Proceedings of the 2011 International Conference on Power Engineering, Energy and Electrical Drives Torremolinos (Málaga), Spain.
, Spain. May 2011
A Comparative Study of Different Control
Techniques for an Induction Motor Fed by a Z-
Source Inverter for Electric Vehicles
Omar Ellabban, Joeri Van Mierlo and Philippe Lataire
Department of Electrical Engineering and Energy Technology
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
omar.ellabban@vub.ac.be
Abstract- This paper presents a comparative study of the most
significant control methods (scalar control (V/F), indirect field
oriented control (IFOC) and direct torque control (DTC)) for an
induction motor fed by a Z-source inverter (ZSI) for automotive
applications. The three control techniques are implemented
using PWM voltage modulation. The comparison is based on
various criteria including: the motor dynamic performance, the
speed and torque ripples, the ac current harmonic content, the
control algorithm implementation complexity, the ZSI
performance and the overall system efficiency. The study is done
by MATLAB simulation of a 15 kW induction motor fed by a
high performance Z-source inverter. The simulation results
indicates that, the IFOC seems to be the best control techniques
suitable for controlling an induction motor fed by a ZSI for
automotive applications. In addition, this paper proves that, all
control methods used for the voltage source inverter (VSI) can
be applied for the ZSI and gaining its advantages.
I. INTRODUCTION
Environmental aspects are the most important reasons for
considering electric vehicles (EV) as alternatives to
conventional internal combustion engine vehicles.
Concerning the environment, electric vehicles can provide
emission free urban transportation. Electric vehicles includes
battery operated electric vehicles (BEVs), hybrid electric
vehicles (HEVs), and fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs).
The electric propulsion system, consisting of the motor
drive, transmission device, and wheels, is the heart of the EV.
The motor drive, comprising of the electric motor, power
converter, and its electronic controller, is the core of the EV
propulsion system. The drive control system requires good
control performances, precise and quick torque response,
large torque at low speed and wide speed range [1].
The induction motor (IM) is well suited for the EV
application because of its advantages over other types of
electric motors, as indicated by recent comparative study for
EV [2]. For instance, it is more reliable due to the absence of
brushes, it is more rugged due to its inherent one piece rotor
shaft, it is safer when used in hazardous environments, and it
presents a low cost solution.
The Z-source inverter (ZSI) is one of the most promising
converter topologies suitable for EV applications [3]. The ZSI
has very interesting properties such as buck-boost
characteristics and single stage conversion. Special Z-network
composed of two capacitors and two inductors connected to
the well known three phase bridge, allows working in buck or
boost mode using the shoot-through state [4]. There are three
978-1-4244-9843-7/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE
different topologies for three phase two level ZSI as voltage
source, they are: the basic ZSI, the bidirectional ZSI and the
high performance ZSI. The high performance ZSI can operate
at wide load range with small Z-network inductor, eliminate
the possibility of the dc link voltage drops and simplify the Z-
network inductor design and system control. So, the high-
performance ZSI topology appears to be the most suitable
topology for HEV applications [5].
The control techniques, which have been applied on an
induction motor fed by a voltage source inverter (VSI) for the
EV applications, are: scalar control (V/F), [6], indirect field
oriented control (IFOC), [7,8] and direct torque control
(DTC), [9,10]. The volts per hertz induction motor drives
with inverters are widely used in a number of industrial
applications. The low cost applications usually adopt V/F
scalar control when no particular performance is required.
The main advantage of the V/F control is its simplicity but its
accuracy is low and its torque response is poor. For those
applications which require higher dynamic performance, the
field oriented control (FOC) or the direct torque control, is
preferred. The key issue for a FOC drive is how to obtain
the decoupled control of motor flux and torque. The
indirect field oriented controlled IM drive is widely used in
high performance applications due to its high accuracy, good
torque response and wide speed range. In recent years, the
DTC has gained attention for the electric propulsion system,
because it can also produce fast torque control and does not
need heavy computation. The basic principle of the DTC
technique is to directly select the optimum inverter switching
states according to the differences between the references of
torque and stator flux linkage and their actual values.
Many comparative studies of different control techniques
of an induction motor drive fed by a VSI for electric vehicles
applications are existed in the literature [11-13]. In [11,12], a
comparison between three control techniques, which are: the
indirect field oriented control with current hysteresis, the
direct torque control with a switching table and the DTC with
space vector modulation (DTC-SVM), was presented with a
conclusion that the DTC-SVM control technique is the most
suitable control technique for HEV applications. Although,
Ref. [13] concludes that when the drive controls are
decoupled from the switching scheme, the IFOC appears to
have advantages in terms of dynamic performance.
This paper presents a comparative analysis of different
control techniques (scalar control, indirect field-oriented
control with PWM voltage modulation and direct torque
control with space vector modulation) for an induction motor
fed by a high performance ZSI for EVs propulsion in order to
achieve better performance and higher efficiency.
II. CONTROL METHODS: A BRIEF REVIEW
A. Scalar Control (V/F) Technique
The closed loop speed control by slip regulation, which is
an improvement of the open loop V/F control, is shown in
Fig. 1. The speed loop error generates the slip command
through a proportional integral (PI) controller and a limiter.
The slip is added to the feedback speed signal to generate the
slip frequency command . Thus the frequency command
generates the voltage command through a volts/hertz (V/F)
generator, which incorporates the low frequency stator drop
compensation [6].
Although this control technique is simple, it provides
limited speed accuracy especially in the low speed range and
poor dynamic torque response.
Fig. 1 Block diagram of a scalar controlled induction motor
B. Indirect Field Oriented Control (IFOC) Technique
The principal aim of the vector control is to independently
control the flux and torque in the induction motor, in a similar
way to the control of a separately excited DC motor. In the
indirect field oriented control method, the rotating reference
frame is rotating at synchronous angular velocity, . This
reference frame allows the three phase currents to be viewed
as two dc quantities under steady state conditions. The q-axis
component is responsible for the torque producing current,
, and the d-axis is responsible for the field producing
current, . These two vectors are orthogonal to each other so
that the field current and the torque current can be controlled
independently [7-8].
Figure 2 shows the block diagram of the IFOC technique
for an induction motor. The q-axis component of the stator
reference current, , may be computed using the reference
torque, , which is the output of a PI speed controller, as:
(1)
The d-axis component of the stator reference current, , also
may be obtained by using the reference input flux, , (7)
which is the output of a PI flux controller, as:
(3)
By using the rotor speed, , and the slip frequency, , (8)
which is given by:
(4)
the angle of the rotor flux, , may be evaluated as:
(5)
Proportional integral controllers regulate the stator
voltages, and , to achieve the calculated reference
stator currents, and . The required voltage is then
synthesized by the inverter using pulse width modulation
(PWM). During motor operation the actual rotor resistance
and inductance can vary. The resulting errors between the
values used and the actual parameters cause an incomplete
decoupling between torque and flux. In order to compensate
this incomplete decoupling, the values of compensation
voltages are added with the output of the current controllers.
This voltage compensation can improve the performance of
the current control loops. The compensations terms are given
by [14]:
(6)
Fig. 2 Block diagram of the IFOC of an induction motor
C. Direct Torque Control with Space Vector Modulation
(DTC-SVM) Technique
The conventional DTC scheme has many drawbacks, such
as: variable switching frequency, high current and torque
ripples, starting and low-speed operation problems, in
addition to high sampling frequency needed for digital
implementation of the hysteresis controllers [15]. To
overcome these drawbacks, the space vector modulation is
combined with the conventional DTC scheme for induction
motor drive to provide a constant inverter switching
frequency. In the DTC-SVM scheme, as shown in Fig. 3, the
torque and flux hysteresis comparators are replaced by PI
controllers to regulate the flux and torque magnitudes
respectively. The motor stator flux and the motor developed
torque can be estimated by:
| |
tan
The output of theses PI controllers generates the d and q
components of the reference voltage command ( and )
in the stator flux oriented coordinates. After coordinate
transformation, using the stator flux angle , we get the
reference voltage vectors ( and ) in the stationary
frame. These two components, which can control stator flux
and torque separately, are delivered to space vector modulator
(SVM). The space vector modulator generates the inverter
control signals, which ensures fixed inverter switching
frequency. So the inverter switching frequency is significantly
increased, and the associated torque ripple and current
harmonics can be dramatically reduced, in comparison with
the conventional switching table based DTC scheme [16].
small signal model of the high performance ZSI. The shoot-
through duty ratio to capacitor voltage G s , the shoot-
through duty ratio to peak dc-link voltage and the
shoot-through duty ratio to inductor current small
signal transfer functions of the high performance ZSI with
inductive load are given by Eqs (10-12) at the bottom of this
page[17], where , , , , , , are input voltage,
equivalent dc load resistance, equivalent dc load inductance,
steady state values of inductor current, capacitor voltage, load
current and shoot-through duty ratio at certain operating point
respectively, and , are the Z-network capacitor and
inductor. Fig. 6 shows the dual loop peak dc voltage control
block diagram and the loop gains for inner current loop
and outer voltage loop can be expressed as:

(13)

where , and are the outer voltage loop

controller, the inner current loop controller and the modified
modulation transfer function, respectively. A two poles and
one zero controller has been designed, based on the required
Fig. 3 Block diagram of the DTC-SVM based IM drive cross over frequency and phase margin using the bode
The SVM principle is based on the switching between two diagram, to compensate the low-frequency loop gain and
adjacent active vectors , and two zero vectors improving the phase margin, whose transfer function is
( , ) during one switching period to synthesize the needed
(14)
reference voltage vector , as shown in Fig. 4. The times
, and for which , and or act respectively
can be expressed by:
√3 ⁄3
(9)
√3

where is the sample time of system, , , is the work

time of basic space voltage vector or , ,
respectively and is the DC link voltage of the inverter.

Fig. 5 Closed loop speed control of three phase induction motor fed by a high
Performance ZSI

Fig. 4 The principle diagram of voltage space vector synthesis
III. SYSTEM CONFIGURATION
Figure 5 shows the complete block diagram of the closed loop
speed controlled IM fed by a high performance ZSI. A dual
loop controller (voltage and current control) is designed to
control the average value of the dc link voltage v by
controlling the magnitude of its peak voltage v based on a
2 (11)
Fig. 6 Dual loop peak dc link voltage control block diagram of a high-
performance ZSI
In both V/F and IFOC techniques the simple boost control
method, as shown in Fig 7-a, is used to insert the shoot-
through state within the switching period and the modulation
index is calculated from the reference voltage while the
modified space vector modulation (MSVM) method, as
shown in Fig 7-b, is used with the DTC-SVM technique [5].
(10)
(12)
 Figures 8-14, show the simulation results for the different
control techniques. Fig. 8 shows the motor response during
acceleration mode with rated load torque until rated speed (0-
0.2 sec), steady state operation with rated torque and rated
speed (0.2-0.6 sec) and load step to half the rated load with
the rated speed (0.6-1 sec). Fig. 9 shows the steady state
speed and torque ripples at rated conditions. Fig. 10, show the
steady state motor phase voltage and phase current at rated
operation. Fig. 11, show the reference and actual peak dc link
voltage, the dc link voltage, the shoot-through duty ratio, the
reference and the actual Z-network inductor currents and the
modulation index (V/F and IFOC) or reference voltage (DTC-
(a)
SVM). Fig. 12 shows the steady state peak dc link voltage,
shoot-through duty ratio and inductor current ripples at rated
conditions. Fig. 13, show the system response during input
voltage decreasing and increasing by15% at rated operation.
Fig. 14, shows the calculated overall system efficiency at
different load torque.

(b) (a) V/F

Fig. 7 Different shoot-through control methods: (a) simple and (b) MSVM

IV. SIMULATION RESULTS

In order to compare between the three different control
techniques, a simulation model is carried out using
MATLAB/ SIMULINK software with a 15 kW induction
motor fed by a high performance ZSI using the parameters in
Table I. The objectives of the carried out simulations are to
assess the dynamic performances, the steady state
performances, the algorithm complexity and the efficiency of
the different control strategies.
Table II System Parameters
Parameter Value
(b) IFOC
High performance ZSI parameters
Inductance 500 µH
Capacitance 500 µF
Switching frequency 10 kHz
Input voltage 513 V
Induction Motor Parameters
Output power 15 kW
RMS line voltage 400 V
Input frequency 50 Hz
No. of poles pairs, 2
Stator resistance, 0.2205 Ω
Rotor resistance, 0.2147 Ω
Stator inductance, 0.991 mH
Rotor inductance, 0.991 mH
Mutual inductance, 64.19 mH
Inertia, 0.102 kg. m2 (c) DTC-SVM
Fraction factor, 0.009541 N.m.s Fig. 8 Motor response during different operation modes
 (c) DTC-SVM
(a) V/F
Fig. 10 Motor steady state phase voltage and current at rated operation

(b) IFOC

(a) V/F

(c) DTC-SVM
Fig. 9 steady state speed and torque ripples

(b) IFOC

(a) V/F

(c) DTC-SVM
Fig. 11 High performance ZSI response during different operation modes
(b) IFOC
 (b) IFOC
(a) V/F

(c) DTC-SVM
Fig. 13 System response during input voltage decreasing and increasing by
(b) IFOC 15%

Fig. 14 Overall system efficiency at different load torque values

(c) DTC-SVM Three control techniques were compared on a simulated
Fig. 12 steady state peak dc link voltage, shoot-through duty ratio and benchmark. The main results of this work are summarized in
inductor current ripples at rated conditions Table II.
Table II Summery of performance comparison of different control techniques
Comparison Criterion V/F IFOC SVM-DTC
Dynamic response Poor Very good Good
Low speed response Very poor Good Very good
Torque ripples Large Small Small
Speed error Large Small Medium
Current THD Low High Medium
ZSI performance Good Good Poor
Complexity Low High High
Efficiency Medium High Low
The simulation comparative analysis, which is summarized in
Table II, indicates that, the IFOC seems to be the most
suitable control techniques suitable for controlling an
induction motor fed by a high-performance ZSI for
(a) V/F automotive applications.
 V. CONCLUSION
This paper presents a comparative analysis between three
control schemes for electric vehicles applications, namely:
V/F, IFOC, and DTC-SVM. These control schemes were
simulated using an induction motor fed by a high
performance ZSI. The three control techniques are
implemented using PWM voltage modulation. The direct
torque control space vector modulation gives lower efficiency
and poor ZSI response due to the six shoot through insertion
during SVM. As concluded from Table II, The IFOC with
voltage modulation seems to be the best control technique for
an induction motor fed by a high performance ZSI for
automatic applications. This paper proves the effectiveness of
the ZSI, as a single converter with reduced cost due to less
component number, reduced volume and easier control
implementation, can be used to replace the two stage
converter (voltage source inverter with DC/DC converter).
Which will lead to improve the vehicle efficiency and reduce
its production cost.
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