Motor Drive Control Unit Redundancy Layout
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Solution Overview
Problem
In drive control units for motors, particularly in electric power steering systems, the redundancy of the drive control system leads to a significant increase in the area of the control substrate, limiting the flexibility of in-vehicle layout and making it difficult to suppress this increase.
Innovation Solution
The drive control unit is designed with an inverter substrate having two inverter circuits and a control substrate with two control circuits, where the control circuits are positioned on opposite sides of the control substrate, allowing for parallel arrangement within the housing, thereby minimizing the increase in substrate area.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the drive control system is made redundant with two control circuits on the same side of the control substrate, then functional safety and automatic operation capabilities are ensured, but the area of the control substrate increases substantially
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies dimensionality change by arranging the first control circuit on the front surface side and the second control circuit on the rear surface side of the control substrate, utilizing the third dimension (depth/thickness) to resolve the area increase problem. This spatial reconfiguration maintains redundancy for functional safety while keeping the planar area of the control substrate compact.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent employs nesting by positioning both control circuits within the same control substrate housing, with one circuit nested on the front surface and the other on the rear surface. This nested arrangement allows both redundant control systems to coexist in a compact package, preventing substantial area increase while ensuring reliability.
2Reliability
If the control substrate area increases due to redundancy, then the drive control unit size becomes large, but this affects the degree of freedom of in-vehicle layout
Solution Approach 1:
By transitioning from a two-dimensional planar arrangement to a three-dimensional configuration with circuits on opposite surfaces, the patent minimizes the footprint of the control substrate. This compact design maintains in-vehicle layout flexibility while ensuring redundant control systems are in place for functional safety.
3Quantity of substance
If the inverter substrate is modularized with semiconductor switches, then mounting density is improved and area increase is suppressed, but the control substrate with various control functions has narrower modularization range
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the control substrate into distinct front surface and rear surface regions, each housing specific control circuits. This segmentation allows for organized placement of various control functions while maintaining compact dimensions, addressing the complexity issue through structured division of the control substrate space.
Data Source
AI summary
A drive control unit in which a drive control system for a motor is made redundant so that a motor having two coil sets is individually driven and controlled for each coil set includes an inverter substrate on which a first inverter circuit that drives each coil of a first coil set, and a second inverter circuit that drives each coil of a second coil set are formed; a control substrate on which a first control circuit that includes a microcomputer which controls the first inverter circuit, and a second control circuit that includes a microcomputer which controls the second inverter circuit are formed; and a housing in which the inverter substrate and the control substrate are arranged in parallel to each other. The first control circuit is positioned on the front surface side, and the second control circuit is positioned on the rear surface side of the control substrate.