Research of Varying Frequency Driving Scheme for Asynchronous Induction Coil Launcher

There are few of transient control models are adapted to asynchronous induction coil launcher (AICL) with air core coil. Thus, many papers about AICL were written with the goal of increasing muzzle velocity of projectile. This paper concentrate on how to control the projectile speed and thrust accurately by using improved current filament (CF) method and variable voltage variable frequency (VVVF) scheme. The improved CF method contains mathematical model of three-phase inverter based on switch function, including conventional two level converter and cascaded multilevel converter models. The whole launch process is programmed with MATLAB. Simulation results show that this scheme have a smoother thrust fluctuation on projectile than other driving models. The motor parameters are changing with the temperature and frequency in launching process. Hence, the constant voltage frequency ratio (V/f) in this paper is more simple and reliable than vector control. To verify the control model and simulation results, a nine stages coil launcher prototype is constructed. The measured force and muzzle velocity are basically consistent with simulation results. It is proved that the improved CF method and VVVF strategy is feasible, and it is characterized by its small calculating amount that make it a valuable tool for design of AICL. The simple and excellent control of the thrust during launch process avoids load peaks, which means that the payload is handled more carefully compared to the classical launchers.