104 research outputs found

    Surface Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motors’ Passive Sensorless Control: A Review

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    Sensorless control of permanent magnet synchronous motors is nowadays used in many industrial, home and traction applications, as it allows the presence of a position sensor to be avoided with benefits for the cost and reliability of the drive. An estimation of the rotor position is required to perform the field-oriented control (FOC), which is the most common control scheme used for this type of motor. Many algorithms have been developed for this purpose, which use different techniques to derive the rotor angle from the stator voltages and currents. Among them, the so-called passive methods have gained increasing interest as they do not introduce additional losses and current distortion associated instead with algorithms based on the injection of high-frequency signals. The aim of this paper is to present a review of the main passive sensorless methods proposed in the technical literature over the last few years, analyzing their main features and principles of operation. An experimental comparison among the most promising passive sensorless algorithms is then reported, focusing on their performance in the low-speed operating region

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

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    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

    Sensorless control for limp-home mode of EV applications

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    PhD ThesisOver the past decade research into electric vehicles’ (EVs) safety, reliability and availability has become a hot topic and has attracted a lot of attention in the literature. Inevitably these key areas require further study and improvement. One of the challenges EVs face is speed/position sensor failure due to vibration and harsh environments. Wires connecting the sensor to the motor controller have a high likelihood of breakage. Loss of signals from the speed/position sensor will bring the EV to halt mode. Speed sensor failure at a busy roundabout or on a high speed motorway can have serious consequences and put the lives of drivers and passengers in great danger. This thesis aims to tackle the aforementioned issues by proposing several novel sensorless schemes based on Model Reference Adaptive Systems (MRAS) suitable for limp-home mode of EV applications. The estimated speed from these schemes is used for the rotor flux position estimation. The estimated rotor flux position is employed for sensorless torque-controlled drive (TCD) based on indirect rotor field oriented control (IRFOC). The capabilities of the proposed schemes have been evaluated and compared to the conventional back-Electromotive Force MRAS (back-EMF MRAS) scheme using simulation environment and a test bench setup. The new schemes have also been tested on electric golf buggies. The results presented for the proposed schemes show that utilising these schemes provide a reliable and smooth sensorless operation during vehicle test-drive starting from standstill and over a wide range of speeds, including the field weakening region. Employing these new schemes for sensorless TCD in limp-home mode of EV applications increases safety, reliability and availability of EVs

    Comparative Study of Sensorless Control Methods of PMSM Drives

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    Recently, permanent magnet synchronous motors (PMSMs) are increasingly used in high performance variable speed drives of many industrial applications. This is because the PMSM has many features, like high efficiency, compactness, high torque to inertia ratio, rapid dynamic response, simple modeling and control, and maintenance-free operation. In most applications, the presence of such a position sensor presents several disadvantages, such as reduced reliability, susceptibility to noise, additional cost and weight and increased complexity of the drive system. For these reasons, the development of alternative indirect methods for speed and position control becomes an important research topic. Many advantages of sensorless control such as reduced hardware complexity, low cost, reduced size, cable elimination, increased noise immunity, increased reliability and decreased maintenance. The key problem in sensorless vector control of ac drives is the accurate dynamic estimation of the stator flux vector over a wide speed range using only terminal variables (currents and voltages). The difficulty comprises state estimation at very low speeds where the fundamental excitation is low and the observer performance tends to be poor. The reasons are the observer sensitivity to model parameter variations, unmodeled nonlinearities and disturbances, limited accuracy of acquisition signals, drifts, and dc offsets. Poor speed estimation at low speed is attributed to data acquisition errors, voltage distortion due the PWM inverter and stator resistance drop which degrading the performance of sensorless drive. Moreover, the noises of system and measurements are considered other main problems. This paper presents a comprehensive study of the different methods of speed and position estimations for sensorless PMSM drives. A deep insight of the advantages and disadvantages of each method is investigated. Furthermore, the difficulties faced sensorless PMSM drives at low speeds as well as the reasons are highly demonstrated. Keywords: permanent magnet, synchronous motor, sensorless control, speed estimation, position estimation, parameter adaptation

    Sensorless Control with Switching Frequency Square Wave Voltage Injection for SPMSM with Low Rotor Magnetic Anisotropy

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    High-frequency signal injection sensorless algorithms are widely studied and used for rotor angle estimation in PMSM at low speed or standstill. One of the main drawbacks of such methods is the acoustic noise connected to the voltage injection. In order to minimize this problem, it is advisable to increase the frequency of the injected signal. Thus, many studies focus on square-wave injection at the switching frequency, which is the maximum theoretical frequency. Since these methods exploit the rotor magnetic anisotropy, it is relatively easy to use them in interior PMSMs, where the rotor anisotropy is high. On the contrary, it is hard to exploit them in surface PMSMs, which have an almost symmetric rotor, although a low rotor magnetic anisotropy is still present. In this paper, a sensorless algorithm with switching frequency squarewave injection is developed for surface PMSMs. To increase the signal-to-noise ratio, current oversampling is exploited. The benefits of such a technique are demonstrated with experimental results on a 2 Nm SPMSM

    RECENT TECHNIQUES ON OBSERVER DESIGN FOR DISTURBANCE ESTIMATION AND REJECTION IN PERMANENT MAGNET SYNCHRONOUS MOTORS

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    Permanent magnet synchronous machines (PMSMs) (either motor or generator) have attracted attention of research community comparing to other types of AC machines in the recent two decades. PMSMs are preferable than other AC machines in terms of large power-factor, broad speed of operation, compact proportions, and effective operation. Unfortunately, different sources of nonlinearities, model uncertainties, and external perturbations determine severity in a design of accurate speed control scheme for PMSMs. In the era of developing science and technologies, many advanced control solutions are proposed to control PMSMs. Although new solutions show their advantages comparing to traditional methods in terms of performance evaluation, practical realization of those algorithms could require expensive hardware with high computational capabilities. Furthermore, people in industry with less knowledge about the motor control may experience difficulties in using such advanced controllers on their own. Traditional PI/PID control schemes still work as a major control technique in modern industry, and in motor control as well. Numerous positive facts about the PI/PID schemes make such superiority of these control schemes. Firstly, the PI/PID can be implemented easily on most industrial software and hardware components. Secondly, while its scheme has clear mechanism of operation, most industrial processes could be controlled via the PI/PID scheme. These schemes are good in terms of small number of parameters to tune and tuning process itself could be very straightforward. Finally, implementation of the PI/PID controllers would require smaller time comparing to most proposed complex control solutions. It is studied that the traditional PI/PID controllers usually cannot deal with unpredictable disturbances, which in turn leads to degraded performance of an overall control system. Inspired by the advantages and widespread application of PI/PID control structure in industry, we propose a disturbance observer based composite control scheme which uses the PI-like controller for the feedback regulation and disturbance observer for estimation of lumped disturbances presented in a PMSM control system. Under this circumstance, this thesis work proposes three different control solutions for PMSM such as High-order disturbance observer-based composite control (HDOBCC), Disturbance rejection PI (DR-PI) control, and Hierarchical optimal disturbance observer-based control (HODOBC). Furthermore, to deeply understand the similarity and difference between the traditional disturbance observer-based control (DOBC) and active-disturbance rejection control (ADRC) schemes, this thesis also presents results of unification of these two control approaches in the speed control of a PMSM. The HDOBCC as the first method proposed in this thesis is designed to improve reference speed tracking performance of a PMSM under various operational conditions. A structure of the HDOBCC comprises a fuzzy-PI controller in a feedback stabilization part and novel high-order disturbance observer in a feedforward compensation part of the speed control system. The proposed controller is designed based on the research questions such as: firstly, although a fixed gain traditional PI controller is able to present satisfactory performance at some extent, still it does not guarantee such performance when sudden disturbances occur in a system; secondly, many disturbance observers designed for a PMSM in literature consider only a load torque as a disturbance, neglecting model uncertainties and parameter variations in design stage. Therefore, the HDOBCC is proposed such that it utilizes a fuzzy approach to determine parameters of the PI controller to overcome limitations of the fixed gain PI controller. Furthermore, the proposed scheme includes a high-order disturbance observer, which estimates not only the load torque, but also disturbances due to model uncertainties and parameter variations. Moreover, extended simulation and experimental studies are conducted to affirm performance of the HDOBCC under various form of the load torque. In addition to commonly tested step form of a load torque, severe forms of the load torque such as triangular form and sinusoidal form are tested with the proposed controller. Stability analysis of the closed-loop HDOBCC system is further provided. The next proposed method, DR-PI control, is designed by seeking answer for questions such as: firstly, although the traditional DOBC scheme applied for PMSM shows reasonable results in a PMSM control, its design can be limited to known actual parameters of the PMSM. In practice, actual parameters are usually not available, hence it could be hard to design the traditional DOBC in the absence of a plant information; secondly, for tuning a PI controller the traditional Ziegler-Nichols tuning approach still remains as one of the popular tuning approaches, however it does not give a rigorous explanation on selection of parameters during its design. Consequently, to answer these questions, the DR-PI control is designed for the PMSM speed control. The DR-PI control is designed such that it has a simple PI-like structure with intrinsic disturbance rejection mechanism determined by the parameters of a filtering element, desired plant model, and desired closed-loop system. Simulation and experimental validations are provided to validate the performance of the DR-PI. Furthermore, gain tuning mechanism and stability analysis of the closed-loop DR-PI-based speed control are also presented. The HODOBC scheme as a third proposed control scheme targets on the next research questions as: first, parameters of the traditional PI controller are mostly obtained by trial-and-error approach, which in turn may not guarantee satisfactory results; in a cascaded PMSM control, the outer speed loop performance highly depends on the performance of the inner current loop. The well-tuned speed control loop may degrade in performance, if the inner current loop is not tuned properly. To address these questions, we propose the HODOBC scheme, which consists of optimal PIlike controller in the feedback stabilization part and optimal extended-state observer (ESO) in the disturbance compensation part. The proposed HODOBC showed better performance when it is compared with other traditional controllers via experiments. Stability analysis is provided via the root locus approach. The study on unification of the DOBC and ADRC schemes has the following research question: the DOBC and ADRC are both used in estimation of total disturbance, but these two schemes are considered differently in literature. Hence, the study of both scheme is conducted to show the condition at which these two schemes show identical performance. The analysis of the traditional DOBC and ADRC schemes concludes that both scheme are equivalent in terms of performance characteristics if the dynamical delays of disturbance observers in each scheme are same. The results of analysis reveal that both scheme can be utilized to design a robust control system for PMSM, i.e. once the gains of disturbance observers can be calculated under the DOBC framework, further the disturbance rejection mechanism can be achieved via the ADRC framework. The results of PMSM control with the proposed control schemes have been tested on the Lucas-Nuelle DSP-based experimental setup

    Rotor-position detection in permanent-magnet wheel motor to ensure smooth startup from standstill

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    In this paper, an innovative rotor-position-detection method for a permanent-magnet wheel motor (PMWM) that operates from standstill to low speed is presented. The neutral voltage, which is sensed through phaseshifted pulse width modulation, overcomes the limitations of the conventional back electromotive force (EMF)-based position-detection method, which is more suitable for high-speed operation. In addition, a technique that ensures a transition between the two position-detection methods is presented to cover the full speed range. Computer simulations are employed to design and assess the neutral-voltage-based and EMF-based position-detection methods. The results of the position detection and angle error are presented starting from standstill to low speed. A step current (iq) corresponding to motor torque demand is applied for the starting process in the two position-detection methods. The experimental studies of the new position-detection method are conducted. The method is successfully applied to drive a 60-kW PMWM that operates from standstill to high speed. This demonstrates the effectiveness and performance of the presented method

    Speed Sensorless Control of SPMSM Drives for EVs with a Binary Search Algorithm-Based Phase-Locked Loop

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    © 1967-2012 IEEE. This article presents a new method to extract accurate rotor position for the speed sensorless control of surface-mounted permanent-magnet synchronous motors (SPMSMs), based on the back electromotive force (EMF) information. The concept of finite control set-model predictive control is employed, and its cost function is related to the back EMF. An optimal voltage vector is selected from several given voltage vectors by comparing their fitness values. Moreover, the position space is divided into four sectors, and the fitness of each sector boundary is calculated and compared. The rotor position is first located in the sector surrounded by two boundaries that minimize the cost function. Then the selected sector is split into two parts, and the binary search algorithm is applied to reduce the sector area to improve the accuracy of position estimation. To overcome the drawback of the back EMF-based sensorless scheme, an I-f startup method is employed to accelerate the motor to the desired speed. An experiment has been carried out to compare the performance of the proposed method and the conventional phase-locked loop (PLL) in terms of steady-state and transient conditions

    Improved Model Predictive Current Control for SPMSM Drives With Parameter Mismatch

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    Model predictive current control (MPCC) can predict future motor behavior according to a motor model. In practice, however, motor parameters will vary at run time, and the parameter mismatch disturbances caused by the variation in motor parameters will deteriorate the MPCC performance. To suppress the parameter mismatch disturbances effectively, this paper proposes a modified MPCC with a current variation update mechanism. In contrast with the traditional current prediction equation that contains crude model parameters, the modified current prediction equation contains only measured information, taking advantage of the proposed current variation update mechanism, which can update the modified prediction equation within each sampling period. A simulation established by MATLAB software indicates that the proposed method can effectively suppress the parameter mismatch disturbances. Experiments are carried out to verify the correctness of the proposed method
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