Open loop Control of Permanent Magnet

Synchronous Motor using SVM

vipin.am@gmail.com
Calicut, India




Abstract Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motors (PMSM) are
good option for electric vehicles, hybrid electric vehicles and used
for many industrial, aerospace and domestic applications. This
paper presents hardware implementation of PMSM drive system
without using any position sensor. An open loop control is
implemented to operate PMSM at various speeds. Discussed
basic theory of space vector PWM for generating sinusoidal
voltage to motor and realised with 16 bit microcontroller .A three
phase inverter is designed and implemented to control 1 KW
outer rotor PMSM. The motor is started and operated at various
speeds by changing the inverter output frequency. Starting and
running characteristics of PMSM in open loop is observed and
discussed the results.
Keywords-Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor;openloop
control; space vector PWM; PMSM starting; Hardware
implementation;
I. INTRODUCTION
PMSM is most suited motor for automotive drive
applications because of its high power density and high
efficiency. It is used in Electric vehicles, hybrid electric
vehicles, plug-in electric vehicles and e bikes. It is also used for
domestic applications such as washing machines.
Permanent magnet motors are generally of two types.
Brushless DC motor with trapezoidal back EMF and Brushless
DC motor with sinusoidal back EMF. Permanent magnet
synchronous motor is a brushless motor with sinusoidal back
EMF. When the motor is rotated externally the back EMF
waveform measured at the terminals of PMSM will be
sinusoidal. Fig.1 shows the back emf waveformobserved in
oscilloscope when the motor is rotated externally at a speed of
767 rpm. Normally Brushless DC (BLDC) motor is excited by
trapezoidal input supply where on the other hand PMSM is
excited with sinusoidal input supply. Trapezoidal supply for
brushless DC motor creates torque ripple and audible noise [].
The torque ripple is less in PMSM motor with sinusoidal input
supply. Space vector Pulse width modulation (SVPWM) is
most popular for generating sinusoidal current for PMSM. It
has less Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) and more efficient
use of DC bus voltage when compared with sinusoidal PWM.
PMSM can be operated in six-step, field oriented control
(FOC) mode and v/f control. In which FOC is complex used
for high dynamic applications and needs continuous rotor
position, this increases control system cost. Six-step
commutation is simple and easy to implement. Among the
above mentioned controls V/f control can be implemented
without any position sensor. When PMSM not used for high
dynamic applications where the load is constant like fan and
pump applications open loop control can be used [3].


Fig. 1 PMSM back emf
II. PMSM STARTING AND SPEED CONTROL
Like a conventional synchronous motor PMSM do not have
any starting torque. It is observed that when PMSM directly
supplied fromthree phase 50 Hz supply motor fails to start
and produce vibration and audible noise. Further excitation
may result in damage of the motor winding since the motor
current is only limited by the stator winding resistance and it is
too small to limit the stator current. Line start PMSM has
damper winding in the rotor additional to the permanent
magnets which serves starting torque for PMSM as in the case
of a synchronous motor. Ref [5] deals with another starting
method using Hall Effect sensors, both PMSM and BLDC
supplied with hall sensor as an integral part of the motor to
detect the rotor flux position. PMSM is started with six-step
commutation with an inverter and after achieving desired
speed the switching scheme of the inverter changed to
generate sinusoidal currents. In this paper PMSM is started
without using any position sensor. The motor is initially
supplied with low frequency sinusoidal currents generated by
SVPWM inverter. This enables locking of stator magnetic
field with the rotor magnet field at starting. Then the
frequency of inverter gradually increased to desired frequency
corresponds to required speed. This synchronism can be
maintained up to desired speed unless a sudden load is
applied. Starting current can be limited by reduced voltage
starting and it decreases as the motor picks up the speed. The
motor should operate in synchronous speed determined by (1)
irrespective of load and input supply voltage variations.

P
f
N
s
120
= (1)
Where f is the supply frequency and P is the number of rotor
poles.

III. SPACE VECTOR PULSE WIDTH MODULATION
SVPWM is commonly used PWM control for PMSM inverter
due to its compatibility with Field oriented control. Space
vector modulation is based on the representation of three
phase quantities in - plane. The circuit of a three phase
three-leg voltage source inverter feeding PMSM without any
filter circuit is shown in Fig.2.


Fig. 2.PMSM fed by three phase inverter

The voltage source inverter shown in fig. 2 can assume only
eight distinct voltage states depending upon the switch
combinations. These voltage states are shown in Fig.3 as V
1
,
V
2
, V
3
, V
4
, V
5
and V
6.
Each states produce a non-zero output
voltage of magnitude of (2/3) V
dc ,
where V
dc
is the input DC
voltage to the inverter and these states are known as non-zero
switching states. The remaining two topologies V
7
and V
0

produce zero output voltage and are known as zero switching
states. These vectors divides - plane into six sectors.

The desired three phase voltages at the output of the inverter
is represented by an equivalent vector of magnitude V
ref

rotating in the counter clock wise direction as shown in Fig 3.
The time taken by V
ref
for one revolution is the same as the
fundamental time period of the output voltage.






Fig . 3 Space vector representation



A three phase balanced systemof voltages V
R
, V
y
and V
B
can
be converted in - frame as follows.

( )
3
2
B Y R
V V V
V

=

3
B Y
V V
V

=

Magnitude of reference voltage vector can be found by using
expression (3)
( ) ( )
2 2

V V V
ref
+ =
Angle of rotation of the reference vector measured fromV1
state in counter clockwise direction in radians is given by (4)
|
|
.
|

\
|
=

V
V
1
tan
Sector in which V
ref
is placed at any instant is identified
from angle of rotation . The modulation index (MI) of
SVPWM is given by (5)
|
|
.
|

\
|
=
dc
ref
V
V
MI 3
Dwelling time can be calculated as (7) (8) and (9)

( ) ( ) ) 7 ( sin
3
. . cos cos
3
. . sin *
(
(

|
.
|

\
|

|
.
|

\
|
=
pi
k
pi
k T MI T
z a


( ) ( ) ( ) ) 8 ( cos
3
1 sin sin
3
1 cos *
(
(

|
.
|

\
|

(

|
.
|

\
|
=
pi
k
pi
k T MI T
z b


b a z
T T T T =
0
(9)

Hence Vref at any instant can be constructed by (10)

0 0
T V T V T V V T
b b a a ref z
+ + = (10)

Where, (1/T
z
) is known as switching frequency and k
denotes sector number that varies from 1 to 6. Ta is the
dwelling time required for voltage stay in state V
a
, Tb is the
dwelling time required for voltage state V
b
and T
0
is the
dwelling time for voltage state V
0
and V
7
as indicated in Fig 4.

Fig. 4.Symmetrical switching pulses at 1 KHz

A symmetrical switching sequence is used to generate the
switching pulses for the inverter legs. Symmetrical pulses to
the upper legs of inverter are shown in Fig.4. Depending upon
the sector number suffix a and b varies from1-6. Switching
pulses to the lower switches are complementary of pulses
shown in fig.4.T
0
state can be switched by turning off either
all the upper leg switches or all lower leg switches and it is
recommended that to turn off both upper leg switches and
lower leg switches in each switching cycle to ensure even heat
dissipation for all inverter switches. Dwelling times varies for
every new value of reference vector and the total number of
switching cycle in each sector determines the resolution of
inverter output voltage.
IV. HARDWARE IMPLEMENTATION
A three phase inverter is designed consisting of control
isolation, driver and power circuit. Fig.5 shows hardware set
up for three phase inverter. SVPWM logic is realized with a
dsPIC33FJ128MC802 microcontroller. It has dedicated motor
control PWM module which makes SVPWM pulse generation
easier. Isolation between control and power circuit is provided
with an opto-coupler TLP250 and the driver circuit is designed
with IR2110 IC. Power circuits consist of 6 MOSFET
(IRFP150N) capable of handling 40 A current at a maximum
voltage of 100V. A single 15V DC power supply is used for
TLP250 and IR2110 driver circuit and microcontroller
supplied from another 3.3 V DC supply. The inverter is
capable of controlling motor up to 3 KW with additional heat
sinks. Switching frequency is selected as 1 KHz and a dead
time of 4 microseconds is introduced between complementary
pulses. Switching frequency and dead time are configured in
microcontroller programming.


Fig. 5 Three phase inverter

Fig.6 shows a PMSM used for the experiment. It is an outer
rotor PMSM used for e bikes and electric scooters. In which
permanent magnets are arranged on the periphery of the rotor
frame and three phase stator winding is wound inside the
frame. Holes are provided in the rotor frame to dissipate heat
generated in the stator winding to ambient. The 1 KW motor
has 16 poles, rated DC voltage of 48 V, rated current of 28 A
and maximumspeed of 2800 rpm.



Fig. 6 Outer rotor PMSM

V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
The inverter initially tested with three phase resistive load up
to 10 A at voltage of 48 V before feeding to PMSM.

A. SVPWM three phase inverter
Fig 7 shows the symmetrical pulses for upper legs switches
when the reference vector is in sector 5.
dsPIC microcontroller
Isolation and driver circuit
Power circuit

Fig. 7 Symmetrical switching pulse at 1 KHz

Fig 8 shows the inverter phase voltage measured across star
connected resistive load. Phase voltages are measured between
load neutral and inverter output terminals. It has states of
+(2/3) V
dc
, +(1/3) V
dc
, 0, -(2/3) V
dc
and - (1/3) V
dc
and a
phase shift of 120 degree between each phase is obtained.


Fig.8. Inverter Phase voltage

B. Interfacing of PMSM with three phase inverter

PMSM is started by giving variable frequency supply with
three phase inverter. Frequency of the inverter is gradually
varied from 0.15 Hz to maximumof 50 Hz to achieve the
coupling between stator and rotor magnetic field. Fig.9 shows
the increase in inverter phase voltage frequency with respect
to time. The motor is accelerated to its desired speed by
increasing frequency ramp in the microcontroller program.
The modulation index of the inverter is kept at 0.8 with a V
dc

of magnitude 48 V.




Fig. 9 Frequency variation in phase voltage during starting

Motor is operated in different speeds by varying the
inverter output frequency. Speed is measured with non contact
optical tachometer and it matches with the calculated
synchronous speed as indicated in Table.1

Table. I
Inverter
Frequency(Hz)
Synchronous speed
(rpm)
(P=16)
Measured
speed(rpm)
0.15 1.125 1
6.95 56 52.125
18.4 138 139.8
45.5 340 340
50.5 378 379

Starting current is reduced by controlling DC voltage
at starting. When the motor achieves speed current drawn
from the DC supply also reduces. Starting is achieved without
using any position sensors. Fig.10 shows the motor phase
current measured at a speed of 139 rpm and 18 Hz. The
current waveform is sinusoidal in shape as expected. The
frequency which is required to run PMSM its maximumspeed
is 373 Hz which is beyond the range of the current SVPWM
logic implemented in microcontroller.


Fig. 10 Motor Phase current
The motor behavior is unstable when suddenly loaded, it
fall out of synchronism and comes to standstill. During
acceleration, when the time for frequency ramp in phase
voltage is reduced time required for reaching desired speed also
reduces. Motor is tested with by changing frequency ramp for
quick starting and it is found that beyond a certain limit the
motor looses its synchronism and fails to start. When the
supply is withdrawn motor comes to standstill very quickly due
the presence of permanent magnet which provides braking
torque.
VI. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE SCOPE
Open loop performance of PMSM is studied. A three phase
inverter is designed and implemented to control 1 KW outer
rotor PMSM. Sinusoidal currents are generated by space
vector logic and realized with a 16 bit microcontroller. Motor
is started by giving low frequency supply initially and
gradually increased to corresponding operating frequency to
get starting torque. PMSM is operated at different speeds by
varying the inverter output frequency without any position
sensor. It is found that motor is running in synchronous speed
determined by the supply frequency. This paper provides
platformfor implementing other control technique of PMSM.

Currently open loop control of PMSM is implemented
without using any position sensor. From the experimental
results it is found that PMSM is unstable in open loop mode
for high dynamic application where sudden load variation
occurs. This open loop control scheme can be implemented
with sensor less control in which initial rotor position difficult
to obtain as the back emf is proportional to speed. As the
motor picks the speed in open loop rotor position can be
estimated fromback-emf.

REFERENCES

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nd
south east
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th
digital signal
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th
signal processing education workshop,
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