State Machine

The firmware is based on a custom state machine designed in house. This page will discuss the overall system state machine.

States

State Number	State	Description
0	Init	Awaiting Initialization of all Required Sensors and Interfaces
1	ReadyToSwitch	The controller is ready to actuate. Motor controller is disabled but has no faults.
2	ActivelySwitching	The controller is actively switching in some standard control mode.
3	Faulted	Some fault has occured and the motor controller should be in a disabled state.
4-7, 17-18	Reserved	These are reserved debug states.

The high-level state machine is depicted below. Detailed transitions descriptions are found in the table below.

        stateDiagram-v2
Init --> ReadyToSwitch: Initialized
ReadyToSwitch --> ActivelySwitching: Enable
ReadyToSwitch --> Faulted: Fault
ActivelySwitching --> Faulted: Fault 
Faulted --> ReadyToSwitch: Clear Faults
    

The transitions are described in greater detail here.

Transitions

Transition Name	Description
Initialized	All sensors are setup and providing good data. Current Sense, Temperature Sense and Position Sense.
Enable	Valid Enable command is provided over CAN with a valid actuation command request.
Fault	The motor controller has detected a critical fault. Detailed fault descriptions are found below.
Clear Faults	The motor controller has received over CAN a ClearFaults message and has determined that the previous fault case is no longer applicable.

The faults are described here.

Faults

Fault Name	Description
Over-Temperature	Detected over temperature on transistor. This is potentially hardware damaging.
Over-Current	Detected over current on phase output. This is potentially hardware damaging.
Missed Heartbeat	Failed to receive command packet in last 1s. Only applicable in ActivelySwitching state.
Current Comms Loss	Lost communication to current sense ADCs.
Temperature Comms Loss	Lost communication to thermistor sense ADCs
Neutral Point Balance Loss	The controller has failed to maintain proper balance across the neutral point, risking overvoltage stress to the transistors.