Control strategy for a motor of an electric assisted steering system

1. A control apparatus for an electric motor of an electric power assisted steering system in which a control means produces motor current demand signals that are fed to a motor drive means, the demand signals being dependent on the amount of assistance torque demanded from the motor, the motor drive means being arranged to cause currents to flow in each phase of the motor as required to meet the demanded assistance torque, the control apparatus comprising a control circuit having a processor and being configured to limit a rate of change of current that is drawn from an electrical supply of a vehicle by the motor responsive to determining that the rate of change of current that is drawn would otherwise exceed a threshold rate of change, and in which the threshold rate of change of drawn current is a dynamic threshold which varies over time according to one or more operating parameters of the vehicle.

2. The control apparatus according to claim 1 which comprises producing estimates of the rate of change of current drawn by the motor at two or more spaced moments in time, and producing an estimated rate of change of the current drawn by the motor as a function of at least two estimates and an elapsed time between the at least two estimates.

3. The control apparatus according to claim 2 for a drive circuit that uses pulse width modulation to control the current flowing in each phase of the motor, the apparatus comprising using the motor current demand signals together with a signal representative of the duty ratio of the pulse width modulation signal applied to each phase to determine the estimates of the current being drawn, and limiting the rate of change of current drawn by the motor by modifying the motor current demand signals.

4. The control apparatus according to claim 3 in which the estimate of current drawn is derived by the equation:

I=da·Ia+db·Ib+dc·Ic+I ECU

where I is the current estimate;

da, db, dc are duty ratios for the pulse width modulation signal for phases a, b and c;

Ia, Ib, Ic are demanded phase currents; and

I ECU is an optional offset to account for current drawn by a processing electronic control unit of the motor or other ancillaries.

5. The control apparatus according to claim 4 in which the duty ratios of each phase are sampled at a frequency higher than the frequency at which the current demand signal is updated, and an average duty ratio value is used as the duty cycle values when producing the estimate of current drawn.

6. The control apparatus according to claim 2 in which estimates are produced each time the current demand signal is updated, which is governed by an operating frequency of the control means.

7. The control apparatus according to claim 2 comprising passing the estimated rate of change of current drawn through a low pass filter to produce a filtered value.

8. The control apparatus according to claim 2 which comprises feeding the estimated rate of change of current drawn to a PI or PID controller which is used to modify the motor demand currents using closed loop control.

9. The control apparatus according to claim 1 which comprises causing the control means to produce a motor current demand signal indicative of an ideal motor current required according to the torque demanded from the motor, and modifying the ideal motor current demand signal to produce the current demand signals used to drive the motor by applying a scaling factor to the ideal motor current demand signals when limiting is required.

10. The control apparatus according to claim 1 in which the motor current demand signals comprise d - q current demand components and the apparatus comprises producing from the d - q current demand components together with an estimate of motor position demanded phase currents for each phase in the alpha-beta frame.

11. The control apparatus of claim 1 wherein the one or more operating parameters of the vehicle is selected from the group consisting of one or more of a vehicle speed, a state of charge of a battery of the electrical supply of the vehicle, and an electrical supply voltage.

12. A control apparatus for an electric motor of an electric power assisted steering system in which a control means produces motor current demand signals that are fed to a motor drive means, the demand signals being dependent on the amount of assistance torque demanded from the motor, the motor drive means being arranged to cause currents to flow in each phase of the motor as required to meet the demanded assistance torque, the control apparatus comprising a control circuit having a processor and being configured to limit a rate of change of current that is drawn from an electrical supply of a vehicle by the motor responsive to determining that the rate of change of current that is drawn would otherwise exceed a threshold rate of change, which comprises producing estimates of the rate of change of current drawn by the motor at two or more spaced moments in time, and producing an estimated rate of change of the current drawn by the motor as a function of at least two estimates and an elapsed time between the at least two estimates, a drive circuit that uses pulse width modulation to control the current flowing in each phase of the motor, the apparatus comprising using the motor current demand signals together with a signal representative of the duty ratio of the pulse width modulation signal applied to each phase to determine the estimates of the current being drawn, and limiting the rate of change of current drawn by the motor by modifying the motor current demand signals, and in which the estimate of current drawn is derived by the equation:

I=da·Ia+db·Ib+dc·Ic+I ECU

where I is the current estimate;

da, db, de are duty ratios for the pulse width modulation signal for phases a, b and c;

Ia, Ib, Ie are demanded phase currents; and

I ECU is an optional offset to account for current drawn by a processing electronic control unit of the motor or other ancillaries.