Precision Control of a Sensorless Brushless Direct Current Motor System

Sensorless control strategies were first suggested well over a decade ago with the aim of reducing the size, weight and unit cost of electrically actuated servo systems. The resulting algorithms have been successfully applied to the induction and synchronous motor families in applications where control of armature speeds above approximately one hundred revolutions per minute is desired. However, sensorless position control remains problematic. This thesis provides an in depth investigation into sensorless motor control strategies for high precision motion control applications. Specifically, methods of achieving control of position and very low speed thresholds are investigated. The developed grey box identification techniques are shown to perform better than their traditional white or black box counterparts. Further, fuzzy model based sliding mode control is implemented and results demonstrate its improved robustness to certain classes of disturbance. Attempts to reject uncertainty within the developed models using the sliding mode are discussed. Novel controllers, which enhance the performance of the sliding mode are presented. Finally, algorithms that achieve control without a primary feedback sensor are successfully demonstrated. Sensorless position control is achieved with resolutions equivalent to those of existing stepper motor technology. The successful control of armature speeds below sixty revolutions per minute is achieved and problems typically associated with motor starting are circumvented.Research Instruments Ltd

Commande par mode glissant de paliers magnétiques actifs économes en énergie : une approche sans modèle

Abstract : Over the past three decades, various fields have witnessed a successful application of active magnetic bearing (AMB) systems. Their favorable features include supporting high-speed rotation, low power consumption, and rotor dynamics control. Although their losses are much lower than roller bearings, these losses could limit the operation in some applications such as flywheel energy storage systems and vacuum applications. Many researchers focused their efforts on boosting magnetic bearings energy efficiency via minimizing currents supplied to electromagnetic coils either by a software solution or a hardware solution. According to a previous study, we adopt the hardware solution in this thesis. More specifically, we investigate developing an efficient and yet simple control scheme for regulating a permanent magnet-biased active magnetic bearing system. The control objective here is to suppress the rotor vibrations and reduce the corresponding control currents as possible throughout a wide operating range. Although adopting the hardware approach could achieve an energy-efficient AMB, employing an advanced control scheme could achieve a further reduction in power consumption. Many advanced control techniques have been proposed in the literature to achieve a satisfactory performance. However, the complexity of the majority of control schemes and the potential requirement of powerful platform could discourage their application in practice. The motivation behind this work is to improve the closed-loop performance without the need to do model identification and following the conventional procedure for developing a model-based controller. Here, we propose applying the hybridization concept to exploit the classical PID control and some nonlinear control tools such as first- and second-order sliding mode control, high gain observer, backstepping, and adaptive techniques to develop efficient and practical control schemes. All developed control schemes in this thesis are digitally implemented and validated on the eZdsp F2812 control board. Therefore, the applicability of the proposed model-free techniques for practical application is demonstrated. Furthermore, some of the proposed control schemes successfully achieve a good compromise between the objectives of rotor vibration attenuation and control currents minimization over a wide operating range.Résumé: Au cours des trois dernières décennies, divers domaines ont connu une application réussie des systèmes de paliers magnétiques actifs (PMA). Leurs caractéristiques favorables comprennent une capacité de rotation à grande vitesse, une faible consommation d'énergie, et le contrôle de la dynamique du rotor. Bien que leurs pertes soient beaucoup plus basses que les roulements à rouleaux, ces pertes pourraient limiter l'opération dans certaines applications telles que les systèmes de stockage d'énergie à volant d'inertie et les applications sous vide. De nombreux chercheurs ont concentré leurs efforts sur le renforcement de l'efficacité énergétique des paliers magnétiques par la minimisation des courants fournis aux bobines électromagnétiques soit par une solution logicielle, soit par une solution matérielle. Selon une étude précédente, nous adoptons la solution matérielle dans cette thèse. Plus précisément, nous étudions le développement d'un système de contrôle efficace et simple pour réguler un système de palier magnétique actif à aimant permanent polarisé. L'objectif de contrôle ici est de supprimer les vibrations du rotor et de réduire les courants de commande correspondants autant que possible tout au long d'une large plage de fonctionnement. Bien que l'adoption de l'approche matérielle pourrait atteindre un PMA économe en énergie, un système de contrôle avancé pourrait parvenir à une réduction supplémentaire de la consommation d'énergie. De nombreuses techniques de contrôle avancées ont été proposées dans la littérature pour obtenir une performance satisfaisante. Cependant, la complexité de la majorité des systèmes de contrôle et l'exigence potentielle d’une plate-forme puissante pourrait décourager leur application dans la pratique. La motivation derrière ce travail est d'améliorer les performances en boucle fermée, sans la nécessité de procéder à l'identification du modèle et en suivant la procédure classique pour développer un contrôleur basé sur un modèle. Ici, nous proposons l'application du concept d'hybridation pour exploiter le contrôle PID classique et certains outils de contrôle non linéaires tels que contrôle par mode glissement du premier et du second ordre, observateur à grand gain, backstepping et techniques adaptatives pour développer des systèmes de contrôle efficaces et pratiques. Tous les systèmes de contrôle développés dans cette thèse sont numériquement mis en oeuvre et évaluées sur la carte de contrôle eZdsp F2812. Par conséquent, l'applicabilité des techniques de modèle libre proposé pour l'application pratique est démontrée. En outre, certains des régimes de contrôle proposés ont réalisé avec succès un bon compromis entre les objectifs au rotor d’atténuation des vibrations et la minimisation des courants de commande sur une grande plage de fonctionnement

Sliding Mode Control

The main objective of this monograph is to present a broad range of well worked out, recent application studies as well as theoretical contributions in the field of sliding mode control system analysis and design. The contributions presented here include new theoretical developments as well as successful applications of variable structure controllers primarily in the field of power electronics, electric drives and motion steering systems. They enrich the current state of the art, and motivate and encourage new ideas and solutions in the sliding mode control area

Fractional Order Fault Tolerant Control - A Survey

In this paper, a comprehensive review of recent advances and trends regarding Fractional Order Fault Tolerant Control (FOFTC) design is presented. This novel robust control approach has been emerging in the last decade and is still gathering great research efforts mainly because of its promising results and outcomes. The purpose of this study is to provide a useful overview for researchers interested in developing this interesting solution for plants that are subject to faults and disturbances with an obligation for a maintained performance level. Throughout the paper, the various works related to FOFTC in literature are categorized first by considering their research objective between fault detection with diagnosis and fault tolerance with accommodation, and second by considering the nature of the studied plants depending on whether they are modelized by integer order or fractional order models. One of the main drawbacks of these approaches lies in the increase in complexity associated with introducing the fractional operators, their approximation and especially during the stability analysis. A discussion on the main disadvantages and challenges that face this novel fractional order robust control research field is given in conjunction with motivations for its future development. This study provides a simulation example for the application of a FOFTC against actuator faults in a Boeing 747 civil transport aircraft is provided to illustrate the efficiency of such robust control strategies

Experimental Validation Of An Integrated Guidance And Control System For Marine Surface Vessels

Autonomous operation of marine surface vessels is vital for minimizing human errors and providing efficient operations of ships under varying sea states and environmental conditions which is complicated by the highly nonlinear dynamics of marine surface vessels. To deal with modelling imprecision and unpredictable disturbances, the sliding mode methodology has been employed to devise a heading and a surge displacement controller. The implementation of such a controller necessitates the availability of all state variables of the vessel. However, the measured signals in the current study are limited to the global X and Y positioning coordinates of the boat that are generated by a GPS system. Thus, a nonlinear observer, based on the sliding mode methodology, has been implemented to yield accurate estimates of the state variables in the presence of both structured and unstructured uncertainties. Successful autonomous operation of a marine surface vessel requires a holistic approach encompassing a navigation system, robust nonlinear controllers and observers. Since the overwhelming majority of the experimental work on autonomous marine surface vessels was not conducted in truly uncontrolled real-world environments. The first goal of this work was to experimentally validate a fully-integrated LOS guidance system with a sliding mode controller and observer using a 16’ Tracker Pro Guide V-16 aluminium boat with a 60 hp. Mercury outboard motor operating in the uncontrolled open-water environment of Lake St. Clair, Michigan. The fully integrated guidance and controller-observer system was tested in a model-less configuration, whereby all information provided from the vessel’s nominal model have been ignored. The experimental data serves to demonstrate the robustness and good tracking characteristics of the fully-integrated guidance and controller/observer system by overcoming the large errors induced at the beginning of each segment and converging the boat to the desired trajectory in spite of the presence of environmental disturbances. The second focus of this work was to combine a collision avoidance method with the guidance system that accounted for “International Regulations for Prevention of Collisions at Sea” abbreviated as COLREGS. This new system then needed to be added into the existing architecture. The velocity obstacles method was selected as the base to build upon and additional restrictions were incorporated to account for these additional rules. This completed system was then validated with a software in the loop simulation

Development of Robust Control Strategies for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

The resources of the energy and chemical balance in the ocean sustain mankind in many ways. Therefore, ocean exploration is an essential task that is accomplished by deploying Underwater Vehicles. An Underwater Vehicle with autonomy feature for its navigation and control is called Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV). Among the task handled by an AUV, accurately positioning itself at a desired position with respect to the reference objects is called set-point control. Similarly, tracking of the reference trajectory is also another important task. Battery recharging of AUV, positioning with respect to underwater structure, cable, seabed, tracking of reference trajectory with desired accuracy and speed to avoid collision with the guiding vehicle in the last phase of docking are some significant applications where an AUV needs to perform the above tasks. Parametric uncertainties in AUV dynamics and actuator torque limitation necessitate to design robust control algorithms to achieve motion control objectives in the face of uncertainties. Sliding Mode Controller (SMC), H / μ synthesis, model based PID group controllers are some of the robust controllers which have been applied to AUV. But SMC suffers from less efficient tuning of its switching gains due to model parameters and noisy estimated acceleration states appearing in its control law. In addition, demand of high control effort due to high frequency chattering is another drawback of SMC. Furthermore, real-time implementation of H / μ synthesis controller based on its stability study is restricted due to use of linearly approximated dynamic model of an AUV, which hinders achieving robustness. Moreover, model based PID group controllers suffer from implementation complexities and exhibit poor transient and steady-state performances under parametric uncertainties. On the other hand model free Linear PID (LPID) has inherent problem of narrow convergence region, i.e.it can not ensure convergence of large initial error to zero. Additionally, it suffers from integrator-wind-up and subsequent saturation of actuator during the occurrence of large initial error. But LPID controller has inherent capability to cope up with the uncertainties. In view of addressing the above said problem, this work proposes wind-up free Nonlinear PID with Bounded Integral (BI) and Bounded Derivative (BD) for set-point control and combination of continuous SMC with Nonlinear PID with BI and BD namely SM-N-PID with BI and BD for trajectory tracking. Nonlinear functions are used for all P,I and D controllers (for both of set-point and tracking control) in addition to use of nonlinear tan hyperbolic function in SMC(for tracking only) such that torque demand from the controller can be kept within a limit. A direct Lyapunov analysis is pursued to prove stable motion of AUV. The efficacies of the proposed controllers are compared with other two controllers namely PD and N-PID without BI and BD for set-point control and PD plus Feedforward Compensation (FC) and SM-NPID without BI and BD for tracking control. Multiple AUVs cooperatively performing a mission offers several advantages over a single AUV in a non-cooperative manner; such as reliability and increased work efficiency, etc. Bandwidth limitation in acoustic medium possess challenges in designing cooperative motion control algorithm for multiple AUVs owing to the necessity of communication of sensors and actuator signals among AUVs. In literature, undirected graph based approach is used for control design under communication constraints and thus it is not suitable for large number of AUVs participating in a cooperative motion plan. Formation control is a popular cooperative motion control paradigm. This thesis models the formation as a minimally persistent directed graph and proposes control schemes for maintaining the distance constraints during the course of motion of entire formation. For formation control each AUV uses Sliding Mode Nonlinear PID controller with Bounded Integrator and Bounded Derivative. Direct Lyapunov stability analysis in the framework of input-to-state stability ensures the stable motion of formation while maintaining the desired distance constraints among the AUVs

Intelligent flight control systems

The capabilities of flight control systems can be enhanced by designing them to emulate functions of natural intelligence. Intelligent control functions fall in three categories. Declarative actions involve decision-making, providing models for system monitoring, goal planning, and system/scenario identification. Procedural actions concern skilled behavior and have parallels in guidance, navigation, and adaptation. Reflexive actions are spontaneous, inner-loop responses for control and estimation. Intelligent flight control systems learn knowledge of the aircraft and its mission and adapt to changes in the flight environment. Cognitive models form an efficient basis for integrating 'outer-loop/inner-loop' control functions and for developing robust parallel-processing algorithms