Transputer control of a flexible robot link

The applicability of transputers in control systems is investigated. This is done by implementing a controller for a flexible robot arm with one degree of freedom on a system consisting of an IBM-AT and four transputers. It is found that a control system with transputers offers a great improvement compared with conventional digital control systems. Transputers can solve the common problem in control practice, i.e. having very sophisticted controllers but not being able to implement them because they need too much computing time. However, transputers are not an optimal solution for more sophisticated control systems because of shortcomings in the scheduling mechanism

Application of system identification to analytic rotor modeling from simulated and wind tunnel dynamic test data, part 2

An introduction to aircraft state and parameter identification methods is presented. A simplified form of the maximum likelihood method is selected to extract analytical aeroelastic rotor models from simulated and dynamic wind tunnel test results for accelerated cyclic pitch stirring excitation. The dynamic inflow characteristics for forward flight conditions from the blade flapping responses without direct inflow measurements were examined. The rotor blades are essentially rigid for inplane bending and for torsion within the frequency range of study, but flexible in out-of-plane bending. Reverse flow effects are considered for high rotor advance ratios. Two inflow models are studied; the first is based on an equivalent blade Lock number, the second is based on a time delayed momentum inflow. In addition to the inflow parameters, basic rotor parameters like the blade natural frequency and the actual blade Lock number are identified together with measurement bias values. The effect of the theoretical dynamic inflow on the rotor eigenvalues is evaluated

Sensorless Rotor Position Estimation For Brushless DC Motors

Brushless DC motor speed is controlled by synchronizing the stator coil current with rotor position in order to acquire an accurate alignment of stator rotating field with rotor permanent-magnet field for efficient transfer of energy. In order to accomplish this goal, a motor shaft is instantly tracked by using rotating rotor position sensors such as Hall effect sensors, optical encoders or resolvers etc. Adding sensors to detect rotor position affects the overall reliability and mechanical robustness of the system. Therefore, a whole new trend of replacing position sensors with sensorless rotor position estimation techniques have a promising demand. Among the sensorless approaches, Back-EMF measurement and high frequency signal injection is the most common. Back-EMF is an electromotive force, directly proportional to the speed of rotor revolutions per second, the greater the speed motor acquires the greater the Back-EMF amplitude appears against the motion of rotation. However, the detected Back-EMF is zero at start-up and does not provide motor speed information at this instant. There-fore, Back-EMF based techniques are highly unfavourable for low speed application specially near zero. On the other hand, signal injection techniques are comparatively developed for low or near zero motor speed applications and they also can estimate the on-line motor parameters exploiting the identification theory on phase voltages and currents signals. The signal injection approach requires expensive additional hardware to inject high frequency signal. Since, motors are typically driven with pulse width modulation techniques, high frequency signals are naturally already present which can be used to detect position. This thesis presents rotor position estimation by measuring the voltage and current signals and also proposes an equivalent permanent-magnet synchronous motor model by fitting thedata to a position dependent circuit model

Position estimation and performance prediction for permanent-magnet motor drives

PhD ThesisThis thesis presents a theoretical and experimental development of a novel position estimator, a simulation model, and an analytical solution for brushless PM motor drive. The operation of the drive, the position estimation model of the test motor, development of hardware, and basic operation of inverter are discussed. Starting with the well-known continuous-time model of brushless PM motor, a sampled-data model is developed that is suitable for th6, application of real-time position estimator. An analytical methodo f calculating the steady-stateb ehaviouro f the brushlessP M motor for 1200in verter operation is presentedT. he analysisa ssumesth at the machinea ir gap is free of saliency effects, and has sinusoidal back EMF. The analytical solution is derived for 60" electrical of the whole period. By experimental results, it is shown that the method of analysis is adequate to predict Ihe motor's performance for typical operating points including phase advance and phase delay operation. C) I A computer simulation model for prediction of the performance of brushless PM moto rs is presented. The model is formulated entirely in the natural abc frame of reference, which allows direct comparison of the simulation and corresponding experimental results. The equations and diagrams are put into a convenient form for the simulation and future developments and library modules. The simulation model and corresponding experimental data of the brushless PM motor drive is given. The thesis describes a modem solution to real-time rotor position estimation, which has been subject to intense research activity for the last 15 years. The implemented new algorithm for shaft position sensorless operation of PM motors is based on the flux linkage and line current estimation. The position estimation algorithm has also been verified by both off-line and on-line experiments (accomplished by a DSP, TMS320C30), and a wide range of steady-statea nd transient results have been 0gi0v en including starting from rest. The position estimation method effectively moves the position measurement point in the drive from the mechanical side to the motor's terminals. As well as eliminating the mechanical shaft position sensor, the investigated method can be used for high performance torque control of brushless PM motors. The thesis demonstrates that, in contrast to many other "sensorless" schemes, the new position estimation method is able to work effectively over the full operating range of the drive, and is applicable to a wide range of motor/converter types. Since the hardware is straightforward, only the new position estimation algorithm differentiates a system. Therefore, if a DSP control system is already implemented in the drive, the position estimator can be implemented at low cost.Istanbul Technical University and Higher Education Counci

Speed Error Mitigation for a DSP-Based Resolver-to-Digital Converter Using Auto-Tuning Filters

Modern resolver-to-digital converters (RDC) are typically implemented using DSP techniques to reduce hardware footprint and enhanced system accuracy. However, in such implementations, both resolver sensor and ADC channel unbalances introduce significant errors particularly in the speed output of the tracking loop. The frequency spectrum of the output error is variable depending on the resolver mechanical velocity. This paper presents the design of an auto-tuning output filter based on the interpolation of pre-computed filters for a DSP-based RDC with a type-II tracking loop. A fourth-order peak and a second-order high pass filter are designed and tested for an experimental RDC. The experimental results demonstrate significant reduction of the peak-to-peak error in the estimated speed

Torque Control

This book is the result of inspirations and contributions from many researchers, a collection of 9 works, which are, in majority, focalised around the Direct Torque Control and may be comprised of three sections: different techniques for the control of asynchronous motors and double feed or double star induction machines, oriented approach of recent developments relating to the control of the Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motors, and special controller design and torque control of switched reluctance machine

Sensorless Passive Control Algorithms for Medium to High Power Synchronous Motor Drives

This study is focused on the definition of sensorless algorithms for Surface-Mounted Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motors (SM-PMSM) and Electrically Excited Synchronous Motors (EESM). Even if these types of motors are rather different from a constructive point of view, they have some common issues regarding sensorless drives. Indeed, SM-PMSMs, which are usually used for low-medium power applications, have a low rotor anisotropy, therefore it is complicated to use sensorless active methods (which are based on high-frequency voltage injection), due to the low signal to noise ratio. On the other hand, active methods on high-power EESM have the drawback of high torque ripple. For these reasons, both for SM-PMSM and EESM, it is interesting to define and use sensorless passive algorithms (i.e., based on observers and estimators). The drawback of such algorithms is that their performance deteriorates significantly in the low-speed region. The aim of this thesis is to define a robust sensorless passive algorithm that could work in a wide speed region and that could start the motor from standstill even with a high load torque. The initial objective of the work is to find, among the various algorithms proposed in the technical literature, the most promising one. For this purpose, four different algorithms are selected. They are chosen considering the most recent articles presented in the technical literature on high reputable journals. Since many improvements are proposed in the literature for the different algorithms, the most recent ones are candidates for being the ones with higher performance. Even if the experimental tests of the four different algorithms are shown in the literature, it is difficult to evaluate a priori which offers the best performance. As a matter of facts, for each algorithm different tests are carried out (e.g., different speed and torque profiles). In addition to that, motor sizing and features are different. Moreover, the test bench characteristics can significantly affect sensorless performance. As an example, inverter features and non-linearities (e.g., switching frequency, dead times, parasitic capacitance) and current measures (e.g., noise, linearity, bias) play a key role in the estimation of rotor position. The added value of this thesis is to perform a fair comparison of the four algorithms, performing the same tests with the same test bench. Additional tests are performed on the most performing algorithm. Even if this sensorless technique is already proposed in the technical literature, a methodology for observer gain tuning is not shown, which is proposed, instead, in this thesis. Moreover, the algorithm is enhanced by adding a novel management of direct axis current, which ensures the stability during fast transient from medium-high speed to low speed. The algorithm is tested with different test benches in order to verify the control effectiveness in various operating conditions. As a matter of facts, it is tested at first in the University of Genoa PETRA Lab on two different test benches. The first test bench is composed of two coupled motors, in which the braking motor could realize different torque profiles (linear torque, quadratic torque and constant torque), whereas in the second test bench the motor is coupled with an air compressor, which is a demanding load since high and irregular torque is applied at standstill. After the test at the University of Genoa, the algorithm is implemented in Phase Motion Control and Physis drive and tested on a six-meter diameter fan. Regarding the EESMs, for these type of motor is necessary to estimate the stator flux amplitude and angle. Indeed, the stator angle is usually used to perform the Park transformations in the FOC scheme and the stator flux amplitude is used to control the excitation current. In this study, the RFO is adapted for estimating the stator flux of an EESM. Regarding the control for EESM, it is tested on a simulative model for high-power motors provided by NIDEC ASI and tested on a small-scale test bench at the University of Genoa

Digitally-tuned resolver converter

Sinusoidal encoders provide electrical signals related to the sine and cosine of the mechanical shaft angle θ. An analog converter is described for the linearization of these signals and hence for linear computation of θ. The converter was based upon the difference between the absolute values of the transducer signals, together with a simple signal diode-based shaping network. The optimal break points positions of the network, that minimize the absolute error of the converter, are determined experimentally and automatically using a LabVIEW-controlled setup. Despite its simplicity, the converter has an absolute error of only 0.12 °