Fundamental Of Electric

Drives EE 508

Dr. Himanshu Misra

himanshumisra@iitmandi.ac.in, Mobile No. 8887861081
 Content
• Control of electric drives

• Closed loop torque, Speed and position control

• Current and speed sensing

• Chopper controlled dc drives

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 Closed-Loop Control of DC Drives
• When the steady-state accuracy requirement cannot be satisfied in an open-loop
configuration the drive is operated in a closed-loop system.

• Additional feedback loops are provided to limit the parameters to safe or acceptable limits
and to improve the dynamic performance.

• The main focus is closed-loop variable speed drives, which are widely used in industry.

• The ratings of such drives range from as low as fractional kW to 10000 kW and more.

• Closed-loop rectifier drives are more widely used than chopper drives (scenario is changing).

• Mainly rectifier drives will be described here. The same- schemes are used in chopper
drives.

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SINGLE-QUADRANT VARIABLE-SPEED DRIVES
Armature Voltage Control at Constant Field
• A basic scheme of the closed-loop speed control system employing current limit control,
also known as parallel current control, is shown in figure.
• ωm* sets the speed reference.
• A signal proportional to the motor speed is obtained from the speed sensor.
• The speed sensor output is filtered to remove the
ac ripple and compared with the speed reference.
• The speed error is processed through a
speed controller.
• The output of the speed controller vc adjusts the
rectifier firing angle α to make the actual speed
close to the reference speed.
• The speed controller is usually a PI (proportional
and integral) controller and serves three purposes-
• Stabilizes the drive
• Adjusts the damping ratio at the desired value
makes the steady-state speed-error close to zero
by integral action, Drive with inner current control loop
• Filters out noise again due to the integral action. Figure: One quadrant closed-loop speed control
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SINGLE-QUADRANT VARIABLE-SPEED DRIVES
• In closed-loop control systems PD (proportional and differential) and PID (proportional,
integral, and differential) controllers are often used.
• But they are not preferred in converter drives because of the presence of substantial noise
and ripple in the current and speed feedback signals.

The drive employs current limit control.

• As long as la < Ix, where Ix, is the maximum permissible value of la, the current control loop
does not affect the drive operation.
• If la exceeds Ix, even by a small amount, a large output signal is produced by the threshold
circuit, the current control overrides the speed control,
• The speed error is corrected essentially at a constant current equal to the maximum
permissible value.
• When the speed reaches close to the desired value, la falls below Ix, the current control goes
out of action and speed control takes over.
• Thus in this scheme, at any given time the operation of the drive is mainly controlled either
by the speed control loop or the current control loop
• It is also called parallel current control.

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SINGLE-QUADRANT VARIABLE-SPEED DRIVES
Another scheme of closed-loop speed control is shown in figure.
• It employs an inner current control loop within an outer speed loop.
• The speed loop is essentially the same as just described for the current limit control.
• The speed error is processed through a PI controller which serves the same three purposes
just described.
• The output of the speed controller ec, is applied to a current limiter which sets the current
reference Ia* for the inner current control loop.

• The armature current la is sensed by a current

sensor, filtered, preferably by an active filter
to remove ripple, and compared with the
current reference Ia*.

• The current error is processed through a

PI controller which enables to achieve the
just-mentioned three objectives,
though it is not necessary to make the
steady-state current error close to zero. Drive with inner current control loop
Figure: One quadrant closed-loop speed control 6
SINGLE-QUADRANT VARIABLE-SPEED DRIVES
• The output of the current controller vc adjusts the converter firing angle such that the actual
speed is brought to a value set by the speed command ωm*.

• Any positive speed error, caused by either an increase in the speed command or an
increase in the load torque, produces a higher current reference Ia*.

• The motor accelerates due to an increase in la* to correct the speed error and finally settles
at a new Ia* which makes the motor torque equal to the load torque and the speed error
close to zero.

• For any large positive speed error, the current limiter saturates and the current reference Ia*
is limited to a value Iam*, and the drive current is not allowed to exceed the maximum
permissible value.

• The speed error is corrected at the maximum permissible armature current until the speed
error becomes small and the current limiter comes out of saturation.

• Now the speed error is corrected with la less than the permissible value.
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SINGLE-QUADRANT VARIABLE-SPEED DRIVES
• A negative speed error will set the current reference Ia* at a negative value.
• Since the motor current cannot reverse, a negative Ia* is of no use. It will however "charge"
the PI controller.
• When the speed error becomes positive the "charged" PI controller will take a longer time
to respond, causing unnecessary delay in the control action.
• The current limiter is therefore arranged to set a zero-current reference for negative speed
errors.

Since the speed control loop and the current control loop are in cascade, the inner current
control is also known as cascade control. It is also called current guided control. It is more
commonly used than the current-limit control because of the following advantages
1. It provides faster response to any supply voltage disturbance.
• This can be explained by considering the response of the two drives to a decrease in
the supply voltage.
• A decrease in the supply voltage reduces the motor current and torque.
• In the current-limit control, the speed falls because the motor torque is less than the
load torque which has not changed.
• The resulting speed error is brought to the original value by setting the rectifier firing
angle at a lower value.
• The response of the drive is mainly governed by its mechanical time constant.
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SINGLE-QUADRANT VARIABLE-SPEED DRIVES
• In the case of inner current control, the decrease in motor current, due to the decrease
in the supply voltage, produces a current error which changes the rectifier firing angle
to bring the armature current back to the original value.
• The transient response is now governed by the electrical time constant of the motor.
• Since the electrical time constant of a drive is much smaller compared to the
mechanical time constant, the inner current control provides a faster response to the
supply voltage disturbances.

2. As explained later, for certain firing schemes, the rectifier and the control circuit together
have a constant gain under continuous conduction.
• The drive is designed for this gain to set the damping ratio at 0.707, which gives an
overshoot of 5 percent.
• Under discontinuous conduction, the gain reduces. The higher the reduction is in the
conduction angle, the greater the reduction is in the gain.
• The drive response becomes sluggish in discontinuous conduction and progressively
deteriorates as the conduction angle reduces.
• If an attempt is made to design the drive for discontinuous conduction operation, the
drive is likely to be oscillatory or even unstable for continuous conduction.
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SINGLE-QUADRANT VARIABLE-SPEED DRIVES
• The inner current control loop provides a closed loop around the rectifier and the
control circuit
• Therefore, the variation of their gain has much less affect on the drive performance.
• Hence, the transient response of the drive with the inner current loop is superior to
that with the current-limit control.

3. In the current-limit control, the current must first exceed the permissible value before the
current-limit action can be initiated.
• Since the firing angle can be changed only at discrete intervals; substantial current
overshoot can occur before the current limiting becomes effective.

Small motors are more tolerant to high transient currents. (small J*dω/dt)
• Therefore, to obtain a fast transient response, much higher transient currents are allowed
by selecting a larger size rectifier.
• The current regulation is then needed only for abnormal values of current. In such cases
because of the simplicity, current-limit control is employed.

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SINGLE-QUADRANT VARIABLE-SPEED DRIVES
Both the schemes have different responses for the increase and decrease in the speed
command.

• A decrease in speed command at the most can make the motor torque zero; it cannot
be reversed as braking is not possible.

• The drive decelerates mainly due to the load torque. When load torque is low, the
response to a decrease in the speed command will be slow.

• These drives are therefore suitable for applications with large load torques, such as
paper and printing machines, pumps, and blowers.

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SINGLE-QUADRANT VARIABLE-SPEED DRIVES
Field Weakening
• The schemes of figure can provide speed control up to base speed.
• For speed control above base speed, field control must be combined with armature voltage
control. Preferably, speed control from zero to base speed
should be done at the maximum field by armature voltage
control,
• Control above base speed should be done by field
weakening at the rated armature voltage.
• This strategy can be approximately implemented using the
scheme shown in cascade scheme.
• This is an inner current control scheme with an additional loop
for the field control.
• The field current is controlled by a controlled rectifier.
• In the field control loop, the back emf E = Va- IaRa is compared
with a reference voltage E* which is chosen to be between 0.85
to 0.95 of the rated armature voltage. The higher value is used
for motors with a low armature circuit resistance. Closed loop armature control with field weakening
Figure: One quadrant closed-loop speed control
• For speeds below base speed, the field controller saturates (due to fix ref and constant
error) due to a large value of current for motor operation below base speed 12
SINGLE-QUADRANT VARIABLE-SPEED DRIVES
• When close to base speed, the field controller comes out of saturation. Now if the reference
speed ωm* is set for a speed above base speed, a positive speed error eωm is produced and
the current reference Ia* is set for a higher value.
• The firing angle of the armature rectifier is reduced to initially increase Va. The motor
accelerates, the back emf E increases, and the field control loop error ef decreases,
decreasing the field current.
• The motor speed continues to Increase, In the process decreasing the field current until the
motor speed is set at the value demanded by ωm* .
• Since the speed error eωm wilI now be small, Va will return to a value close to the original
value.
• Thus, speed control above base speed will be obtained by the field weakening with the
armature terminal voltage maintained near the rated value.
In the field weakening region, the drive responds very slowly due to the large field time
constant.
• Field forcing is sometimes used to improve the transient response, but then the control
becomes complex.
• One can use a half-controlled rectifier but a fully controlled rectifier is usually preferred.
• Due to the ability to reverse the voltage, a fully controlled rectifier can reduce the field
current much faster than a half-controlled rectifier. 13
SINGLE-QUADRANT VARIABLE-SPEED DRIVES
Details of Various Blocks of Closed-Loop Drives
• Speed Sensing

• Current Sensing

• PI Controller

• Saturation block

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FOUR-QUADRANT VARIABLE-SPEED DRIVES
• Drive Employing Armature Reversal by a Contactor

• Drive Employing a Dual-Converter with Non-simultaneous Control

• Drive Employing a Dual-Converter with Simultaneous Control

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 Reference
• Gopal K. Dubey, “Power Semiconductor controlled drives” Printice Hall International
Editions-1989.

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Thanks

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