Research on a linear permanent magnet brushless DC motor for electromagnetic catapult

Linear permanent magnet brushless DC motor (LPMBDCM) is used for electromagnetic catapult, which may offer significant advantages, in terms of efficiency, high speed and accelerations of heavy payloads, capability of high forces and so on. In this paper, a LPMBDCM, which is constructed on transverse flux stator and permanent magnet mover, is investigated. Firstly, the magnetic circuit design is presented, and the rated work performances are analyzed. The rated input voltage, current, thrust and power efficiency is 4000V, 18041A and 1.3896MN, 0.97, respectively. Then, to validate the characteristic of the basic design, the system simulation model including the power supply model and power condition model is built using Simulink, and the launch trajectory is gotten by the model. Finally, a small scale prototype machine and relevant control system based on DSP chip is fabricated on the basis of the results. The experiment results indicate the subscale catapult start successfully and run smoothly. The current curve shows a good agreement with the simulation result of whether Ansoft or Simulink.