A hybridization design of an air motor and an electric motor based on field programmable gate array controller

Abstract

Among the elements of developing electric vehicles, the battery is usually the weakest point, as well as the most expensive component. If the battery life is too short, the frequently replacement of the battery is necessary, which will increase the overall cost. This article presents a novel hybridization design and implementation of an air motor and an electric motor which utilizes magnetic powder brake to integrate these two motors together. In this research, by the use of batteries, operation in the large discharge region can be avoided and more electric energy can be saved using an air motor as the auxiliary power. The testing results obtained using the proposed experimental platform indicate that the output current of the battery is 126 A with no air motor-assisted power, and the output current is 64 A when the pre-set switching point is 1400 r/m. These results clearly show that the current reduction is about 49%, and thus the service life of the batteries can be greatly increased. Furthermore, a prototype is built with a proportional–integral speed controller based on a field programmable gate array in order to facilitate the entire analysis of the velocity switch experiment. Through the modular methodology of field programmable gate array, the electric motor can successfully operate at the desired velocity with the proportional–integral speed controller.