ADVANCED DIGITAL CONTROL METHODOLOGIES FOR TURBINE ENGINE MAGNETIC BEARINGS

Previous R&D at AVCON has developed miniaturized, power efficient, modular, scalable active magnetic bearings and control electronics for applications ranging from precision gimbals for sensors, to radial and thrust bearings for IHPTET type turbine engines, to radial and thrust bearings for SSME type rocket engine turbopumps. The current SBIR Project addresses a complementary digital electronics controller of small size, low weight, low power consumption and, at the same time, improved dynamic performance and robustness, by virtue of its being based on advanced control methodologies. The design approach concentrates on LQR, LQG, and H control methodologies because they provide performance improvement without incurring excess hardware and software complexity. Fault tolerance is obtained by the system architecture and reconfigurability, consistent with modern, integrated modular avionics, system concepts. The output of Phase I is the selection of a control methodology, design of the corresponding algorithm and the preliminary design of a controller, including top level circuit design. The selected design will be experimentally evaluated using a turbine engine magnetic bearing testbed being developed by AVCON (Contract F33615-91-C-2114). Digital servo electronics controller already developed by AVCON and Pratt & Whitney will be modified at no cost to the program.