IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION, VOL. 17, NO.

1, MARCH 2002 85

Estimating the Parameters of Induction Machines at

Standstill
Cursino Brandão Jacobina, Senior Member, IEEE, João Edgar Chaves Filho, and
Antonio Marcus Nogueira Lima, Member, IEEE

Abstract—This paper presents a method to determine the con-

tinuous-time parameters of induction machines which are neces-
sary to implement the field-oriented control strategy. This method
does not require the use of any mechanical devices or speed mea-
surement sensor and it is conceived to be used during the auto-com-
missioning of the drive-system. The estimation of the stator resis-
tance is based on the dynamic model of the machine considering
that the variables are dc quantities. The estimation of the stator
transient inductance, the stator inductance, and the rotor time con-
stant, are based on the dynamic model of the machine. The exper-
imental results which are presented demonstrate the feasibility of
the proposed method.
Index Terms—Induction machine, parameter estimation.

I. INTRODUCTION

T HE USE of system identification techniques in the char-

acterization of an induction machine has been reported
by many research teams [1]–[8]. By executing the no-load and
locked rotor tests [9], all the parameters can be determined.
However, this implies some kind of approximations and requires
special procedures that are relatively difficult to be automati-
cally implemented in a standard ac drive-system.
Some previous works have discussed the estimation of the
machine parameters in standstill [6]–[8]. Willis et al. [6] pro-
posed a frequency domain test to determine the machine pa-
rameters. Seok et al. [7] proposed a parameter identification
procedure to determine the rotor resistance , the rotor time
constant , the stator inductance , and the stator transient in-
ductance by using several tests implemented with a pulse
width modulated inverter controlled by the indirect rotor flux
oriented control technique. To start-up the procedure an initial
estimate of some parameters is calculated from the nameplate
data and the estimation of the rotor time constant is determined
by using a nonlinear technique. Ribeiro et al. [8] proposed a
linear least-squares approach to estimate , , the stator in-
ductance, , and .
This paper is based on a previous work of the authors [8].
However, in this work a new signal is used to maintain the ma-
chine in standstill. Besides, a sensitivity study of the models is
accomplished to determine the parameters which can be more
Manuscript received November 19, 1999. This work was supported in part by
the Conselho National de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)
and the Fundação Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Supe-
rior (CAPES).
C. B. Jacobina and A. M. N. Lima are with Laboratório de Eletrônica Indus-
trial e Acionamento de Máquinas, Departamento de Engenharia Elétrica, Uni-
versidade Federal da Paraíba, Paraíba, Brasil (e-mail: jacobina@dee.ufpb.br).
J. E. Chaves Filho is with the Departamento de Eletricidade, Universidade
Federal do Amazonas, Amazonas, Brasil.
Publisher Item Identifier S 0885-8969(02)01499-7.
0885–8969/02$17.00 © 2002 IEEE
Fig. 1. AC drive system.
easily estimated. The parameter estimation procedure is based
on a linear least-squares technique. The linear model is derived
from the dynamic model of the machine for the standstill op-
erating condition. Particular attention is given to the definition
of the excitation voltage waveform that is used in the estima-
tion procedure. This excitation waveform supply all the machine
phases with symmetry. The method does not require the
use of any mechanical apparatus or speed measurement sensor,
so it is indicated to be used in the autocommissioning of the
drive-system.
II. AC DRIVE SYSTEM
In the characterization of the electrical machine as discussed
in this paper it is assumed that the induction motor is part of
a microcomputer ac drive system, as shown in Fig. 1. The
drive system is composed of a standard voltage source-inverter,
a three-phase induction motor and a microcomputer, whose
software controls the overall functioning of the drive.
III. MACHINE DYNAMIC MODEL
For the purposes of the present investigation the induction
machine is assumed to be described by a stator reference frame
model given by
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
86 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION, VOL. 17, NO. 1, MARCH 2002

The variables and parameters are defined as follows.

(13)
stator voltage vector;
stator current vector;
stator flux vector; (14)
rotor current vector referred to the stator;
rotor flux vector referred to the stator;
shaft speed;
stator inductance; V. EXPERIMENT DESIGN
magnetizing inductance;
rotor inductance referred to the stator; In the present paper two types of exciting signals have been
stator resistance; employed in the parameter estimation tests. In the case of Model
rotor resistance referred to the stator; a simple dc voltage waveform is used to supply the machine.
operator ; In the case of Model , a more persistently exciting signal is
imaginary unit. required. It is possible, for example, to supply the machine with
the six-steps voltage waveform [Fig. 2(b)], but in this case it
IV. ESTIMATION MODELS is necessary to use mechanical devices to keep the machine at
standstill. This paper discusses a special voltage waveform that
The use of linear least-squares estimation techniques requires keeps the machine at standstill without any mechanical appa-
the model of the system under study to be written as a regression ratus. This waveform is synthesized by a specific stator voltage
equation like vector sequence that is employed for each cycle .
The voltage waveform for one of the machine phases is shown in
(5)
Fig. 2(a). Fig. 2(b) presents the six-step waveform for the same
where , and are the prediction vector, the regression phase to help the understanding of how that special sequence
matrix and the estimated parameter vector, respectively. has been synthesized.
From (1)–(4) it is possible to derive linear regression models This waveform can be generated either by using only active
like (5). The basic equations of the least-squares algorithm used and null vectors or by using some kind of pulse width modu-
to compute may be found in [10]. lation technique. In the case of the active and null vectors the
voltage waveform of the Fig. 2(a) is given by
A. Model : Estimation of
From (1)–(4) with dc supply the following regression
model may be written to estimate

(6)
In the above expression a term like means that
(7)
and are employed in this sequence for . Note that all
(8) the active vectors are used as well as the null vector. Fig. 2(c)
shows the voltage vectors generated by the inverter as well as
their sequencing (1 to 18) which correspond to the numbering
B. Model : Estimation of , and of Fig. 2(a).
Solving the model (1)–(4) for , assuming that the ma- With this waveform, the average stator voltage is zero at each
chine is at standstill and that is known (e.g., ob- interval, the average electromagnetic torque is close to zero
tained by Model ) one may derive the following regression and consequently the machine stays at standstill. In fact, in every
model: interval the average voltage applied is zero or pulsating,
i.e., the negative sequence equals the positive sequence. More-
(9) over, this voltage waveform has enough frequency harmonics to
persistently excite the machine. Note that the waveforms of the
other phases and are similar but phase-shifted of
(10)
rads to provide three-phase symmetry.
Fig. 3 presents the frequency spectrum of the voltage wave-
(11) form shown in Fig. 2(a). It is considered that the fundamental
frequency of the special waveform is 5 Hz. Observe that the
where is the leakage factor which is given by spectrum is concentrated around the fundamental frequency of
, and . the waveform.
From the parameter vector given in (11) one may determine The signals , , , , and are obtained by
, and by measuring the three-phase quantities. The signals are filtered
by second order analog filters and converted to digital words
(12) through analog–digital converters. The derivative terms ,
, , , , , and are obtained by digital
JACOBINA et al.: ESTIMATING THE PARAMETERS OF INDUCTION MACHINES AT STANDSTILL 87

Fig. 4. Sensitivity of the Model B . Point 0 . Solid 0 . Dashdot 0 .

TABLE I
MACHINE PARAMETERS

Equation (15) represents an analog third-order low-pass filter

where is the cut-off frequency of the filter.

VI. PARAMETER SENSITIVITY

Fig. 2. Voltage waveforms and dq voltage plane.
The analysis of the sensitivity of the estimation models is
very important for determining how easy is to estimate a given
parameter.
The output variable of the proposed estimation models
is the weighted sum of the parameters. The weights are the
components of the regression vector like shown, for instance,
in (5). Then, , that represents the sensitivities with
respect to the parameters, is directly determined from these
weights. In this section, the sensitivity of Model with respect
to , and is investigated. Fig. 4 shows

and

which weights the components of the parameter vector . As it

can be seen from Fig. 4, the sensitivity of the model with respect
to increases with the frequency and it is always higher than
the sensitivities with respect to and . This indicates that
for high frequencies it is easier to estimate than and .
However, for low frequencies the sensitivities with respect to
Fig. 3. Frequency spectrum of the voltage waveforms proposed. , and are almost the same.

VII. EXPERIMENT RESULTS

filtering. These filters are designed by obtaining the dis-
crete-time equivalent of The experimental set-up is shown in Fig. 1. The drive system
in controlled through a PC-Pentium equipped with dedicated
plug-in boards to measure currents and voltages. The drive
(15)
system has five analog channels which permits to acquire
88
Fig. 5. dq currents waveforms and dq current plane.
TABLE II
COMPARISON OF THE PARAMETERS DETERMINED VIA STANDARD TEST
PROCEDURES WITH THE ESTIMATED PARAMETERS
simultaneously five analog signals with resolution of 10 bits.
Each analog channel consists of a Hall effect sensor followed
by a pre-conditioning circuitry, an anti-aliasing filter and analog
to digital converter. For the presented experimental tests four
analog channels have been employed to measure two of the
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION, VOL. 17, NO. 1, MARCH 2002
three phase currents and two of the three phase voltages. The
estimation algorithm employed to process the experimental
data was the recursive least-squares with the sampling time
equal to 50 s.
Table I present the complete set of parameters of the machine
used in the experimental tests and in the previous parameter
sensitivity study. These values were determined by executing
the standard test procedures, i.e., the no-load and locked rotor
tests.
The experimental tests have been carried out in the following
way. First of all, the is determined with Model . Secondly,
the machine is supplied by the special waveform voltage pre-
sented in Fig. 2(a) and Model is employed to determine the
other parameters.
Fig. 5 shows the waveforms of the stator currents as ob-
served in the test with special voltage waveform. As it can be
seen from the phase plane , the current vector changes
from one direction to another passing by zero, like the voltage
vector showed in Fig. 2(c).
The parameters estimated with Model , Model and those
determined by the standard tests are presented in Table II. Note
that the estimated parameter are consistent with the standard
parameters.
VIII. CONCLUSION
This paper has presented a method to determine the contin-
uous-time parameters of induction machines which are neces-
sary to implement the field-oriented control strategy, i.e., ,
, , and . The stator resistance is obtained from the dc ma-
chine model. The stator transient inductance, the stator induc-
tance, and the rotor time constant, are obtained by using the dy-
namic machine model and by supplying the induction machine
with a special exciting waveform. This voltage waveform pro-
vides persistent excitation while keeps the machine at standstill
without requiring the use of any mechanical apparatus. The pro-
posed approach does not require any device for speed measure-
ment and may be embedded within the drive software providing
a fully automated machine characterization procedure. So, the
present method is indicated to be used in the drive autocommis-
sioning phase. The experimental results have demonstrated the
feasibility of the proposed method.
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Cursino Brandão Jacobina (S’78–M’78–SM’98) was born on April 17, 1955,
in Correntes, Brazil. He received the B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from
Federal University of Paraíba, Paraíba, Brazil, and the Diplôme d’Etudes Ap-
profondies (DEA) and Ph.D. degrees from Institut National Polytechnique de
Toulouse, Toulouse, France, in 1978, 1980, and 1983, respectively.
Since 1978, he has been a Faculty Member in the Electrical Engineering De-
partment of the Federal University of Paraíba. His research interests include
electrical drives, power electronics, control systems, and system identification.
89
João Edgar Chaves Filho was born on March 13, 1953, in Boa Vista, Brazil. He
received the B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from Federal University of
Amazonas, Amazonas, Brazil and the M.Sc. degree from Federal University of
Paraíba, Paraíba, Brazil, in 1981 and 1991, respectively. He is currently pursuing
the Ph.D. degree at Federal University of Paraíba.
Since 1980, he has been a Faculty Member with the Electrical Engineering
Department at the Federal University of Amazonas. His research interests in-
clude electrical drives and system identification.
Antonio Marcus Nogueira Lima (S’77–M’89) was born on March 15, 1958,
in Recife, Brazil. He received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in electrical engi-
neering from Federal University of Paraíba, Paraíba, Brazil, in 1982 and 1985,
respectively. He received the Ph.D. degree from Institut National Polytechnique
de Toulouse, Toulouse, France, in 1989.
Since September 1983, he has been a Faculty Member in the Electrical Engi-
neering Department at Federal University of Paraíba. His research interests are
in the fields of electrical machines and drives, electronic instrumentation, con-
trol systems, and system identification.