CHAPTER 1

Abstract:
The BLDCs are getting popular these days due to numerous advantages they
offer. BLDCs use an electronic controller in place of commutator and brush
combination in the conventional dc motors. There are different commutation
schemes used for these controllers.Mainly we can divide them as sensored
commutation and sensor less commutation schemes. This seminar covers briefly
the concept of BLDC motors and the idea behind sensored and sensor less control
schemes. Afterwards we are looking at various recent advancements that are taking
place in this field.

CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE SURVEY
The Brush less DC motors have only decades of history. They are now
getting popular due to numerous advantages they offer. In the earlier days of its
development direct sensored control was used for commutation purposes. Those
sensing mechanisms were not much reliable too. And the cost of their control
sysems were so high that this BLDC motors couldnt be applied for small scale
purposes.
Then after few years itself the sensorless control techniques were developed
by the scientists community.Bemf techniques were initially used then afterwards
new and newer techniques were being developed such as 3rd harmonic method ,
flux linkage method etc. . The development of control system techniques in Russia
played an important role in the field of BLDCM. Various control system strategies
like observer methods( reduced order observers, disturbance observers etc.)are
successfully implemented for the control of BLDCmotors.
Implementation of these logics are now not a problem at all. The huge
technical advancements in the field of microprocessor and microcontrollers made
the task easier. The fast DSP algorithms implemented on faster DSP chips are
really amazing. The fastness of such electronic utilities is getting increased
everyday. These developments helps the field of BLDC motor control.
Another development in the drive side is the use of matrix converters.this
makes the system more linear. This papers were presented in the year of 2006. And
it is getting implemented in the BLDC drives nowadays.

In almost all sensor less control the technique utilises motor parameters for
estimating commutation points. But the motor parametersare subject to variations
due to mass production, temperature chenges and motor aging. Here the role of
control theory comes. Now we are able to design controllers with adaptive control
strategy and online tunings. These developments makes the control insensitive to
parameter variations.
Modern logic theories like fuzzy logics neural networks and genetic
algorithms are now getting implemented in the field. The further developments will
be focused in this way I expect.

CHAPTER 3
INTRODUCTION:

Brushless Direct Current (BLDC) motors are one of the motor types rapidly
gaining popularity. BLDC motorsare used in industries such as Appliances,
Automotive, Aerospace, Consumer, Medical, Industrial AutomationEquipment and
Instrumentation.
As the name implies, BLDC motors do not use brushesfor commutation;
instead, they are electronically commutated.BLDC motors have many advantages
over brushed DC motors and induction motors. A few ofthese are:
Better speed versus torque characteristics
High dynamic response
High efficiency
Long operating life
Noiseless operation
Higher speed ranges
In addition, the ratio of torque delivered to the size of the motor is higher, making
it useful in applicationswhere space and weight are critical factors.

Recently, in an effort to replace existing hydraulic andpneumatic devices with

electric actuators, many defensecompanies started using PM motors in military
applicationssuch as aircraft and gun turret drives for combat vehicles.As a result,
the PM machine is increasingly being usedfor various military and commercial
applications and itsmarket is rapidly expanding.
However, the PM BLDC motors are inherently electronicallycontrolled and require
rotor position information forproper commutation of currents in its stator windings.
Forspace-restricted applications such as aircrafts, the additional mechanical sensors
increase the dimension of the PMmachine drive and prohibit the use of the drive
for suchapplications. In addition, it is not desirable to use the position sensors for
applications where reliability is of utmostimportance because a sensor failure
causes control systeminstability. These limitations of using position sensors
combined with the availability of powerful and economical microprocessors have
spurred the development of sensorless control technology.
The brushless PM machines can be categorised based on the PMs mounting and
shape of the back-EMF. The PMs can be surface mounted on the rotor or installed
inside of the rotor (interior PM), and the back-EMF shape caneither be sinusoidal
or trapezoidal. The surface mounted PM (SMPM) BLDC machine has non
sinusoidal back-EMF waveforms due to the concentric winding of the machine and
rectangular distribution of the magnetic flux in the air-gap. Typically, for this type
of motor, the inductance variation by rotor position is negligibly small since there
is no magnetic saliency. This machine is usually called the BLDC motor.
On the other hand, the interior permanent magnet (IPM)machine has an inductance
variation by rotor position because of the magnetic saliency. The IPM machine is a
good candidate for high-speed and traction applications.Fig. 1 illustrates structures
of the SMPM BLDC and IPM
machines.

CHAPTER 4
OVERVIEW ON STRUCTURE OF BLDC:
BLDC motors are a type of synchronous motor. This means the magnetic field
generated by the stator and the magnetic field generated by the rotor rotate at the
same frequency. BLDC motors do not experience the slip that is normally seen
in induction motors.
BLDC motors come in single-phase, 2-phase and 3-phase configurations.
Corresponding to its type, the stator has the same number of windings. Out of
these, 3-phase motors are the most popular and widely used.

Stator
The stator of a BLDC motor consists of stacked steel laminations with windings
placed in the slots that are axially cut along the inner periphery. Traditionally, the
stator resembles that of an induction motor; however, the windings are distributed
in a different manner. Most BLDC motors have three stator windings connected in
star fashion. Each of these windings are constructed with numerous coils
interconnected to form a winding. One or more coils are placed in the slots and
they are interconnected to make a winding. Each of these windings are distributed
over the stator periphery to form an even numbers of poles. There are two types of
stator windings variants: trapezoidal and sinusoidal motors. This differentiation
is made on the basis of the interconnection of coils in the stator windings to give
the different types of back Electromotive Force (EMF).

As their names indicate, the trapezoidal motor gives a back EMF in trapezoidal
fashion and the sinusoidal motors back EMF is sinusoidal. In addition to the back
EMF, the phase current also has trapezoidal and sinusoidal variations in the
respective types of motor. This makes the torque output by a sinusoidal motor
smoother than that of a trapezoidal motor. However, this comes with an extra cost,
as the sinusoidal motors take extra winding interconnections because of the coils
distribution onthe stator periphery, thereby increasing the copper intake by the
stator windings.
Depending upon the control power supply capability, the motor with the correct
voltage rating of the stator can be chosen. Forty-eight volts, or less voltage rated
motors are used in automotive, robotics, small armmovements and so on. Motors
with 100 volts, or higher ratings, are used in appliances, automation and in
industrial applications.
Rotor
The rotor is made of permanent magnet and can vary from two to eight pole pairs
with alternate North (N) and South (S) poles.
Based on the required magnetic field density in the rotor, the proper magnetic
material is chosen to make the rotor. Ferrite magnets are traditionally used to make
permanent magnets. As the technology advances, rare earth alloy magnets are
gaining popularity. The ferrite magnets are less expensive but they have the
disadvantage of low flux density for a given volume. In contrast,
the alloy material has high magnetic density per volume and enables the rotor to
compress further for the same torque. Also, these alloy magnets improve
the size-to-weight ratio and give higher torque for the same size motor using ferrite
magnets.

Neodymium (Nd), Samarium Cobalt (SmCo) and the alloy of Neodymium, Ferrite
and Boron (NdFeB) are some examples of rare earth alloy magnets. Continuous
research is going on to improve the flux density to compress the rotor further.

Commutation:
The key task is to develop maximum torque for rotation. So the stator resultant
field should be 900 to the rotor field. Hence the current path in the stator windings
must be decided by the rotors current position. The simplest direct thing we can
do is to detect or sense the rotor position using some sort of sensors and making
use of this information to decide the current path. This is theidea behind sensored
commutation.
There are others methods which doesnt use position sensors but utilizes some
relationships of the rotor position to some other electrical or magnetic properties.
These methods are colectively termed as sensor lesscommutation techniques.

CHAPTER 5
SENSORED COMMUTATION:
Hall Effect Sensors:
8

In sensored sommutation schemes rotor position is sensed by hall effect sensores.

So before going into sensored commutation scheme let us look at what is a hall
effect sensor and how it gives out position information.
Hall Effect Theory: If an electric current carrying conductor is kept in a magnetic
field, the magnetic field exerts a transverse force on the moving charge carriers
which tends to push them to one side of the conductor. This is most evident in a
thin flat conductor. A buildup of charge at the sides of the conductors will balance
this magnetic influence, producing a measurable voltage between the two
sides of the conductor. The presence of this measurable transverse voltage is
called the Hall effect after E. H. Hall who discovered it in 1879.

To rotate the BLDC motor, the stator windings should be energized in a sequence.
It is important to know the rotor position in order to understand which winding will
be energized following the energizing sequence. Rotor position is sensed using
Hall effect sensors embedded into the stator.
Most BLDC motors have three Hall sensors embedded into the stator on the nondriving end of the motor. Whenever the rotor magnetic poles pass near the Hall
sensors, they give a high or low signal, indicating the N or S pole is passing near
the sensors. Based on the combination of these three Hall sensor signals, the
exact sequence of commutation can be determined.
The Hall sensors require a power supply. The voltage may range from 4 volts to
24 volts. Required current can range from 5 to 15 mAmps. While designing the
controller, please refer to the respective motor technical specification for exact
voltage and current ratings of the Hall sensors used. The Hall sensor output is
normally an open-collector type. A pull-up resistor may be required on the
controller side.
Figure down shows a transverse section of a BLDC motor with a rotor that has
alternate N and S permanent magnets. Hall sensors are embedded into the
stationary part
of the motor. Embedding the Hall sensors into the stator is a complex process
because any misalignment in these Hall sensors, with respect to the rotor magnets,
9

will generate an error in determination of the rotor position. To simplify the

process of mounting the Hall sensors onto the stator, some motors may have the
Hall sensor magnets on the rotor, in addition to the main rotor magnets. These are a
scaled down replica version of the rotor. Therefore, whenever the rotor rotates, the
Hall sensor magnets give the same effect as the main magnets.

The Hall sensors are normally mounted on a PC board and fixed to the enclosure
cap on the non-driving end. This enables users to adjust the complete assembly
of Hall sensors, to align with the rotor magnets, in order to achieve the best
performance. Based on the physical position of the Hall sensors, there are two
versions of output. The Hall sensors may be at 60 or 120 phase shift to each
other. Based on this, the motor manufacturer defines the commutation sequence,
which should be followed when controlling the motor.

Anatomy of a BLDC:

10

A simplified illustration of BLDC motor construction is shown in figure1. A

brushless motor is constructed with a permanent magnet rotor and wire wound
stator poles. Electrical energy is converted to mechanical energy by the magnetic
attractive forces between the permanent magnet rotor and a rotating magnetic field
induced in the wound stator poles.

Figure 1
In this example there are three electromagnetic circuits connected at a common
point. Each electromagnetic circuit is split in the center, thereby permitting the
permanent magnet rotor to move in the middle of the induced magnetic field. Most
BLDC motors have a three-phase winding topology with star connection. A motor
with this topology is driven by energizing 2 phases at a time.
The static alignment shown in Figure 2, is that which would be realized by creating
an electric current flow from terminal A to B, noted as path 1 on the schematic in
Figure 1. The rotor can be made to rotate clockwise 60 degrees from the A to B
alignment by changing the current path to flow from terminal C to B, noted as path
2 on the schematic. The suggested magnetic alignment is used only for illustration
purposes because it is easy to visualize. In practice, maximum torque is obtained
when the permanent magnet rotor is 90 degrees away from alignment with the
stator magnetic field.

11

Figure 2 :sensor output Vs drive timing

The key to BLDC commutation is to sense the rotor position, then energize the
phases that will produce the most amount of torque. The rotor travels 60 electrical
degrees per commutation step. The appropriate stator current path is activated
when the rotor is 120 degrees from alignment with the corresponding stator
magnetic field, and then deactivated when the rotor is 60 degrees from alignment,
at which time the next circuit is activated and the process repeats. Commutation for
the rotor position, shown in Figure 1, would be at the completion of current path 2
and the beginning of current path 3 for clockwise rotation. Commutating the
electrical connections through the six possible combinations, numbered 1 through
6, at precisely the right moments will pull the rotor through one electrical
revolution.
In the simplified motor of Figure 1, one electrical revolution is the same as one
mechanical revolution. In actual practice, BLDC motors have more than one of

12

the electrical circuits shown, wired in parallel to each other, and a corresponding
multi-pole permanent magnetic rotor. For two circuits there are two electrical
revolutions per mechanical revolution, so for a two circuit motor, each electrical
commutation phase would cover 30 degrees of mechanical rotation.
Sensored Commutation:
In figure2 we have shown sensor output and corresponding required motor drive
voltages. The numbers at the top of Figure 2 correspond to the current phases
shown in Figure 1. It is apparent from Figure 2 that the three sensor outputs
overlap in such a way as to create six unique three-bit codes corresponding
to each of the drive phases. The numbers shown around the peripheral of the motor
diagram in Figure 1 represent the sensor position code. The north pole of the rotor
points to the code that is output at that rotor position. The numbers are the sensor
logic levels where the Most Significant bit is sensor C and the Least Significant bit
is sensor A. Each drive phase consists of one motor terminal driven high, one
motor terminal driven low, and one motor terminal left floating.

Figure 3 :Three phase bridge

13

A simplified drive circuit is shown in Figure 3. Individual drive controls for the
high and low drivers permit high drive, low drive, and floating drive at each motor
terminal. One precaution that must be taken with this type of driver circuit is that
both high side and low side drivers must never be activated at the same time. Pullup and pull-down resistors must be placed at the driver inputs to ensure that the
drivers are off immediately after a microcontoller RESET, when the
microcontroller outputs are configured as high impedance inputs.
Another precaution against both drivers being active at the same time is called
dead time control. When an output transitions from the high drive state to the low
drive state, the proper amount of time for the high side driver to turn off must be
allowed to elapse before the low side driver is activated. Drivers take more time to
turn off than to turn on, so extra time must be allowed to elapse so that both drivers
are not conducting at the same time. Notice in Figure 3 that the high drive period
and low drive period of each output, is separated by a floating drive phase period.
This dead time is inherent to the three phase BLDC drive scenario, so special
timing for dead time control is not necessary. The BLDC commutation sequence
will never switch the high-side device and the low-side device in a phase, at the
same time.
Hence sensored commutation can be summarised as shown below. Here
commutation sequencer may be any logical ICs like microcontroller
microprocessors etc.

14

15

16

CHAPTER 6
REALIZATION LOGIC
At this point we are ready to start building the motor commutation control code.
Commutation consists of linking the input sensor state with the corresponding
drive state. This is best accomplished with a state table and a table offset pointer.
The sensor inputs will form the table offset pointer, and the list of possible output
drive codes will form the state table. Code development will be performed with a
PIC16F877 .
I have arbitrarily assigned PORTC as the motor drive port and PORTE as the
sensor input port. PORTC was chosen as the driver port because the ICD demo
board also has LED indicators on that port so we can watch the
slow speed commutation drive signals without any external test equipment.
Each driver requires two pins, one for high drive and one for low drive, so six pins
of PORTC will be used to control the six motor drive MOSFETS. Each sensor
requires one pin, so three pins of PORTE will be used to read the current state of
the motors three-output sensor. The sensor state will be linked to the drive state
by using the sensor input code as a binary offset to the drive table index. The
sensor states and motor drive states from Figure 2 are tabulated in Table 1.

Sorting Table 1 by sensor code binary weight results in Table 2. Activating the motor drivers, according to
a state table built from Table 2, will cause the motor of Figure 1 to rotate clockwise.

17

Counter clockwise rotation is accomplished by driving current through the motor

coils in the direction opposite of that for clockwise rotation.ie. the high potential
coil side should be made low and viseversa. table 3 was constructed by swapping
all the high and low drives of Table 2. Activating the motor coils, according to a
state table built from Table 3, will cause the motor to rotate counter clockwise.
Phase numbers inTable 3 are preceded by a slash denoting that the EMF is opposite
that of the phases in Table 2.

18

IMPLEMENTATION ALGORITHM:
Step1: START
Step2:INPUT THE CURRENT SENSOR STATE
Step3:CHECK WHETHER FORWARD OR REVERSE ROTATION
Step4: IF REVERSE ROTATION GOTO STEP6
Step5: GET THE DRIVE STATE FROM FORWARD ROTATION DRIVE
TABLE INDEX
GOTO STEP7
Step6: GET THE DRIVE STATE FROM REVERSE ROTATION DRIVE
TABLE INDEX
Step7:OUTPUT THE DRIVE STATE
Step8:CHECK WHETHER STOP SIGNAL ACTIVE IF NOT GOTO STEP2
Step9: STOP

19

COMMUTATION CODE SEGMENT:

20

CHAPTER 7
SENSOR LESS COMMUTATION
It is possible to determine when to commutate the motor drive voltages by sensing
some other variables other than position like Bemf .these methods are collectively
termed as sensorless commutation methods. The obvious cost advantage of
sensorless control is the elimination of the Hall position sensors. There are several
disadvantages to sensorless controls:
The motor must be moving at a minimum rate to generate sufficient back EMF to
be sensed
Abrupt changes to the motor load can cause the BEMF drive loop to go out of
lock
The BEMF voltage can be measured only when the motor speed is within a
limited range of the ideal commutation rate for the applied voltage
Commutation at rates faster than the ideal rate will result in a discontinuous
motor response
If low cost is a primary concern and low speed motor operation is not a
requirement and the motor load is not expected to change rapidly then sensorless
control may be the better choice for your application.
For the BLDC motors, which have the SMPM structure, the Hall effect position
sensors are usually used to identify which phase is to be commutated to maintain
the electrical synchronism. For high performance drives, high-resolution optical
encoders or resolvers are typically used. Various methods of sensorless operation
for BLDC motors have been seen in the literature. These sensorless drive
techniques can be grouped into four categories:
1. Back-EMF based methods.
2. Flux calculation based methods.
3. Observer based methods.
4. Other methods.

21

1. Bemf Methods:
In these methods weare making use of developed Bemfs in the stator
windings to calculate the commutation instances. There are three methods grouped
under Bemf techniques. They are
Bemf Sensing Method
Bemf Integration Method
Third Harmonic Sensing Method
a) Bemf Sensing Method:
It is possible to determine when to commutate the motor drive voltages by
sensing the back EMF voltage on an undriven motor terminal during one of the
drive phases. For typical operation of a BLDC motor, the phase current and backEMF should be aligned to generate constant torque.
The current commutation point shown in Fig. 2 can be estimated by the zero
crossing point (ZCP) of back-EMFs and a 30 phase shift . To detect the ZCPs, the
phase back-EMF should be monitored during the silent phase. To monitor the
phase back-EMF during the silent phase, the terminal voltages were low-pass
filtered first. Three low-pass filters (LPFs) are utilised to eliminate higher
harmonics caused by the inverter switching. Each output of the three filters on the
terminal-to-motor neutral voltages is connected to a wye-connected resistive
network.

22

The time delay of LPFs will limit the high speed operation capability of the
BLDC machine. At the point where a filtered terminal voltage crosses the neutral
point voltage, back-EMF of that phase becomes zero and that point corresponds to
the transition at the output of a comparator. Based on the comparator outputs phase
currents are commutated. On the other hand, in some cases the analogue LPFs are
not utilised. The terminal voltages were sampled through the analogue-to-digital
(A/D) converters only when the upper switch is on. The instance when the sampled
values match with half of the DC link voltage is the ZCP of the back-EMF. Based
on the time duration of present and previous zero crossings, the commutation
instants are estimated. This method is applied for household air-conditioner
compressor drives.

Figure 3:Bemf equivalent diagram

23

Figure 3 shows the equivalent circuit of the motor with coils B and C driven while
coil A is undriven and available for BEMF measurement. At the commutation
frequency the L's are negligible. The R's are assumed to be equal. The L and R
components are not shown in the A branch since no significant current flows in this
part of the circuit so those components can be ignored.

Block diagram representation of Bemf sensing method

b) Bemf Integration Method:

In this method, the commutation instant is determined by integration of the silent
phases back-EMF . The basic idea of this method is that the integrated area of the
back-EMFs shown in Fig. 4 is approximately the same at all speeds.

24

The integration starts when the silent phases back-EMF crosses zero. When the
integrated value reaches a pre-defined threshold value, which corresponds to a
commutation point, the phase current is commutated.
If flux weakening operation is required, current advance can be achieved by
changing the threshold voltage. The integration approach is less sensitive to
switching noise and automatically adjusts for speed changes, but low speed
operation is poor due to the error accumulationand offset voltage problems from
the integration.
c) Third Harmonic Sensing Method:
This method utilises the third harmonic of the back-EMF to determine the
commutation instants of the BLDC motors. Since the third harmonic of the backEMF has three times greater frequency, this method is not as sensitive to time
delay of a LPF, which is a problem of the terminal voltage sensing method. The
back-EMF terms can be represented using the Fourier expression as

25

Summing the three phase back-EMFs

If each phase inductance is constant at any rotor position, from the summation of
three-terminal to neural voltages, the third harmonic of the back-EMF can be

measured as

The summed terminal voltage includes only the triplent harmonics since the
summation of the three phase currents is zero. Note that the third harmonic term
dominates the summed voltage. Now, to obtain commutation instants, the summed
voltage is integrated as (4).

26

As illustrated in Fig. 5, the zero crossings of the integratedthird harmonic

flux linkage are commutation points. To sense the third harmonic of the back-EMF,
an external hardware circuit is required. The third harmonicbased method has a
wider speed range and smaller phase delay than the terminal voltage sensing
method. However, at low speed, the integration process can cause a serious
position error, as noise and offset error from sensing can be accumulated for a
relatively long period of time.

2. Flux Linkage Method:

In this method, the flux linkage is estimated from measured voltages and
currents and then the position is predicted by polynomial curve fitting . The
fundamental idea is to take the voltage equation of the machine

where V is the input voltage, i is the current, R is the resistance and l is the flux
linkage, respectively. Then, the flux linkage can be calculated as

27

The rotor position can be estimated based on the initial position, machine
parameters and relationship between the flux linkage and rotor position. At the
very beginning of the integration the initial flux linkage has to be known precisely
to estimate the next step flux linkages. This means that the rotor has to be at a
known position at the start. Fig. 6 shows the block diagram of the position
estimation algorithm. The current loop for current estimation 1 is used for
prediction, estimation and the correction of the position. The other current loop for
current estimation 2 is used for correction of the calculated flux linkage values.
This method also has an error accumulation problem for integration at low speeds.
The method involves lots of computation and is sensitive to the parameter
variation.

3. Free Wheeling Diode Conduction Mehod:

This method utilises current flowing through a freewheeling diode in silent
phase . Right after the ZCP of the back-EMF in the silent phase, a tiny current is
flowing through the freewheeling diode during the active phase switches are turned
off under alternate chopper control. This silent phase current starts to flow
approximately at the time where the back-EMF of the open phase crosses zero.
When this current intgated value reaches the predefined value corresponding to 30 0
its a commutation point and proper control signal is generated by drive.

28

This method also has a position error of commutation points in the transient
state as other back-EMF based methods. The most serious drawback of this method
is the use of six isolated power supplies for the comparator circuitry to detect
current flowing in each freewheeling diode. The drawback prohibits this method
from practical applications. This method is not used nowadays.
4.Observer Methods:
In this category, various types of observers are used to estimate rotor position. The
fundamental idea is that a mathematical model of the machine is utilised and it
takes measured inputs of the actual system and produces estimated outputs. Then,
the error between the estimated outputs and measured quantities is fed back into
the system model to correct the estimated values. The biggest advantage of using
observers is that all of the states in the system model can be estimated including
states that are hard to obtain by measurements.
Observers have been implemented in sensorless PM motor drive systems.
The reduced-order observers and disturbance observers are utilised to estimate
back-EMFs. Also, sliding-mode observers are applied to estimate the rotor position
utilising d and q axis stator currents.
Matsui described the method utilising the dq based mathematical model and
measured dq currents and voltages. The error between the estimated dq voltages
and measured dq voltages derives rotor position error, which is used to estimate
rotor position and speed. The method cannot estimate rotor position at standstill
and hence the forced alignment method is initially applied to lock the rotor in a
desired position. In a similar model-based method is utilised for a surfacemounted PM machine that has negligibly small inductance variation. In this
method, the error between measured dq currents and estimated dq currents based
on the machine model is used to estimate rotor position and speed to drive a directdrive washing machine. Since the parameter variation degrades the sensorless drive
performance, the parameters are updated based on the temperature estimation. The
temperature is estimated through a stator resistance when the motor speed is zero
and the parameters are corrected based on the relationship between the temperature
and parameters.

29

Most of the observer-based methods are used for PM AC motors, which

have sinusoidal back-EMF and need continuous rotor position. Typically, for the
BLDC motors, which require just six position points for one electrical cycle, the
continuous position information from the observer is not necessary. But, for special
purposes such as flux weakening operation based on advanced angle control, the
positions between commutation points will be required.

CHAPTER 8
RECENT ADVANCEMENTS

30

In many practical applications for non-salient, surface mounted BLDC

motors, the back-EMF based methods are commonly utilised to estimate the rotor
position. These back-EMF based methods show good performance above a certain
speed but suffer at low speeds since the back-EMF voltage is proportional to speed.
Therefore the performance of the most conventional sensorless drive methods is
degraded in low speeds and the rotor position cannot be detected at standstill if
there is no significant saliency. In this section, recent advancements in the
sensorless BLDC motor drives will be introduced based on the literature published
after year 2000.
A low-cost version of the terminal voltage sensing method is applied for
applications that do not require rapid acceleration or deceleration. Only one
terminal voltage is sensed and goes through an integrator to detect zero crossings.
The time interval of zero crossings, Tk, corresponds to 180 0 by electrical angle.
Therefore Tk/3 will be the commutation interval. Based on the interpolation, sixstep commutation instants are decided. The simplified terminal voltage sensing
method will be limited to apply only for applications where speed variation is not
frequently required.
For terminal voltage detection methods, LPFs are typically used causing
phase delays. In the conventional ZCP detection methods, noisy terminal voltages
pass through LPFs first and they are compared with a threshold value using a
comparator to detect back-EMF zero crossings. In recen years authors use ZCP
detection without LPF.Since no LPF is used, the comparator output signal
includes false zero crossings. Therefore a predefined logic operation is used instead
of analogue LPFs to digitally eliminate the false zero crossings. With the method,
high speed ranges of sensorless BLDC drives can be extended compared to
conventional zero crossing detection methods which use the LPF.
As stated earlier Bemf methods are not good for operation below certain
speed. Recently people evolved certain HFsignal injection techniques that are
used to detect rotor position even at standstill.For all signal injection-based
methods, a certain amount of saliency is required to detect rotor position. Thus, the
high frequency signal injection method is straightforward for salient PM motors
having rotors with buried or inset PMs. However, recently, several high-frequency
injection methods with improved performance for small saliency PM motors are
reported.

31

In the high-frequency impedance difference between the d and q axes of a BLDC

motor is used to detect rotor position. With this method, low speed sensorless
operation, including standstill, is reported. The method is applied for a surfacemounted PM BLDC motor, which usually has very small saliency. The small
impedance variation, due to the magnetic saliency, is amplified through the
injected high-frequency voltage. When the injection frequency is sufficiently
higher than the rotor speed of the BLDC motor, the high-frequency
components of the voltage equation can be given as

where vr dsh and ir qsh are d axis high-frequency voltage and current in the actual
synchronous reference frame, respectively. Ldh and rdh are d axis inductance and
resistance at the injected high frequency, respectively. Then, authors utilised the
modified high-frequency voltage equation in steady-state as

where zrdh and vh are d axis high-frequency impedance and injected frequency,
respectively. Equation (8) can be transformed to the estimated synchronous
reference frame considering the rotor position estimation error as

where, u r, zavg and zdiff, are the rotor position estimation error, the average of d and
q axes high-frequency impedances and the difference between d and q axes highfrequency impedances, respectively.
When the high-frequency voltage is injected on the d-axis only, the resultant d and
q axes high-frequency currents contain the indication of rotor position estimation
error as
32

where Ldiff is the difference between the d and q axes inductances at high
frequency. Since the q axis high-frequency current becomes zero when the
estimated position is zero, the q axis high-frequency current shown in (10) is
utilised to estimate the rotor position.
The updated method is reported on 2007 without highfrequency signal
injection. The authors utilise a rotor position tracking PI controller to estimate
the rotor speed, which is used to control the rotor position error to zero. The PI
controller gain has a variable structure for zero and low-speed operation.
Another recent trend is the use of matrix converter drives for BLDC
motors. In 2006, a sensorless drive method using a matrix converter is reported.
The authors adopt an existing highfrequency voltage injection method to highlight
the inherent advantage of applying the matrix converter to sensorless drives. Under
regular voltage source inverter with PWM, the measured quantities (especially
terminal voltage) are highly non-linear and need filtering. On the other hand, the
matrix converter can provide almost linear relationship between the demanded and
actual output voltages. The converter linearity can bring advantages for existing
sensorless methods especially at the low speed region.
Although the matrix converter is utilised with a signal-injection method for a
small saliency motor, the characteristic of the matrix converter can benefit other
existing sensorless drive methods, which suffer at low speeds. However, in
practice, the higher system cost of the matrix converter will limit its use for lowcost sensorless drive applications, which represents most cases. Also, the output
voltage limitation (around 86% of the input voltage) of matrix converters will
reducethe power density of the system.
CHAPTER 9
FUTURE TRENDS

33

Several Asian countries such as Japan, have implemented the variable speed
PM motor drives for energy saving applications such as air conditioners and
refrigerators since the past two decades. On the other hand, the US has kept on
using cheap induction motor drives, which have around 10% lower efficiency than
adjustable PM motor drives for energy saving applications. Therefore recently, the
pain of energy prices for customers spurs higher demands of variable speed PM
motor drives. Also, recent rapid proliferation of motor drives into the automobile
industry, based on the hybrid synergy drives, generates a serious demand for high
efficient PM motor drives.
Based on all these driving factors, various sensorless drive schemes for
BLDC motors will open the way for full penetration of the BLDC motor drive into
various military and commercial applications.
Recently, the microprocessor technology has shown incredible
improvements and the operating speed of DSPs has been faster and faster.
Complicated control algorithms can now be easily implemented in a DSP with
high sampling and calculation frequency. The existing sensorlessdrive
techniques can be greatly improved utilising many of the recent advancements in
DSPs.
As addressed, in the most recent sensorless drive methods, rotor position is
estimated based on motor parameters and measured quantities. Since significant
BLDC motor parameter variation can occur by mass production, motor aging and
temperature variation during operation, the sensorless drive technique, with selftuning, which can compensate parameter variations, is required. Optimal
performance of BLDC machine drive cannot be achieved with a control-method
based on the rotor position obtained from a position sensor such as encoders or
Hall sensors that are insensitive to parameter variation.
New fast DSPs for motor drives can handle more complicated control
algorithms including the online parameter tuning. Also, adapting the artificial
intelligence control such as neural network and fuzzy logic & genetic
algorithms are more practical nowadays due to the faster DSP chips.The
combination of advanced DSP technology and sophisticated control will yield a
better sensorless BLDC drive that has higher performance than even conventional
motor drives with position Hall sensors in the near future.
CHAPTER 10
CONCLUSION
34

An overall look into position sensored and sensorless drives for BLDC
motors has been presented. The fundamentals of various methods have been
introduced as a useful reference for preliminary investigation of conventional
methods. The recent advances in the position sensorless control and the expected
future research works were also discussed.
To provide insight in sensorless drive techniques and their benefits,
classification of existing sensorless methods and newer methods were presented
with their merits and drawbacks. From the above discussion, it is obvious that the
sensorless control for BLDC motors can be utilised in a greater variety of
applications requiring higher performance. Further research is required such as
online self-tuning without position sensors to realise optimal performance.

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35

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37