Modern Electrical Machine and

Drive Systems – Sensorless

Control of PM machines
 AAU

General machine model + back-

EMF based method

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 General model AAU

Two models for position estimation

• The dq model represented in afa-bet reference frame

• The dq model represented in the estimated dq-rotor

reference frame

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 General model AAU

Important to think about vector representation

vq  Riq  pq  r d  
q  Lls  Lmq iq  Lqiq
vd  Rid  pd  r q d  Lls  Lmd id  mpm  Ld id  mpm

vdq  Ridq  pdq   jr dq  dq  Ld id  mpm  jLqiq

dq  

v  Ri  p   Ld id  mpm  jLqiq e j r

The difficult part – if Ld and Lq are not equal, then a

compact vector representation without using d,q current
components seems not possible...?

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 General model AAU

A very important transformation

  Ld id  mpm  Lqid  Lqid  jLqiq e j r

  Lqi  Ld  Lq id  mpm e j r

Even though id is needed, but it only affects

the amplitude of the vector that contains
rotor position information!


 Ld  Lq id  mpm e  j r
 e j r
   Lq i 
Rotor position can be found by
using afa-bet components only
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 General model AAU

Similar idea may be found from a classical text book

Im

Eˆ af  Vˆa  RIˆa  jX q Iˆq  jX d Iˆd Iˆq q-axis

Êaf

 Re

 
Eˆ af  Vˆa  RIˆa  jX q Iˆa  j X d  X q Iˆd Iˆd
 Vˆa
RIˆa
jX q Iˆq

Iˆa

jIˆd  Iˆq  Eˆ af jX d Iˆd

d-axis ̂rot
Im

j X d  X q Iˆd
Iˆq q-axis

 Êaf
Re
 Vˆa
Iˆd jX q Iˆa
RIˆa jX q Iˆq
Iˆa
jX d Iˆd
d-axis
̂rot
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 General model AAU

The rotor position may then be found from

𝜆𝛼 = 𝑣𝛼 − R × 𝑖𝛼 ∙ 𝑑𝑡
−1
𝜆𝛽 − 𝐿q 𝑖𝛽
𝜃𝑟 = tan
𝜆𝛼 − 𝐿q 𝑖𝛼 𝜆𝛽 = 𝑣𝛽 − R × 𝑖𝛽 ∙ 𝑑𝑡

• Resistance may increase due to thermal effect. But its influence can
be neglected in medium to high speed range.
• Inverter nonlinearity effects may also be neglected in this medium
to high speed range.
• Inductance may be treated as independent of the temperature but
it is highly dependent on the saturation level of the iron core –
caused by d-, q-axes machine currents.

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 General model AAU

Problems must be considered

• A small drift in the current will cause increasing error after integration!
• Integration also needs an initial value

A simple solution
Find the bias on the afa-bet axes and remove
them

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 General model AAU

Drift compensation loop

Like ‘adaptive’ mechanism In the rotor reference frame

Estimated
rotor pos.

Stator flux linkage

 d  Ld id  mpm
 q  Lqiq
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[I. Boldea, etc. all, 2008], Ref [06]
 AAU

Inductance variation influences

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 Inductance variation AAU

How the inductance may change?

Example 1

13 13.5

12.5 13
Lqh
12

High frequency inductances (mH)

High frequency inductance (mH)

12.5
11.5
DC bias currents: Lqh
- square: Id = 0 (A) 12
11
- circle: Id = 1 (A)
10.5 - cross: Id = 2 (A) 11.5
DC bias currents:
Ldh - square: Iq = 0 (A)
10 11
- circle: Iq = 1 (A)
9.5 - cross: Iq = 3 (A)
10.5
9 Ldh
10
8.5
9.5
8 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900
Excitation frequency (Hz)
Excitation Frequency (Hz)

more sensitive to the d-axis current

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[K. Lu, etc. all, 2010], Ref [19]
 Inductance variation AAU

How the inductance may change?

Example 2
13

12.5
q-axis Inductance Lq (mH)

Bias current Id = 0 (A), Iq changes

12

11.5

Bias current Iq = 13.5 (A) (constant),

Id changes
11

10.5
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
d-, q-axes current (Id, Iq), (A)

How do we treat this nonlinear inductance behaviour?

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 Inductance variation AAU

Artificial inductance concept

𝜆𝛼𝛽 = 𝐿𝑎 𝑖𝛼𝛽 + (𝐿𝑞 − 𝐿𝑎 )𝑖𝛼𝛽 + (𝜆𝑚𝑝𝑚 + (𝐿𝑑 − 𝐿𝑞 )𝑖𝑑 ) ∙ 𝑒 𝑗𝜃𝑟

A constant
𝜆𝛼𝛽 = 𝐿𝑎 𝑖𝛼𝛽 + 𝜆𝑒𝑞 ∙ 𝑒 𝑗𝜃𝑟

𝜆𝑒𝑞 = 𝜆𝑚𝑝𝑚 + (𝐿𝑑 (𝑖𝑑 , 𝑖𝑞 ) − 𝐿𝑎 )𝑖𝑑 + 𝑗(𝐿𝑞 (𝑖𝑑 , 𝑖𝑞 ) − 𝐿𝑎 )𝑖𝑞

𝜃𝑟 = ∠ 𝜆𝛼𝛽 − 𝐿𝑎 𝑖𝛼𝛽 = ∠𝜆𝑒𝑞 + 𝜃𝑟

This is the position error!

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[K. Lu, etc. all, 2013], Ref [20]
 Inductance variation AAU

The position error due to inductance variation

𝜆𝑒𝑞 = 𝜆𝑚𝑝𝑚 + (𝐿𝑑 (𝑖𝑑 , 𝑖𝑞 ) − 𝐿𝑎 )𝑖𝑑 + 𝑗(𝐿𝑞 (𝑖𝑑 , 𝑖𝑞 ) − 𝐿𝑎 )𝑖𝑞

(𝐿𝑞 (𝑖𝑑 , 𝑖𝑞 ) − 𝐿𝑎 )𝑖𝑞

𝜃𝑟,𝑒𝑟𝑟 = ∠𝜆𝑒𝑞 = 𝑎𝑡𝑎𝑛
𝜆𝑑,𝑒𝑓𝑓
𝜆𝑑,𝑒𝑓𝑓 = 𝜆𝑚𝑝𝑚 + (𝐿𝑑 (𝑖𝑑 , 𝑖𝑞 ) − 𝐿𝑎 )𝑖𝑑

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 Inductance variation AAU

A wise choice of the artificial inductance

• at least 50% error reduction!

• When current is small – the
error is small (even with a
large inductance error!)

• Recommended to choose saturated q-axis inductance!

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 Inductance variation AAU

Similar analysis may be applied to when d-axis

current is present
• The d-axis current may also affect the PM flux linkage

Test performed at
constant load torque

• The effective d-axis flux may be found from 𝜆𝑑,𝑒𝑓𝑓 = 𝜆𝑎𝑐𝑡 + (𝐿𝑞 − 𝐿𝑎 )𝑖𝑑
because 3
𝜏 = 2 𝑝𝑖𝑞 (𝜆𝑚𝑝𝑚 + (𝐿𝑑 − 𝐿𝑞 )𝑖𝑑 ) 𝜆𝑎𝑐𝑡 = 𝜆𝑚𝑝𝑚 + (𝐿𝑑 − 𝐿𝑞 )𝑖𝑑

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 AAU

PLL design

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 PLL AAU

PLL is a very popular solution to handle position error

• Input is the estimated position error obtained by e.g. high frequency signal
injection method
• Position error can always be created if the algorithm gives directly the
estimated rotor position.

K pp
~
r K pi
1
̂e
ˆrPLL 
1 K pp S  K pi
S S

 r  ˆrPLL 
s
Position error

1
s ˆrPLL K pp S  K pi S. S. ˆrPLL
ˆ PLL
 2 1
r S  K pp S  K pi r
r

Dynamic performance depends on the PI parameters

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 PLL AAU

Design of a PLL
K pp S  K pi n 2
Transfer function G ( s)  vs.
S 2  K pp S  K pi s 2  2n s  n
2

We may roughly say that K  2 standard

pp n

K pi  n2

The advantage here is that its time domain step response is known

ˆrPLL t   1 
1
1  2
   
e nt 2 sin n 1   2 t  sin n 1   2 t  cos 1  
Therefore an expression between the parameters and bandwidth may be
obtained by numerical curve fitting.

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 PLL AAU

Design of a PLL
Pre-specified parameters: damping ratio  and bandwidth Bw

We may find that the rising time may be expressed as t r 

1
1.1  0.344 
n
1
Similarly, the bandwidth Bw  (0.4091  1.4938)
tr
Therefore:
(1 . 1  0 . 344 ) 2
K pi  Bw2 K pp  2 K pi
(0.4091  1.4938) 2
By specifying the bandwidth and damping ratio, the corresponding PI
parameters needed in the PLL may then be found.

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 PLL AAU

How to create the needed position error?

Method 1 K pp

From e.g. 𝜃𝑟 = tan−1

𝜆𝛽 − 𝐿q 𝑖𝛽 ˆr 1
𝜆𝛼 − 𝐿q 𝑖𝛼 K pi
s
̂e
Method 2 1

  Lqi  Ld  Lq id  mpm e j r

s
ˆrPLL

   
Im Ld  Lq id  mpm e j r  e  j r  Ld  Lq id  mpm sin  r   r
ˆ ~ ~

  Lqi
Im  ~
r
ˆ PLL
e  j r ˆrPLL

• The most significant advantage of the PLL is that the estimated

speed is found also, which gives good accuracy in dynamics.

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