Study and Development of an Electric Engine Resolver based on a Generic Timer Module architecture

Resolvers are absolute angular position sensors, used to obtain the orientation and speed of a rotating shaft in many industrial application. Different ASICs (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) can be found on the market to perform the Tracking angle extraction from this sensor. To increase the stability and the flexibility, software based Resolver-to-Digital Converters (RDC) have been introduced, using relatively high-performance microcontrollers. In this thesis, a different approach with respect to the common Angle Tracking Observer (ATO) is presented: the usage of the Generic Timer Module (GTM), a diffused Bosch IP, to implement the angle extraction, instead of the CPU of the microcontroller. The software approach allows to set all the parameters internally used to calibrate and adapt the dynamic behavior and presents also the advantage of being much more tolerant of physical component drifts and temperature variations. In addition, this solution does not rely on the processor for angle tracking algorithm execution; in this way, if a microprocessor is already used to control the engine, or other components, it can be used also as RDC, saving all the cost of a separated ASIC. Two different trigger extraction algorithms have been developed and compared to analyse the effect of electrical noises. Experimental results show that this angle extraction strategy allows to follow both an accelerated and a constant high speed profile similar to electric motors of high-performance vehicles.