In partnership with PteroDynamics™, allocortech developed the Taurus AE motor controller which is at the heart of a linear actuator assembly powering the Transwing® wing folding mechanism on the X-P4 aircraft. Utilizing the allocortech Taurus motor controller line allows the new actuator assembly to be driven by a sensored brushless motor for highly reliable “contactless” operation while being extremely efficient and performant due to full FOC operation supported by the controller. The Taurus AE (Actuator Edition) product is capable of being used as a standard ESC at up to 1.5kW with proper heat sinking, but more interestingly, the AE exposes a number of I/O pins and power supply outputs to support various types of encoders, sensors, etc. to enable servo motor type operation. The AE includes a number of isolated communication interfaces for control and monitoring including CAN, RS485/RS422, RS232 as well as basic PWM in/out. As with all allocortech products, the Taurus AE runs on the allocore C++ based SDK, which allows full control of the application implementation, including things like custom controllers, advanced health monitoring (e.g. temperature, current), and custom communication protocols.
