load : 130A max
Feedback sensor : Hall sensors, Current sensors, Temperature sensor
Control : Vector control or Sensorless FOC 

Operating Frequency / PWM frequency : No Information
ROM / RAM /Flash requirement : No Information
Communication : LIN or CAN
Number of ADC channels : No information

From readings, I was informed that ARM Cortex M4 would be a good choice as Microcontroller. 

 Any further information can be provided. (This is my first post in this community)

Thanks in advance. 

Kinetis Motor Suite‌Kinetis MicrocontrollersAutomotive MCUs / MPUs and Tools Kinetis Software Development Kit‌ CodeWarrior Development Tools Kinetis Design Studio Motor Control and Smart Energy 

[xiangjun_rong]

Hi, Vipin,

Because you use the BLDC in Automotive application, so the processor should meet the auto standard. I suggest you use Auto level processor for example S32K, MPC56xx, Kinetis KEA family, S12

S32K BLDC solution:

S32K144 3-phase BLDC Development Kit|NXP 

MPC56xx BLDC solution:

3-phase Sensorless BLDC Development Kit|NXP 

Because your BLDC has Hall sensor, I suggest you control the BLDC with 6 step methods rather than FOC.

For the power stage part, pls refer to what Philip said.

BR

Xiangjun Rong

[philip_drake]

NXP provides some low power options for you but nothing that can operate up to 130 Amps load.

Since it is a low voltage motor you might be able to begin evaluation with the TWR-MC-LV3PH or the FRDM-MC-LVPMSM power boards.

You can modify the TWR board more readily to get more current out of the board. The IRFR540Z is only good to about 35 amps.  A substitute could be made but then you would probably be better off designing your own power stage.   

The Kinetis V MCU series is ideal for motor control.  KV10 is the low end of the offering a CM0+, then comes the KV11, another CM0+ which adds CAN. Next is the KV3x. a CM4 which can run up to 130 MHZ, then come the KV4x which even higher integration and pins, then we have the KV5x family, a CM7 that runs much faster and included connectivity blocks.

There are BLDC and PMSM FOC sensorless projects ready for your use on any of these KV devices. 

Also training on motor control. 

Also check out the predrivers available for motor control. GD3000 |3-phase Brushless Motor Pre-Driver|NXP 

• 3-Phase Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor (PMSM) Control Reference Design
• The 3-Phase Permanent Magnet Synchronous (PMSM) Motor Control Reference Design is based on Kinetis^® V Series MCUs and intended to provide the example for 3-phase sensorless PMSM motor control solutions. The Reference design utilizes closed-loop field oriented vector speed (FOC) control mechanism.

Happy Motoring.

Regards,

Philip

[vipin_mohan]

pdrake‌, thanks for the reply. From xiangjun.rong‌ comment, it is clear that I have to use MCU to meet Automotive standard.

1. So can I also use Kinetic V series MCU for my Evaluation as well as original Project? 

2. A question about deciding the Operating Frequency of MCU. How to decide it ? What the factors have to taken care while deciding the freq.?  (I mean the CPU clock frequency)

3. Do I need a Tower System modules to use TWR-MC-LV3PH ? If yes, which one of the Kinetis MCU Tower System Modules is suitable?

Thank you.

BR

Vipin

[xiangjun_rong]

Hi, Vipin,

This is the link of Automotive processor:

Automotive Products|NXP 

From the link, you can see the auto processor S32K, KEA, S12.., but I think none of them has Tower boards.

The Kinetis KV family is industrial level processor rather than auto level processor.

Regarding the frequency of KV family, the core/system frequency is labeled as a post-fix on the mask of the processor. For example, on the mask of KV58, PKV58F1M0VLQ22, the "1M0" is flash size, "V" represents temperature range, "LQ" represents package, "22" means core/system frequency 220MHz.

If you use TWR-MC-LV3PH board, you can use TWR-KV31F120M, TWR-KV10Z32...

Hope it can help you

BR

Xiangjun Rong