LAUNCHPOINT TECHNOLOGIES, INC. — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: AF151-070

Description

ABSTRACT: LaunchPoint Technologies proposes to develop a motor drive (alternator controller) for hybrid and electric small unmanned aircraft that fills the gap between cheap flightweight remote control hobby products and full-featured but heavy industrial products. The motor drive system will be modular to allow the inclusion/exclusion of hardware features as-needed for a particular application to keep the system mass to an absolute minimum; and allow scalabilty to higher/lower power levels with common hardware. Power modules ranging from 500 W to 40 kW and up are envisioned. I/O modules will support a variety of feedback sensors and communications protocols. The processor module will have sufficient processing power for advanced Field Oriented sensorless Control algorithms. Processor modules with different popular microcontrollers and a dual-rendundant processor module are planned. The software will be open-source and reconfigurable with readily available (freeware) tools allowing researchers to fine tune the internal control loops and system behaviors to match their vehicles specific needs. The entire system will be developed with the ability to meet airworthiness requirements and be flight certified in the future as a part of LaunchPoint Technologies Propulsion By Wire hybrid-electric aircraft architecture. BENEFIT: The immediate commercial applications for the modular, configurable motor drive are researchers developing unique unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) who require customized motor drive configurations for high performance applications and new architectures that cant be met with existing hobby or industrial equipment. The modular nature of the proposed motor drive will lend itself to scalable development projects that start as small demonstrators and move up to large hybrid/electric aircraft. The proposed motor drive can also be configured as an alternator controller for hybrid-electric vehicles for which there are presently few off-the-shelf solutions available. As the small UAV market matures there will be a substantial commercial market for the proposed high quality motor drives designed with reliability and safety in mind. Future hybrid/electric UAVs for use over people and manned hybrid/electric aircraft will likely require flight certified motor drive hardware and software that will result from continued development of the modular motor drive proposed here.