2019 IEEE 8th Joint International Information Technology and Artificial Intelligence Conference (ITAIC 2019)

Measurement and control system for variable-frequency

speed regulating of motor based on PLC and HMI
Xiaoming CUI 1, Bajin LI*1, Zhiwei KOU*2, Yanjun QIAO3
1. College of Electric Power, Inner Mongolia University of Technology, Hohhot 010051, China
2. Inner Mongolia University of Technology, Hohhot 010051, China
3. Inner Mongolia Branch of Beijing Jingneng New Energy Co.,Ltd，Hohhot 010070,China
cuixiaoming@imut.edu.cn, libajing@imut.edu.cn, kouzhiwei@imut.edu.cn

Abstract—The variable-frequency speed control system based
on PLC has many advantages of PLC and VFD, which is one of
the most ideal and promising speed control methods for three-
phase asynchronous motor. Focus on the problem that the
control system for variable-frequency speed regulating of motor
base PLC is difficult to monitor the operational status of the PLC
and the VFD in real time. This paper presents a measurement
and control system for variable-frequency speed regulating of the
motor based on PLC and HMI. Firstly, an intelligent
measurement and control system scheme for variable-frequency
speed regulating of the motor based on PLC and HMI is
presented according to the design ideas and the composition
principle of typical electrical control system. Secondly, the motor
drive circuit and VFD control circuit are designed, and based on
this, the control program of PLC and monitoring interface of
HMI are developed. The test results show that the system design
is reasonable, the operation is stable and the human-computer
interaction interface is friendly, which can solve the above
problems well.
Keywords—Speed regulating of motor; Variable-frequency
Drive (VFD); PLC; HMI; Industrial touch-sensitive screen
I. INTRODUCTION
Variable-frequency drive (VFD) is an electrical equipment
which converts power frequency AC into three-phase AC with
adjustable voltage and frequency, which is realized by a single
chip computer controlling high-power switching devices [1].
The VFD is used primarily to drive three-phase asynchronous
motor for variable-frequency stepless speed regulating. A
variable-frequency speed control system composed of the
VFD and several asynchronous motors has many advantages,
such as reliable energy saving, accurate speed control, easy to
realize automatic control and so on [1-2]. It is widely used in
various automatic production lines and motor control systems,
which is one of the most ideal and promising speed control
methods at present.
Programmable logic controller (PLC) is a special
computer for industrial control based on microprocessor
technology. PLC adopts modular structure, and the automatic
control system composed of which has the advantages of
convenient networking, high reliability, strong anti-
interference ability, and can adapt to various harsh working
environments [3,4]. Therefore, is commonly used in the field of
industrial control. The variable-frequency speed regulating
system based on PLC has many advantages of both PLC and
VFD, which have been widely used in various industrial
control fields [1,4,5].
At present, PLC is the central control core and the VFD
which drives the AC motor directly is the executor of the PLC
command of the variable-frequency speed regulating system
based on PLC. The interaction between the operator and the
PLC is usually realized by the master control electrical
appliance and the display instrument of the operating platform.
It is difficult to monitor the operational status of the PLC and
the VFD in real time. Human-machine interface (HMI) is a
bridge between operator and computer control equipment,
which is used to realize the dialogue and interaction between
operator and PLC, to receive commands and set parameters
issued by operator, and to monitor the I/O status of PLC and
the running process of the system in real time [6-8]. Therefore,
the HMI can solve the problems of the traditional variable-
frequency speed regulating system very well. This paper
presents a measurement and control system for variable-
frequency speed regulating of the motor based on PLC and
HMI, which solves the problems existing in traditional
systems and improve the application performance of the three-
phase asynchronous motor speed control system.
II. SYSTEM SCHEME AND PRINCIPLE
A. Design concepts
According to the characteristics of the traditional motor
speed control system and the requirements of engineering
application, the design concepts are as follows: (1) The system
can improve the control strategy of VFD and have friendly
man-machine interface, which can realize intelligent control
and dynamic measurement of running state of frequency
converter speed regulating system; (2) It has perfect system
protection, fault alarm and handling performance; (3) The
system can be expanded conveniently, and realize industrial
networking and remote monitoring of the host computer; (4) It
needs to conform to the industry standards and meet the
industrial practical application, in order to adapt to the
development trend of AC motor speed control system and
improve the practical application ability.
B. System scheme
This paper presents an intelligent measurement and control
system for variable-frequency speed regulating of motor based
on PLC and HMI according to the above design ideas and the
composition principle of typical electrical control system,

*Corresponding author: Bajin LI, libajing@imut.edu.cn; Zhiwei KOU, kouzhiwei@imut.edu.cn

978-1-5386-8178-7/19/$31.00 ©2019 IEEE 1169

which is composed of an industrial touch screen, a PLC The main devices and their applications of the motor
control unit, the speed regulating unit 1 and speed regulating drive circuit are given in Table 1. This circuit is powered by
unit 2, as shown in Fig.1. three-phase AC 380V power and controlled by circuit breaker
QF0, whose speed control channel 1 and speed control
channel 2 drive motor M1, M2 and M3 respectively. In the
speed regulating channel 1, the M1 is driven by the VFD1,
which variable frequency mode is controlled by the circuit
breaker QF1, contactor KM1 and KM3, and the power
frequency mode is controlled by circuit breaker QF2 and
contactor KM2. In the speed regulating channel 2, the M2 and
M3 are driven by the VFD2, and the M3 is designed as a
Fig. 1. The system scheme of the the control system
standby motor. Power supply of the VFD2 is controlled by the
circuit breaker QF3 and KM4, and the operation of M2 and
In Fig.1, the MCGS 10-inch color touch-sensitive screen is
M3 is determined by contactor KM5 and KM6 respectively.
used as the human-machine interface of the control system,
The speed sensors PG1 and PG2 are utilized to detect the
which human-computer interface and monitoring screen is
rotational speed of motor M1 and M2 respectively.
developed by MCGS configuration software (embedded
version). The touch-sensitive screen can accept the control TABLE I. DEVICES OF THE MOTOR DRIVE CIRCUIT
instructions and parameter settings by the operator, and
display the I/O status of the PLC and speed regulating units, Devices Applications Notes
and monitor the running information of the system. The QF0 System power supply Breaker
central controller of this system chooses SIEMENS S7-200 QF1~QF3 Speed regulating channel power Breaker
PLC, including CPU224XPCN, EM223 and EM235 modules, supply
KM1 VFD1 power control Contactor
to complete the control of motor speed control unit, as well as
the processing and operation of analog signals. The motor KM2 M1 power frequency operation Contactor
speed control unit is made up of two speed regulating channels, KM3 M1 variable frequency operation Contactor
including two FRENIC5000G11S multi-functional VFDs, KM4 VFD2 power control Contactor
three motors and two photoelectric encoders, of which the two
KM5 M2 variable frequency operation Contactor
speed regulating channels can be operated independently or in
parallel. KM6 M3 variable frequency operation Contactor
M1 Power/variable frequency motor Motor
III. CIRCUIT DESIGN M2 Variable frequency motor Motor
A. Motor drive circuit M3 Standby motor Motor
The system circuit is composed of a motor drive circuit S1 M1 rotational speed measurement Motor
and PLC control circuit according to the above design scheme S2 M2 rotational speed measurement Motor
and the characteristics of the electric control system. Among
them motor drive circuit consists of the main circuit of the B. VFD control circuit
VFD, three-phase asynchronous motor and circuit breaker, The VFD control circuit consists of a touch-sensitive
contactor and thermal relay, as shown in Fig.2. screen, a PLC (including the CPU, an analog module and a
digital module) and control circuit of VFD, which is used to
set parameters, process data, adjust speed of motor and
monitor I/O ports. The control circuits of the two VFDs are
shown in Fig.3 and Fig.4 respectively.

Fig. 2. The motor drive circuit

Fig. 3. The VFD1 control circuit

1170

Fig. 4. The VFD2 control circuit
In Fig.3 and Fig.4, the touch-sensitive screen MCGS1050,
analog module EM235, digital module EM223 and the input
interface of PLC are powered by DC 24V, and the PLC power
supply and AC contactor coils are powered by AC 220V. The
touch-sensitive screen communicates with PLC by RS485
standard serial communication mode, and the VFD is
connected with PLC by controlling terminal. Devices and its
parameters of this circuit are selected as showed in Table 2.
TABLE II. DEVICE MODEL AND PARAMETERS OF CONTROL SYSTEM
Devices Parameters Manufacturer
VFD1 5000G11S/P11S Fuji
VFD2 5000G11S/P11S Fuji
PLC CPU224CN SIEMENS
Analog modules EM235 SIEMENS
Digital module EM223 SIEMENS
Touch-sensitive screen TPC1061 MCGS
In the VFD1 control circuit shown in Fig.3, the digital
input interface I0.0 and I0.3 of PLC are inputted into the
dynamic signal FR1 of thermal relay and the multi-function
output signal Y5 of VFD1, the interface I0.1 and I0.2 is
inputted into the total alarm signal 30A and 30B of VFD1
respectively, which used as the alarm signal and operation
monitoring signal for VFD1. The digital output signal Q0.0
and Q0.1 are input to the operation control interface FWD and
REV of the VFD1 to control the start and stop of the motor.
The Q2.0, Q2.1, Q2.2 and Q2.3 are connected to the X1, X2,
X3 and X4, respectively, employed to output multifunctional
control signal. The Q0.4, Q0.5 and Q0.6 are connected to the
KM1, KM2 and KM3 respectively, which are utilized to
control the operation mode of motor M1.
In the VFD2 control circuit shown in Fig.4, the digital
input signal I2.0, I2.1, I2.3 of PLC are inputted into the alarm
signal 30A, 30B and the multi-function output signal Y5 of
VFD2, respectively, which used as the alarm and monitoring
signal. The digital output signal Q0.2 and Q0.3 are input to the
operation control interface FWD and REV to control the start
and stop of the VFD2. The Q2.4, Q2.5, Q2.6 and Q2.7 are
connected to the X1, X2, X3 and X4, respectively, employed
to output multifunctional control signal of the VFD2. The
1171
Q0.7, Q1.0 and Q1.1 are connected to the KM4, KM5 and
KM6 respectively, which are used to control power supply of
VFD2, motor M2 and motor M3.
The DIP switch of the analog module EM235 is set to
0~20mA unipolar current signals. Among two AI signals are
used to input DC4~20mA signals of rotational speed sensors
respectively, whose address are AIW4 and AIW6. The
DC4~20mA current signal by analog output port AQW0 and
AQW2 are input to the frequency setting port of VFD1 and
VFD2, which is used to adjust the frequency of output current.
IV. SOFTWARE DESIGN
A. HMI interface design
The interface and monitoring screen of HMI is developed
by MCGS configuration software (embedded version). This
system adopts the idea of pagination design, which consists of
six basic pages: the main interface, control interface, operation
monitoring, parameter setting, user management and historical
events. The whole design structure and its control interface are
shown in Fig.5 and Fig.6 respectively.
Fig. 5. The whole design structure of HMI interface
Fig. 6. The configuration of MCGS HMI
From the Fig.6, this control interface is designed according
to the system scheme (Fig.1) and motor drive circuit (Fig.2) of
the measurement and control system. As a human-computer
interaction interface, which can display the operation
parameters of the VFD1 and VFD2, and the operation
information of the motor M1, M2 and M3 in real time, so as to
realize the intelligent control for variable-frequency speed
regulating of motor.
B. PLC program design
The PLC control program of the system is compiled with
STE P7-Micro/WIN SP9 programming tool. Considering the
I/O configuration and control requirements of the system, the
control program consists of a main program, data processing
and display subroutine, protection and alarm subroutine, speed
regulating channel 1 and 2 subroutine, the main program flow
is shown in Figure 7.
 Fig. 9. The operation monitoring interface in Channel 1 Experiment

Next, the performance of the speed regulating channel 2 of

the system is tested. The output frequency of the VFD2 is set
to 50Hz, and the speed regulating channel 2 is activated.
When the continuation button, FWD button and the constant
button are pressed respectively, the motor M2 and M3 runs at
Fig. 7. The main program flow of the PLC the speed of 1440r/min. At this moment, the control and
operation monitoring interface of the system are shown in
V. SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION AND TEST Fig.10 and Fig.11.
The measurement and control system is constructed in the
laboratory，and the speed regulating performance experiment
is tested. The PORT0 of SIEMENS CPU224XPCN is
connected to the COM0 of the MCGS TPC1061 by RS485
serial communication cable, and the PORT1 is connected with
programming PC by PC/PPI cable, then setting the address
and communication format. It is necessary to select speed
regulating channel 1 for the functions related to power
frequency and variable-frequency power supply switching,
and to select speed regulating channel 2 related to motor
switching and operation of two motors. Furthermore, when the
VFDS are running in parallel, this two speed regulating
Fig. 10. The control interface in Channel 2 Experiment
channels are selected at the same time.
First, the performance of the speed regulating channel 1 of
the system is tested. The output frequency of the VFD1 is set
to 40Hz, and the speed regulating channel 1 is activated on the
touch-sensitive screen. When the continuation button, FWD
button and the constant button are pressed respectively, the
motor M1 runs at a speed of 1152r/min. At this point, the
control and operation monitoring interface of the system are
shown in Fig.8 and Fig.9.

Fig. 11. The operation monitoring interface in Channel 2 Experiment

Fig. 8. The control interface in Channel 1 Experiment
VI. CONCLUSION
In this paper, a measurement and control system for
variable-frequency speed regulating of motor is proposed
based on PLC and industrial touch-sensitive screen, focus on
the problem that the control system for variable-frequency
speed regulating of motor base PLC is difficult to monitor the

1172
operational status of the PLC and the VFD in real time. An
intelligent measurement and control system scheme for
variable-frequency speed regulating of the motor based on
PLC and HMI is developed according to the design ideas of
intelligent control and the composition principle of typical
Engineering electrical control system. The experimental data
show that the measurement and control system for variable-
frequency speed regulating is stable, intelligently and reliably,
and the human-machine interface is beautiful, friendly and
simple. More importantly, the scheme has realized the remote
monitoring of system status in real time, which can improve
application performance and technology level of the
variable-frequency speed regulating system based on PLC.

REFERENCES
[1] Su C L , Chung W L , Yu K T . An Energy-Savings Evaluation Method
for Variable-Frequency-Drive Applications on Ship Central Cooling
Systems[J]. IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, 2014,
50(2):1286-1294.
[2] Pronin M, Shonin O, Vorontsov A, et al. Control system of the
multistage active rectifier energizing power shovel multi-motor variable-
frequency drive for mining applications[C]// European Conference on
Power Electronics & Applications. 2011.
[3] Li J, Xiong L Y, Peng N, et al. Measurement and control system for
cryogenic helium gas bearing turbo-expander experimental platform
based on Siemens PLC S7-300[C]// Aip Conference. 2014.
[4] Liu X. Realization on Intelligent Measurement and Control System for
Limb Rehabilitation Based on PLC and Touch Screen[C]// International
Conference on Mechanical Engineering & Control Systems. 2015.
[5] Jin H, Rui X, Zhou Y. Improving the Reliability and EMC performance
in Speed Regulating System of Asynchronous Motor[C]// Asia-pacific
Conference on Environmental Electromagnetics. 2009.
[6] Kou Zhiwei, Xu Mingna, Li Wenjun, et al. Solar Hot Water Engineering
Control System Based on PLC and HMI [J]. Manufacturing Automation,
2015, 37 (6):114-117.
[7] D.Sowmiya. Monitoring and control of a PLC based VFD fed three
phase induction motor[J]. International Journal of Applied Engineering
Research, 2015, 10(2):5005-5014.
[8] Bayindir R. Design and implementation of a PLC based monitoring and
control system for reactive power compensation system[J]. International
Review on Modelling & Simulations, 2011, 4(6):3019-3028.
[9] Jin H, Rui X, Zhou Y. Improving the Reliability and EMC performance
in Speed Regulating System of Asynchronous Motor[C]// Asia-pacific
Conference on Environmental Electromagnetics. 2009.
[10] Zeb K, Uddin W, Haider A, et al. Robust speed regulation of indirect
vector control induction motor using fuzzy logic controllers based on
optimization algorithms[J]. Electrical Engineering, 2018, 100(2):787-
802.

1173