Hamilton Sundstrand Corporation

Timothy A Roberts

Robert P Wichowski

Patrick J Sears

Darren Woodman

Kevin G Hawes

Diego S Mugurusa

Nicholas Van Derzee

Methods and systems for operating internal systems of a vehicle are provided. Aspects include providing a field programmable gate array (FPGA), the FPGA including a communication channel port, wherein the communication channel port is operable to connect to one or more systems through a communication channel, and wherein the FPGA is configured to operate in one or more control modes, receiving a communication channel input to the communication channel port of the FPGA, based at least in part on the communication channel input, determining a control mode from the one or more control modes, and operating the FPGA in the control mode, wherein the control mode is associated with one system of the one or more systems.

Reconfigurable stand alone distributed system motor controllers

Diagnosing whether controllers of internal vehicle systems are the source of failures detected by a system control managing a vehicle such as a spacecraft. Highspeed data is received via at a field programmable gate array (FPGA) embedded in an assembly of the vehicle. The FPGA includes a controller and a digital diagnostic interface. In one embodiment, the diagnostic interface utilizes Very Highspeed Integrated Circuit (VHSIC) Hardware Description Language (VHDL) for performance modeling of a controller configured to control at least one internal system within the vehicle. The VHDL performance models the controller. Upon receiving an indication of a failure, the performance modeling of the controller is used to ascertain whether or not the controller is the source of the failure. Disassembly of the assembly housing the internal system is not required in order to ascertain whether or not the controller is the source of the failure.

Highspeed data interface for distributed system motor controllers

Providing collision avoidance protection to controllers sharing the same sensor. Each of a pair of asynchronous controllers changes the period of a sync pulse transmitted to the other controller to indicate to the other controller it is synchronized. When one of the controllers begins reading data from the shared sensor, the other controller waits to receive another sync pulse for indicating when the controller is finished reading data from the shared sensor. Thus, the asynchronous controllers avoid accessing the same sensor at the same time.

Shared resistive sensor measurement with FPGA based collision avoidance protection

A peripheral component interconnect (PCI) device is provided for use in an environmental control and life support system (ECLSS). The PCI device includes a control card, mounting slots each of which is receptive of the control card and coupled with a piece of ECLSS equipment and a backplane configured to respectively provide, via communication and power signals, communications and power to the control card in any one of the mounting slots. With the control card received in one of the mounting slots, the control card accommodates multiple power levels, executes commutation logic and executes one or more of active current control and active current modulation in accordance with the one of the mounting slots and the piece of the ECLSS equipment coupled therewith.

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Enfield, CT, United States of America

Timothy A Roberts