The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jul. 31, 2012
Filed:
Apr. 29, 2009
Kwang-keun Shin, Rochester Hills, MI (US);
Kwang-Keun Shin, Rochester Hills, MI (US);
GM Global Technology Operations LLC, Detroit, MI (US);
Abstract
A system and method for determining the state of health of a starter motor to notify a vehicle driver of a potential starter motor failure before the failure actually occurs. The starter motor includes an armature and motor brushes each providing a resistance, and an armature coil providing an armature inductance. Further, the starter motor has a back EMF because of the starter motor being coupled to a flywheel and the vehicle engine. The system and method monitor the combined resistance of the armature and the motor brushes, the inductance of the armature and a back EMF constant of the motor, and provide a signal indicating a potential starter motor failure if any of these three values significantly deviates from nominal values. In one embodiment, the analysis of the motor resistance, armature inductance and back EMF constant is provided by a regression model to determine estimated motor parameters.