2nd IEEE International conference on power Electronics, Intelligent Control and Energy systems (ICPEICES-2018)

Design of FPI-PD Controller for Brushless DC Motor

Roshan Bharti, Rishika Trivedi, Prabin Kumar Padhy
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering,
PDPM Indian Institute of Information Technology, Desgn and Manufacturing, Jabalpur, India
1
bhartiroshan99@gmail.com
2rishika.t@iiitdmj.ac.in
3prabin16@iiitdmj.ac.in

Abstract— In this paper, a new fuzzy proportional-integral-
proportional-derivative (FPI-PD) controller is designed, in which
fuzzy PI controller is in the forward path and conventional PD
controller is in inner feedback loop. The gain parameters of the
proposed controller are calculated by gradient descent
optimization method. The performance evaluation of this
controller is performed for speed control of brushless DC motor in
MATLAB/Simulink. The obtained responses are compared with
conventional PID controller and the existing fuzzy PID controller.
It reveals that proposed FPI-PD controller is more efficient than
both the above mentioned controllers.
Keywords— PID, FLC, FPI-PD, Brushless DC motor,
Gradient descent optimization method
I. INTRODUCTION
Electrical motors are used in almost all electromechanical
movement around us. It converts electrical energy into
mechanical energy. There are two types of motors: AC and DC
type. The conventional DC motor is used in various applications
like electric shaver, trimmer, hair dryer, cranes, starting motor
in the car and two-wheeler, photocopy or Xerox machine etc.,
due to its simple design and low cost [1]. In conventional DC
motor, brushes are used for the commutation, which is made up
of carbon. The brushes tear out after a span of time which leads
to sparking and eventually damages the motor. The frequent
maintenance of conventional DC motor is required from time to
time to avoid wear and tear of the brushes. This is the main
reason due to which conventional DC motor is not used for the
applications which requires durability and hence, the use of
brushless DC motor is increasing day by day. Brushless DC
(BLDC) motor is extensively used in numerous applications
like heating and ventilation (HVAC), servo robotic positioning
actuators, traction, fans, quadcopter, transportation, washing
machine, mixer, disc drives, printers, blowers, and drones. The
advantages of BLDC motor are low maintenance due to
unavailability of brushes, high reliability, high power to weight
ratio, high efficiency, high speed and electronic control [2].
BLDC motor is a type of permanent magnet synchronous motor
which is driven by DC voltage via three phase inverter but
commutation of current is achieved by electronic switches. The
instant of commutation is depended on the position of the rotor
which is determined by a speed sensor or sensor-less techniques
[3]. The back EMF in BLDC motor is of two types either
sinusoidal or trapezoidal [4].
Due to a simple structure and low cost, PID controller
is widely used in industries even after availability of many
advance controllers. There are various kind of methods
available for PID controller tuning [5],[6] like Ziegler Nichols,
Cohen-Coon, Error-Trial, Chien-Hrones-Reswick, Good gain
method, Pole placement method, Kappa-tau method, and
Optimization method etc., but among them, Ziegler-Nicholas
[7] is most popular and widely used. The problem with
conventional PID controller is, it gives a better result only when
the parameters are well matched with the system dynamics.
However, obtaining the system dynamics of a nonlinear plant is
a challenging task. Therefore, intelligent controllers like
Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and the fuzzy logic based
controllers are widely used for controlling nonlinear plants. The
drawback of using ANN is that, it requires input-output data for
training purpose [8]. Besides, fuzzy logic does not require exact
information about plant model like zeros and poles of the
transfer function.
In 1965, Lotfi A Zadeh proposed the fuzzy set theory
[9]. In 1974, E.H Mamdani introduced a first fuzzy logic
controller for laboratory build steam engine [10]. Fuzzy logic
controller essentially contains four parts: - fuzzification, fuzzy
inference system, fuzzy rule base and defuzzification. The
advantage of the fuzzy logic controller is that it can be easily
incorporated with a conventional controller like PI, PD and PID
and this combination performance better than a conventional
controller. The major issue with Fuzzy logic based controller is
the tuning of the gain parameters. Since, the fuzzy logic
controller is nonlinear, so, tuning of the gain parameters is
crucial as compared to PID controller. If number of gain
parameters are less then linear approximation [11] can be used
for gain calculation. It is difficult to obtain large number of gain
parameters using linear approximation. Consequently,
optimization techniques used to calculate the gain parameters of
the fuzzy incorporated controller. Various literatures have
reported different optimization techniques for the tuning of the
fuzzy-based controller such as, Genetic algorithm [12]. Particle
swarm optimization [13], Firefly algorithm [14], Bat algorithm
[2], Cuckoo search Algorithm [15], Hybrid bacterial-foraging
swarm optimization [16] etc.
In this paper, a new FPI-PD controller is proposed for
the speed control of BLDC motor where a fuzzy PI controller is
in forward path and a conventional PD controller is in inner
feedback loop. The gain parameters of the proposed controller
are calculated by gradient descent optimization method [17].
The mathematical model of BLDC motor is derived for

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evaluating the performance of the proposed controller. τ m = 17.1ms = 0.0171 s
MATLAB/Simulink environment is used for the simulation. R = 1.20 Ω ,
The obtained results are then compared with conventional PID
J = 92.5 gcm 2 = 9.25 × 10 −6 Kgm 2 ,
controller and the existing fuzzy PID controller. The results
show that proposed controller performs better than both of the mNM
kt = 25.5 = 25.5 × 10 −3 Nm / A
above-mentioned controllers in terms of rise time, percentage A
overshoot and settling time. 9.25 × 10−6 × 3 × 1.20 (8)
ke = = 0.0763 v − secs / rad .
II. MATHEMATICAL MODELLING OF BRUSHLESS DC MOTOR 0.0171× 25.5 × 10−3
The transfer function of BLDC motor is obtained by: The transfer function of Maxon motor can be obtained
1 by putting the value of ke , τ m and τ e in equation (1):
ke (1) 1 (9)
G ( s) = ,
τ m .τ e .s 2 + τ m .s + 1 G (s) = 0.0763 ,
0.0171× 155.56 × 10−6.s 2 + 0.0171.s + 1
where, τ m is mechanical time constant and τ e is electrical time
or,
constant (10)
13.11
R.J J. R G (s) = .
τm =  = , (2)
−6
2.66 × 10 .s 2 + 0.0171.s + 1
ke .kt ke .kt
and,
L L (3) III. CONVENTIONAL PID CONTROLLER
τe =  = .
R R PID controller considered is the parallel combination of three
Since, there is a three-phase symmetrical arrangement control modes, namely, proportional, integral and derivative as
in brushless DC motor, so mechanical and electrical time shown in Fig. 1. It has combined feature of both PD and PI
constant will become: controller. It improves both transient as well as steady state
J .3R (4) performance of the plant.
τm = ,
ke .kt
and,
L (5)
τe = ,
3R
where,
ke is back EMF constant in v-secs/rad and kt is torque constant
in N-m/A.

The specifications used for modelling of this BLDC

motor is obtained from datasheet of EC 45 Ø45 mm, brushless, Fig. 1:PID Controller
30-watt Maxon motor [18].
The output equation of PID controller is:
TABLE I d (11)
CHARACTERISTICS OF BLDC MOTOR U PID ( t ) = K p e ( t ) + K i  e ( t ) dt + K d e (t )
Maxon motor data Value
dt
or,
Terminal resistance (per phase) 1.20 Ω
 1  (12)
Terminal inductance (per phase) 0.560 mH U PID ( s ) = K p e ( s ) 1 + + sTd  ,
Rotor inertia  Ti. .s 
92.5 gcm 2
where, e, Td , Ti . , K p , K d and Ki represent feedback error,
Torque constant 25.5 mNm/A
derivative time, integral time, proportional gain, derivative gain
Mechanical time constant 17.1 ms
and integral gain, respectively.
From equation (5):
0.560 × 10−3 (6) IV. FUZZY PID CONTROLLER
τe = = 155.56 × 10−6 . The architecture shown in Fig. 2 is one of the most popular
3 × 1.20
From equation (4), ke can be obtained: architecture of fuzzy PID controller (FPID). There are two
inputs: error (e) and change in error (ce). There is one output u
J .3R (7) of FPID controller, which is used for self-tuning the parameters
ke = ,
τ m .kt of PID controller. The inputs and the output are divided into
where, seven linguistic variables using five triangular and two gaussian

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membership functions. The membership functions for both shown in Table II. The linguistic variables are PL, PM, PS, Z,
inputs and output is shown in Fig. 3 and Fig. 4, respectively. NS, NM and NL, namely, positive large, positive medium,
positive small, zero, negative small, negative medium and
negative large, respectively.

TABLE II
RULE BASE FOR FPID CONTROLLER [19]
ce /e NL NM NS Z PS PM PL
NL PL PL PL PL PL PS Z
NM PL PM PM PM PS Z NS
NS PL PM PS PS Z NS NM
Z PM PM PS Z NS NM NS
PS PM PS Z NS NM NM NL
Fig. 2: Fuzzy PID Controller [19] PM PS Z NS NM NM NL NL
PL Z NS NM NL NL NL NL

V. PROPOSED FPI-PD CONTROLLER

Fig. 3: Membership function for inputs e and ce
Fig. 4: Membership function for output u.
In this FPID controller, Mamdani model is used for
fuzzy inference system and Centre of gravity (COG) method is
used for defuzzification. The rule base for FPID controller is
A. Controller Architecture
The proposed structure of FPI-PD controller is shown in Fig. 5.
In this structure, fuzzy PI controller is connected in the forward
path and conventional PD controller is connected in the inner
feedback loop. In this proposed structure, the fuzzy logic
controller has two inputs: normalized error (E) and normalized
change in error (CE). It has two outputs u1 and u2 which are
used to adjust the proportional and integral gain of PI controller,
respectively. The inputs are divided into seven linguistics
variable using seven triangular membership functions and the
outputs are divided in to five linguistic variables using five
triangular membership functions. The rule base for FPI
controller is shown in Table III, where S, M, L, VL, PL, PM,
PS, Z, NS, NM, and NL are known as small, medium, large,
very large, positive large, positive medium, positive small, zero,
negative small, negative medium, and negative large
respectively. The membership functions for inputs and outputs
are shown in Fig. 6 and Fig. 7, respectively. In this controller,
Mamdani model is used for fuzzy inference system and Centre
of gravity (COG) method is used for defuzzification
There are six scaling factors ( k1 − k6 ) in this proposed
controller, where ( k1 − k2 ) , ( k3 − k4 ) and ( k5 − k6 ) are the
scaling factors of the inputs, PI controller and PD controller,

Fig. 5. Proposed FPI-PD controller structure

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respectively. The calculation of scaling factors ( k1 − k6 ) is a The iteration process has repeated according to the
following equation:
difficult task because it is committed with both: fuzzy PI and
X K +1 = X K + λK* S K = X K − λK* ∇f K (13)
PD controller. Therefore, gradient descent optimization
technique is used to calculate the scaling factors of this where, is search direction, K is a number of iteration, λK* is
proposed controller. optimal step size and ∇f K is gradient vector of function.
Si = −∇f K = −∇f ( X K ) (14)

Fig. 5: Membership function for inputs E and CE.

Fig. 6: Membership function for outputs u1 and u2.

TABLE III
RULE BASE FOR FPI CONTROLLER [16]
CE/E NL NM NS Z PS PM PL
NL VL VL VL VL VL VL VL
NM L VL VL VL VL VL L
NS M L VL VL VL M M
Z S M L VL L L S
PS M L VL VL VL M M
PM L VL VL VL VL VL L
PL VL VL VL VL VL VL VL

B. Gradient descent optimization method:

In 1847 it was Cauchy who first minimized a function by taking
negative of the gradient vector as a search direction. The
gradient descent method which is also known as steepest
descent method[20] is first order iterative optimization
algorithm which is used to determine the local minimum of the
function. In gradient descent optimization method we start from
an initial point ( ) and iteratively move towards the direction
of negative of gradient vector until the minimum point is
obtained. The flow chart of gradient descent optimization
method is shown in Fig. 8. Similarly, to find local maximum of
the function one needs to consider steps equivalent to positive
of the gradient of that function. This method is named as
gradient ascent method.
Fig. 7: Flowchart of gradient descent optimization method
VI. SIMULATION RESULTS
The obtained transfer function of BLDC motor is used for
simulation. The simulation is run for 0.05 seconds by
considering the fixed step size of 0.00001. The gain parameters
of the proposed controller are calculated by gradient descent
optimization method via Simulink design optimization toolbox
in MATLAB/Simulink. There are two set-point operating
condition is considered. In the first case, there is a fixed speed
in which a load disturbance of 0.3 is given at 0.03

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seconds. In the second case, a variable speed is considered in TABLE V
PERFORMANCE INDICES OF CONTROLLERS FOR BLDC MOTOR AT FIXED SPEED
which speed goes down from 1 to 0.5 at 0.025 seconds. The
WITH LOAD DISTURBANCE
responses of brushless DC motor for both the set-point Controller Rise time % Overshoot Settling time
operating condition is shown in Fig. 9 and Fig.10, respectively.
TABLE IV (in ms) (in ms)
GAIN PARAMETERS OF CONTROLLERS FOR BLDC MOTOR
11.327 PID 2.340 22.619 16.446
k P
PID Controller 1381.34 FPID 0.296814 13.068 0.7907
kI
(Ziegler-Nicholas Method) 0.0232
kD FPI-PD 0.059822 6.471 0.148016

k1 43.7774
FPI-PD Controller 1.8678 TABLE VI
k2 PERFORMANCE INDICES OF CONTROLLERS FOR BLDC MOTOR AT VARIABLE
(Gradient descent optimization 338.1774
method) k3 SPEED
Controller Rise time % Overshoot Settling time
k4 0.2554
(in ms) (in ms)
k5 0.0025

k6 0.0062 PID 3.744 45.352 22.50

FPID 0.168017 25.556 1.1269

FPI-PD 0.042049 11.224 0.156923

Fig. 8: Response of BLDC motor at fixed speed with load disturbance
Fig. 9: Response of BLDC motor at variable speed
VII. CONCLUSION
The performance of proposed FPI-PD Controller is evaluated
by controlling the speed of BLDC motor in
MATLAB/Simulink. The mathematical model of BLDC motor
is derived by its parameters. Its speed is controlled by
conventional PID controller, FPID controller and proposed FPI-
PD controller by considering the different set-point operating
condition such as the fixed speed with load disturbance and
variable speed condition. The performance of all the above
mentioned controllers is summarized in Table V and Table VI
for both the set-point operating condition in terms of transient
performance. The results reveal that the proposed FPI-PD
controller outperforms in terms of rise time, percentage
overshoot and settling time, etc.
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