MOTOR CONTROL DEVICE, AND ELECTRIC POWER STEERING DEVICE AND A VEHICLE WHICH USE SAME

摘要

To make it possible to continuously control driving of a multi-phase electric motor even if an open failure or a short circuit failure occurs in a multi-phase inverter circuit driving the electric motor. A motor control apparatus includes a motor current shutoff unit inserted between a multi-phase inverter circuit and the multi-phase electric motor to shut off a current for each of plural phases, the multi-phase inverter circuit including an arm driving the multi-phase electric motor for each of the plural phases, a redundant arm unit including one or more arms whose number is less than the number of the plural phases of the multi-phase inverter circuit, a connection selecting unit selecting which one of windings of the multi-phase electric motor is to be connected to each of the one or more arms of the redundant arm unit, an abnormal arm detection unit detecting an abnormality in each of the plural phases of the multi-phase inverter circuit, and an abnormality control unit controlling the motor current shutoff unit to shut off connection between an abnormal arm and the multi-phase electric motor when the abnormal arm detection unit detects the abnormal arm, and to control the connection selecting unit to connect at least one of the one or more arms of the redundant arm unit to a winding of the multi-phase electric motor, the winding is shut off by the motor current shutoff unit.