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Simulation & Fabrication of Axial Flux Brushless DC Motor Drive

Conference Paper · April 2018

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Pooja vasant Awari Anurag Vidyadhar Khergade

Shri Ramdeobaba Kamla Nehru Engineering College Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology
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Pankaj Sawarkar Sanjay Bodkhe

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Simulation & Fabrication of Axial Flux Brushless DC
Motor Drive
Pooja Awari
Department of Electrical Engineering
Shri Ramdeobaba College of Engineering and Management
Nagpur, India 440013
awaripv@rknec.edu
Pankaj Sawarkar, Sanjay Bodkhe
Department of Electrical Engineering
Shri Ramdeobaba College of Engineering and Management
Nagpur, India 440013
sawarkarp@rknec.edu, bodkhesb@rknec.edu
Abstract—This paper presents a new single sided axial flux
brushless dc (AFBLDC) motor drive with concentrated windings
and surface mounted magnets on the rotor. The AFBLDC motors
have gained popularity in recent past because of smaller axial
length, high power density, high efficiency, wide speed range,
robustness, low cost and less maintenance. The prototype of
proposed design has 24 stator poles and 32 permanent magnets
on the rotor. It is driven by six pulse inverter that is fed from a
single phase AC source through controlled AC to DC converter.
The speed control and braking methods are also proposed based
on pulse width modulation technique. The overall scheme is
simulated in MATLAB environment and tested under different
operating conditions. A prototype of proposed AFBLDC motor
drive is designed and fabricated. The speed control and braking
methods are implemented using DSC dsPIC33EP256MC202
digital signal controller. Tests are performed on this prototype to
validate the performance at different speeds with and without
braking mode. It is observed that the proposed scheme works
effectively and can be used as wheel direct driven motor for
electrical vehicle.
Index Terms—Axial flux machine, BLDC motor, speed
control, electric braking, hall sensor, microcontroller, permanent
magnet motor, back emf.
VI. INTRODUCTION
Axial flux brushless direct current motor is used extensively
rather than permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM)
because of their high performance in applications like servos
to traction drives AFBLDC motor possesses high efficiency,
high power density, high torque to inertia ratio and simple in
control compared to PMSM. In applications like medical,
robotics and automation industries to the military high
precision control are required and this can be achievable with
the help of AFBLDC motor. As the name implies, these
motors do not use mechanical commutator and brushes for
commutation, instead they are electronically commutated.
They have many advantages over brushed DC motor and
induction motors. A few of these are: better speed versus
torque characteristics, high dynamic response, high efficiency,
long operating life, noiseless operation and higher speed range
Anurag Khergade
Department of Electrical Engineering
S.B. Jain Institute of Technology, Management and
Research, Nagpur, India 441501
khergadeanurag@gmail.com
[1]. In addition, the ratio of torque delivered to the size of the
motor is higher, making it useful in applications where space
and weight are critical factors. One of the prime reasons for
above advantages is the use of permanent magnet on the rotor
due to which both, radial flux and axial flux BLDC motors
have earned a pronounced position in existing as well as new
applications [2]-[3]. Because of high efficiency, it draws less
electrical power and imposes less stress on the power
electronic controller. In electric vehicles, shaft of the machine
is directly coupled to the wheel and gives high compactness to
the machine. However it requires high torque capability to
overcome stiction and to run at very low speeds [4]-[5].
Based on mounting of permanent magnet, the rotor of
AFBLDC motor could be of surface mounted type or interior
type. This motor can be designed as double sided or single
sided machine with internal or external rotor. The single sided
machine consists of single stator and single rotor. With single
sided topology it is possible to get a very high ratio between
machine diameter and length. The bearing and axel must be
properly dimensioned to withstand the axial force between two
sides. Double sided machine consists of two possible
configurations such as interior rotor and interior stator. In
interior rotor, as the rotor is between the two stators and in the
case when the distance from the rotor to each stator is equal,
the attraction forces are equilibrated, avoiding possible stress
in mechanical parts. Interior stator axial flux machines can be
configured in two ways, namely, North-North (N-N)
configuration and North-South (N-S) configuration [5]. The
axial flux motor topologies proposed in literature are mostly
double rotor with internal stator [3]. This requires more axial
space and cost. The motor proposed in this paper is of single
sided type with concentrated stator coils as discussed in
section II. This allows generating back emf waveform in
trapezoidal shape in addition to reduction of space requirement
and cost.
Precise speed control, efficient braking of the machine and
soft starting are the requisites of a reliable electrical vehicle.
In order to control the speed and acceleration as well as
deceleration, speed control method and braking is necessary.
In mechanical braking, motion is diminished by the friction series. Fig. 2 shows the disassembled view of stator. The other
applied by brakes which is preferred during low speeds where details are as given below
mechanical brake dissipated energy. The purpose of electrical The number of stator coils per rotor pole per phase (Nspp),
braking is to restrict the motion of the machine gradually or as
desired without wear and noise. Various speed control (1)
techniques and braking method are proposed in literature [6]-
[10]. They fall in two categories; one is by controlling the
input dc voltage and other by controlling PWM duty cycle. In
order to implement braking, different methods are suggested The number of coils per magnet pole (Nsm),
by researchers such as using additional boost converter, ultra-
capacitor or by changing the switching sequence of the (2)
inverter [7]-[10]. Reference [10] has suggested the use ultra-
capacitor in place of battery for hybrid electrical vehicle. A Rotor

boost converter is used to enable the regenerative action

during braking mode in [8]. These methods are effective,
Rotor Pole
however they add to the cost and complexity of overall drive. Stator
This limitation is addressed by a new cost effective method
which is based on modification of switching sequence and do Stator
Winding
not use any additional converter or ultra-capacitor [7]. Stand

However, the above methods have been executed on radial Shaft

flux type BLDC motor and none are found implemented on

AFBLDC motor. Winding
terminals
This paper presents the proposed AFBLDC motor drive
with speed control and electrical braking implemented by
using dsPIC33EP256MC202 digital signal controller. The Fig. 1. Prototype of single sided AFPM BLDC motor.
braking is performed by modification of switching sequence
and do not suggest the use of additional boost converter or
ultra-capacitor. The paper is organized as follows. Section I
introduces the research motivation and existing state of
technology. Section II & III briefly describes the design and
operating principle of AFBLDC motor. Section IV presents
the proposed scheme along with speed control and braking
methods. Simulation and experimental results are illustrated in
section V and section VI respectively. Section VII present
conclusion.
Stator winding

VII. PROPOSED AFBLDC MOTOR

The assembled view of proposed single rotor-single stator
AFBLDC motor is as shown in Fig.1. Procedure of the motor
design and fabrication is based on [5]-[6].
Fig.2. Stator design of proposed prototype
A. Stator design
In addition to providing mechanical support and protection,
the stator provides a structure that allows the flux and the
current to interact and to produce usable torque. Stator designs
are of two types, one is slotted stator design and another is
slotless stator design. The slotted stator design is associated Permanent
with few disadvantages such as cogging. Due to saliency magnet
effect of the slotted stator it increases the cogging torque.
A circular back plate of aluminum is used which supports
the laminated Si-steel core. The laminations are circular sheets
of 300 mm outer diameter. Twenty four concentrated coils are
fixed on the stator core. 106 turns of 20 gauge copper wire are
wound on the former to form these stator coils on T-shaped
stampings. The back Si-steel core provides a return path for
the magnetic flux. The stator coils are grouped in three single
phase circuits each consisting of eight coils connected in Fig.3. Front view of rotor.
B. Rotor design Inverter
The rotor design used in the proposed AFBLDC motor is of
surface mounted type. It is composed of thirty-two NdFeB Q1 Q3 Q5
permanent magnets alternating in polarity separated by non- AF BLDC
DC
magnetic spacers which is air in this case and attached to Supply Motor
ferromagnetic back iron. Rotor core or rotor back iron of Si-
steel laminations is used to provide a return path for magnetic Q4 Q6 Q2
flux. It is supported by aluminum back plate of 300 mm
diameter. Fig. 3 shows front view of rotor.
Fig. 4. Three-phase equivalent circuit of inverter fed BLDC motor.

VIII. OPERATING PRINCIPLE

9v Ac Gate Driver 12.7v G
Fig. 4 shows a six step inverter used to drive the proposed Supply
Rectifier Capacitor
IC TLP250
machine. The semiconductor switches can be either
MOSFETs or IGBTs which are driven by gate pulses. But 5v
Controller 3.3v
pulses cannot be given directly from microcontroller to the Buffer IC
dsPIC33EP2
gate of a switch because of low magnitude. Therefore it is 56MC202 7407
passed through a driver circuit. The driver circuit involves a
driver and optocoupler. Driver is used for fast turn on and turn
off of switches and optocoupler is used to provide isolation. 9v Ac Regulator IC
Rectifier Capacitor
Fig. 5 shows the block diagram of driver circuit for a single Supply 7805
switch. To avoid burden on controller, buffer IC is used which
strengthens the pulses coming from controller and then this is Fig.5. Block diagram of Driver circuit for single IGBT switch
given to the optocoupler driver IC.
The switching instants are decided on the basis of rotor
Ea
position identified by Hall sensors. For rotation, the stator Ha
PHASE A
winding should be energized in sequence. It is important to
know the rotor position in order to understand which winding
Eb
will be energized following the energizing sequence. The Hall Hb
PHASE B
Effect sensors are embedded into the stator at 120 degrees
interval on the non-driving end of the motor. As shown in Fig. Ec
6, whenever the rotor magnetic poles pass near the Hall Hc
PHASE C
sensors, they generate high or low signals, indicating the Time (s)
North or South Pole [1]. 101 100 110 010 011 001

Table 1 shows the switching sequence of the inverter. Each Fig. 6. Back emfs and Hall sensor signal for each phase
switching state has one of the windings energized to positive
power (current enters into the winding), the second winding is
negative (current exits the winding) and the third is in a non- Table 1. Switching Sequence
energized condition. Torque is produced because of the Switching Hall Sensor Switch Phase Voltage
interaction between the magnetic field generated by the stator sequence Ha Hb Hc Position A B C
coils and the permanent magnets. Ideally, the peak torque
occurs when these two fields are at 90° to each other and falls 1 1 0 1 Q1 Q6 DC+ DC- OFF
off as the fields move together. In order to keep the motor 2 1 0 0 Q1 Q2 DC+ OFF DC-
running, the magnetic field produced by the windings should 3 1 1 0 Q3 Q2 OFF DC+ DC-
shift position, as the rotor moves to catch up with the stator
field. The Hall sensor signal has the rising edge and the falling 4 0 1 0 Q3 Q4 DC- DC+ OFF
edge for each phase. That is, the six trigger signals are 5 0 1 1 Q5 Q4 DC- OFF DC+
generated per cycles which are then used to control the motor. 6 0 0 1 Q5 Q6 OFF DC- DC+

sensor is given to the controller which energizes appropriate

IX. PROPOSED CONTROL SCHEME
The proposed scheme of AFBLDC motor drive is presented in
Fig. 7. The power electronic circuit consists of a controlled
single phase rectifier which feeds DC power to the six step
inverter. The three phase AC output of the inverter is used to
drive the motor. With the help of Hall sensors the rotor
position is detected and the signal that is generated from hall
winding of the motor and it starts running at speed ωr. For
closed loop control the command speed ωr is fixed at
particular value. With the help of comparator the actual speed
ωr is compared with command speed and error signal is
generated that is given to the controller to perform the
corrective action. Accordingly the magnitude of rectifier
output voltage gets modified so as to nullify the deviation
between actual speed and command speed. The speed can be AXIAL FLUX
Inverter
controlled by varying PWM duty cycle. The 10kΩ pot is Ea
BLDC Ec
linked up with PWM signal to vary pulse width of the signal. MOTOR Lc
La
Q1 Q3 Q5
During the motoring mode, as seen from Table 1, only two DC
switches will conduct simultaneously. The equivalent circuit Supply Ra Rc

during switching state (101) is shown in Fig. 8. For braking Rb

Lb
Q4 Q6 Q2
Single Phase Single Phase Three Phase AF BLDC Eb
AC Supply Bridge Rectifier Inverter Motor

Fig.8. Equivalent circuit during motoring mode.

Gate Driver
Circuit AXIAL FLUX
Inverter
Ea
BLDC Ec
LaMOTOR Lc
Q1 Q3 Q5
Controller Hall DC
Sensor Supply Ra Rc

Braking mode Rb
Error

- ωr Lb
Comparator+ Q4
Q6 Q2
ωr * Reference
Eb

Speed

Fig.9. Equivalent circuit during braking mode.

Fig.7. Block diagram of proposed scheme for closed loop control and
electrical braking of AFBLDC motor. Motoring Braking
Ha
operation, the input supply from the inverter is disconnected
Hall sensor

and stored magnetic energy of the windings is allowed to

dissipate by providing a freewheeling path. Only lower Hb

switches of inverter are turned on, one at a time and all upper \

group switches are turned off [7]-[10]. The braking signal can Hc
be provided externally to the controller as shown in Fig. 7. Stator current ia

During braking period current will flow through the lower

Ea
switch and freewheeling diode. The back emf acts as a source
and a braking torque is developed. Hence rotor decelerates
Back emf

Electromotive force ea

rapidly and stops running. The equivalent circuit during

Eb
braking mode is shown in Fig. 9. By using this braking
technique, the problem of reverse motoring during plugging is <Stator back EMF e_b (V)>

overcome. Fig.10 shows waveform of hall sensors, back emf, Ec

switching pulses of inverter during motoring mode and
Time
braking mode.
Q1

V. SIMULATION RESULTS
From fig. 7 the performance of proposed drive is analyzed Q4

during motoring and braking operation, simulation is carried

out in MATLAB/Simulink software. The study is carried out
Gate pulses

Q3
for three operating conditions. They are (1) free acceleration,
(2) step change in load, and (3) forced deceleration by Q6
electrical braking. A fixed-step ode4 (Runge-Kutta) solver
with fixed step size of 5x10-6s was used.
Q5

1. Free acceleration:
On application of AC supply from the inverter, the motor Q2

accelerates freely at no-load and it’s speed reaches steady state

Time
in 0.05s. The back emf is trapezoidal due to concentrated Fig.10. Waveform of hall sensor, back EMF, switching pulses of inverter
windings. The simulation results are shown in Fig. 11 & 12. during motoring mode and braking mode.
2. Step change in load: 4000
At No load

Speed (rpm)
3000
In this case, mechanical step load of 1Nm is applied at 0.06 s 2000
on the rotor shaft. Due to application of load on motor, the 1000

equilibrium state between electromagnetic torque and load 0

torque gets altered resulting in a short time dip in actual speed. 30

At No load
Due to closed loop control, error between the actual speed and

Torque (Nm)
20

reference speed activates the PI controller that provides 10

appropriate triggering to the six switches to reduce this speed 0

error. From Fig.13 & 14, it is observed that the drive takes -10
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.09 0.1
Time (s)
about 0.03 s to regain its original speed after a dip due to
application of load. Fig.12 Rotor speed and torque during free acceleration at no-load

Stator current Ia
20
3. Electrical braking: 10
At No load At load
In this case, a comparative study between two performances 0

was carried out. In one case, the input supply to the motor was -10

disconnected at 0.06 s and it was allowed to decelerate freely -20

depending on its mechanical time constant. In the second case, 400 At No load At load

Back emf Ea
braking signal was applied at the same instant and deceleration 200

time was noted. This is shown in Fig. 15. It is observed that 0

the time required by the motor to come to rest when braking is -200

-400
applied is about one-third to that during free deceleration. 0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04
Time (s)
0.05 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.09 0.1

Fig.13.Stator current and back emf during step change in load.

VI. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

4000 At No load At load
Speed (rpm)

Fig .16 shows complete hardware set up of proposed drive. It 3000

includes prototype of AFBLDC motor, three phase inverter, 2000

1000
and dsPIC33EP256MC202 digital signal controller with hall 0

sensor circuitry. The control code was developed in MPLAB At No load At load
30
and dumped on microcontroller by using Pikit3 dumper. The
Torque (Nm)

20
Time (s)
performance was evaluated at three operating conditions (1) 10

motoring, (2) change in reference speed, (3) free deceleration 0

LOAD TORQUE
-10
and (4) forced deceleration by electrical braking. 0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05
Time (s)
0.06 0.07 0.08 0.09 0.1

Fig. 17 presents the experimental result when the motor

Fig.14 Variation in speed and torque on application of load.
was excited and allowed to run freely up to 1000 rpm at no-
load. The speed was then reduced to 50% by changing the 4000
Speed (rpm)

reference speed. The result is shown in Fig. 18. To test the 3000

2000 Supply Turn off

effectiveness of electrical braking, the motor was first de- 1000 Braking
energized and allowed to decelerate freely. Thereafter, it was 0

-1000
again energized and after attaining the rated speed, electrical 0

signal was applied to the microcontroller. The difference 1

between deceleration times was noted. The results are Supply Turn off
Torque (Nm)

0.5

presented in Fig. 19 and 20 respectively. 0

Braking
-0.5
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.09 0.1

20 At No load Time (s)

Stator current Ia

10 Fig.15 Variation of speed & toque during braking and free deceleration.
0
INVERTER AND
-10 CONTROLLER
CIRCUITS
-20
DC
At No load SUPPLY
400
Back emf Ea

200

0
AF BLDC
-200
MOTOR
-400 SCOPE
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.09 0.1
Time (s)
Fig.11 Stator current and back emf during free acceleration at no-load Fig.16. Complete experimental set up of AFBLDC motor
 validated experimentally. Prototype of a single sided, 24/32
Motoring
poles, AFBLDC motor is fabricated. The simulation results of
the proposed scheme proves its effectiveness at different
Speed (rpm)

operating conditions. The different PWM techniques

implemented for upper group and lower group switches are
helpful in reducing switching losses. The limitation of
conventional plugging related with possibility of reversal is
overcome using proposed braking technique. For validating
the simulation study, a dsPIC33EP256MC202 microcontroller
Time (s)
based control circuit and IGBT based power electronic drive
Fig.17 Experimental result during motoring mode. circuit is designed and fabricated. The experimental results
validate the effectiveness of proposed scheme.

Motoring Speed decrease

APPENDIX
DC link voltage = 48 V
Speed (rpm)

Rated Speed = 1000 rpm

Stator resistance/phase Rs = 0.50 ohm
Stator inductance/phase Ls = 0.005 H
Flux linkage established by magnets = 0.057 V.s
Torque Constant = 0.34 Nm/A
Time (s) Friction factor = 0.001 Nm.s
Pole pairs = 4
Fig.18 Experimental result during reduction in reference speed
REFERENCES
[1] Si Young Yun ,Ho Joon Lee ,Jung Ho Han and Ju Lee, “Position control
of low cost brushless DC Motor using Hall sensor,” IEEE Conf. Power
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Electronics and Machines in Wind Applications, June 2012, Dalian,
Liaoning, pp. 1-4.
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“Design and analysis of axial flux permanent magnet BLDC motor for
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VII. CONCLUSION
A new design of single sided variable speed AFBLDC motor
is proposed in this paper. The proposed speed control and
electrical braking methods are tested by simulation study and
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