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Article history:
Received 26 March 2011
Received in revised form 19 August 2011
Accepted 20 August 2011
Available online 17 October 2011
Keywords:
Inverter
PSIM
BLDC motor
Micro-controller
a b s t r a c t
The objective of the paper is to build a simple current controlled modulation technique for brushless dc
motors. In electric traction and most other applications, a wide range of speed and torque control of the
electric motor is required. The dc machine fullls these requirements, but it requires constant maintenance. In the brushless permanent magnet motors, they do not have brushes and so there will be lesser
maintenance. Brushless dc motors are widely used in applications which require wide range of speed and
torque control because of its low inertia, fast response, high reliability and less maintenance. This current
controlled technique is based on the generation of quasi-square wave currents using only one controller
for the three phases. The current control strategy uses a triangular carrier for the power transistors which
is simpler and more accurate than any other options. The advantages of this technique are: (a) The stator
currents are completely characterized by their maximum amplitude. (b) The three phases are controlled
with the same dc component, and then the phase currents are kept at exactly the same magnitude Imax.
(c) The dc link current measurement is not required. (d) Phase currents are kept balanced and phase over
currents are eliminated.
2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
In electric traction, like in other applications, a wide range in
speed and torque control for the electric motor is desired. The dc
machine fulls these requirements, but this machine needs periodic maintenance. The ac machines, like induction motors, and
brushless permanent magnet motors do not have brushes, and
their rotors are robust because commutator and/or rings do not exist. That means very low maintenance. This also increases the
power-to-weight ratio and the efciency. For induction motors,
ux control has been developed, which offers a high dynamic performance for electric traction applications. However, this control
type is complex and sophisticated. The development of brushless
permanent magnet machines has permitted an important simplication in the hardware for electric traction control [1]. Today, two
kinds of brushless permanent magnet machines for traction applications are the most popular: (1) permanent magnet synchronous
motor (PMSM), which is fed with sinusoidal currents (2) brushless
dc motor (BDCM), which is fed with quasi-square wave currents.
These two designs eliminate the rotor copper losses, giving very
high peak efciency compared with a traditional induction motor
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: jkarthi30@gmail.com (J. Karthikeyan).
0142-0615/$ - see front matter 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ijepes.2011.08.014
(around 95% in NdFeB machines in the range 20100 kW). Besides, the power-to-weight ratio of PMSM and BDCM is higher than
equivalent squirrel cage induction machines. The aforementioned
characteristics and a high reliability control make this type of machine a powerful traction system for electric vehicle applications
[2]. The research introduced in this paper is guided to give a simple
and efcient modulation control system, which allows having good
current waveforms. In order to fulll these objectives, a BDCM was
used because of the following advantages: (1) the quasi-square
wave armature currents are mainly characterized through their
maximum amplitude values, which directly controls the machine
torque; (2) the position sensor system for the shaft needs only to
deliver six digital signals for commanding the transistors of the inverter; (3) the inverter performance is very much reliable, because
there are natural dead times for each transistor. The rst characteristic allows designing a circuit for controlling only a dc component,
which represents the maximum amplitude value of the trapezoidal
currents, Imax. The second and third characteristics allow reducing
the complex circuitry required by other machines, and allows the
self-synchronization process for the operation of the machine.
The most popular way to control BDCM for traction applications
is through voltagesource current-controlled inverters [3]. The inverter must supply a quasi square current waveform whose magnitude, Imax, is proportional to the machine shaft torque. Then, by
controlling the phase-currents, torque and speed can be adjusted.
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J. Karthikeyan, R. Dhana Sekaran / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 33 (2011) 17211727
J. Karthikeyan, R. Dhana Sekaran / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 33 (2011) 17211727
1723
5. Simulation results
The simulation of the proposed control technique is done using
PSIM [10]. Fig. 4 shows the closed loop simulated circuit diagram.
The BLDC motor is given supply through a three phase inverter.
The motor currents are sensed, rectied and then dc component
is compared with a reference value, and the error in current is then
processed using a PI controller. The controlled error is then compared with a triangular wave to generate the controlled PWM
pulses. These pulses are then ANDed with the position sensor signals and then given to the three phase inverter switches. Fig. 5 represents the phase current and speed waveform of conventional
method. Figs. 68 represent various simulated waveforms of proposed method. Fig. 9 shows the six triggering pulses for the three
phase inverter. Table 1 shows the simulation results of current
control of BLDC drive. From the simulation results and waveforms,
showing the excellent characteristics of proposed current control
method.
6. Experimental results
The proposed method of control is implemented with a BLDC
motor of supply voltage of 24 V. The three phase inverter is constructed using IGBT switches. The gating signal required for these
switches is given through the rotor position sensor. Table 2 shows
the BLDC motor specications. The output waveforms are given below. The Fig. 10 shows the Hall Effect sensor output. Fig. 11 shows
the output voltage waveform of the BLDC motor. Fig. 12 shows the
comparison of the PI controller output and Fig. 13 shows the generation of PWM pulses, which will be then combined with the Hall
Effect sensor output to generate the triggering pulses for the three
phase inverter.
Fig. 14 shows the comparison of the phase current waveforms
of conventional method and proposed current control method.
Fig. 14a shows the phase current waveform of conventional method (Ia = 0.05 A, Iref = 2 A) and Fig. 14b shows the phase current
waveform of the current controller mechanism based on a triangu-
Fig. 3. Digital operation of the position sensor: (a) position sensor signals, (b) PWM signal, and (c) gating signals for the IGBTs.
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J. Karthikeyan, R. Dhana Sekaran / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 33 (2011) 17211727
Fig. 4. Simulated circuit diagram for the proposed method using PSIM.
J. Karthikeyan, R. Dhana Sekaran / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 33 (2011) 17211727
Table 1
Simulation results of current control of BLDC drive.
S. no.
Measurements
Rating
1
2
3
4
5
dc Voltage
Phase current
Speed
Switching frequency
Capacitor
24 V
0.05 A
7000 pm
15 KHz
200 mF
Table 2
BLDC motor specications.
Rated voltage
Rated speed
Rated current
Stator resistance (R)
Phase winding inductance (L)
Mutual eld inductance (M)
Number of poles (P)
Moment of inertia (I)
Mechanical time constant
24 V
7000 rpm
0.1 A
40 X
0.00207H
0.00069H
4
0.01e 6 kg m2
0.009
1725
1726
J. Karthikeyan, R. Dhana Sekaran / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 33 (2011) 17211727
characteristics allow using the triangular carrier as a current control strategy for the power transistors, which is simpler and more
accurate than other options. This control strategy has been com-
J. Karthikeyan, R. Dhana Sekaran / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 33 (2011) 17211727
pared with conventional techniques to show the excellent characteristic of this modulation technique.
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