JOURNAL OF COMPUTING, VOLUME 2, ISSUE 9, SEPTEMBER 2010, ISSN 2151-9617
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Prototyping Approach to Neuro-Fuzzy Speed Control of
Trapezoidal Brushless DC Motor
1
G.MadhusudhanaRao, 2B.Sampath Kumar
Abstract:This paper involves the Neuro-fuzzy logic
controlling of trapezoidal brushless DC (BLDC)
motor with rapid control method. A trapezoidal
BLDC motor has a trapezoidal flux distribution and
is supplied by square wave voltages or quasi-
square wave currents. A neuro-fuzzy controller is
developed by using MATLAB Fuzzy-Logic
Toolbox and NN tool box then it is inserted into
the Simulink model. This model is directly
communicated with a DSP through DS2201
dSPACE digital signal kit. PWM pulses are
produced on the simulation model and DSP C
program is directly developed through dSPACE
system. It is shown that, neuro-fuzzy controller is
successfully controlling the motor and, the model
based programming of DSPs is very simple and
versatile comparing with that of conventional
method.
Key Words: BLDC Motor, Neuro-Fuzzy, PWM
Pulse, MatLab/ Simulink, Signal Processor, Speed
Control
I.INTROCUCTION
In electric traction, like in other applications, a
wide range in speed and torque control for the
electric motor is desired. The DC machine fulfils
these requirements, but this machine needs periodic
maintenance. The AC machines, like induction
motors [1], and brushless permanent magnet
motors do not have brushes, and their rotors are
robust because commutator and/or rings do not
exist. That means very low maintenance. This also
increases the power- to -weight ratio and the
efficiency. For induction motors, flux control has
been developed, which offers a high dynamic
performance for electric traction applications.
However, this control type is complex and
sophisticated.
G.MadhusudhanaRao, Professor in the Department of
EEE of K L University, Guntur, Andhra Pradesh.
Ph: 9885103288
B.Sampath Kumar, Asst. Professor in the Department of
EEE, ARJUN CET-Hyderabad, AndhraPradesh.
Ph: 9676939109
I.NarasimhaSwamy, Assistant Professor, in the
Department of EEE, ARJUN CET- Hyderabad, Andhra
Pradesh
77
3
I.Narasimhaswamy
E-mail:swamynarasimha.121@gmail.com Ph: 9676939109
The development of brushless permanent magnet
machines has permitted an important simplification
in the hardware for electric traction control. Today,
two kinds of brushless permanent magnet machines
[2],[3] for traction applications are the most popular:
i) the Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor
(PMSM), which is fed with sinusoidal currents, and
ii) the Brushless DC Motor (BDCM), which is fed
with quasi-square-wave currents. These two designs
eliminate the rotor copper losses, giving very high
peak efficiency compared with a traditional induction
motor. Besides, the power-to-weight ratio of PMSM
and BLDC motor is higher than equivalent squirrel
cage induction machines. Therefore mentioned
characteristics and a high reliability control make this
type of machine a powerful traction system for
electric vehicle applications. However, sensing the
phase currents and the position of the rotor are two of
the drawbacks that this type of machine have. In this
paper, a control system for brushless DC motors,
based on a DSP is proposed [5]. The DSP used is the
TMS320F241, which has been programmed to
produce a simple way to control the machine
currents, and to evaluate the instantaneous position of
the rotor. The method is based on 1) the measurement
of the currents, based on a common dc current IMAX,
which is obtained taking the absolute values of two of
the three real phase currents, and 2) the calculation of
the commutation instants based on the slope
variations of this current IMAX.The most popular way
to control BLDC motor for traction applications is
through the use of voltage-source current-controlled
inverters. The inverter must supply a quasi-square
current waveform, whose magnitude, IMAX, is
proportional to the machine shaft torque. Then, by
controlling the phase currents, torque and speed can
be adjusted, There are two ways to control the phase
currents of a BLDC: 1) through the measurement of
the phase currents, which are compared and forced to
follow a quasi-square template, and 2) through the
measurement of the dc link current, which is used to
get the magnitude of the phase-currents, IMAX. In the
first case, the control is complicated, because it is
required to generate three, quasi-square current
templates, shifted 120º for the three phases. Besides,
these current templates are not easy to follow for the
machine currents, because of phase-shifts and delays
introduced. In the second case, it is difficult to
measure the dc current, because the connection
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between transistors and the dc capacitors in power current controller, which has been implemented for
inverters are made with flat plates to reduce software inside the DSP. The DSP calculates the
leakage inductance. Then, it becomes difficult to currents from two of the three phases, takes their
connect a dc current sensor. To avoid those absolute values and makes a process similar to a
drawbacks, the equivalent dc current is obtained rectification called IMAX, is compared with a
through the sensing of two the three armature reference with the error signal is processed through a
currents. From these currents, the absolute value is PI controller. The output of the PI controller is
taken, and a dc component, which corresponds to compared with a saw-teeth carrier signal, to generate
the amplitude IMAX of the original phase currents, is the PWM for the power transistors. At the same time,
obtained. This dc component is then used to drive the position estimator discriminates which couple of
the BLDC motor. This paper proposes here is, by the six transistors of the inverter should receive this
using DSP technology the discrete (analog and PWM signal.
digital) components are implemented. Besides, all The phase currents of figure 1 are sensed using LEMs
the PWM signals for the six transistors are (current sensors), whose output signals are in first
transmitted from the control to the inverter through place filtered by two independent analog, second
fiber optics. order, lowpass filters: one for current control and the
The second issue to ve solved in this paper is the other for position estimation. Then, these
position estimator of the rotor. For PMSM motors independent signals are passed through analog-to-
many methods for obtaining rotor position and digital converters. The digital information of these
speed have been proposed in the literature. These two signals (current through IMAX and position
methods are called observers and are based on estimation through dIMAX/dt) are then processed on
mathematical models of the motor. They need an the DSP.
accurate knowledge of motor parameters, and
some of them are: 1) The Luenberger Observer,
which is one of the simplest, and has a linear
feedback. It is of a deterministic type and does not
take into account system and measurement noise.
2) The Sliding Mode Observer that has a similar
structure to the previous observer, but the error
feedback signal is a non-linear switching function,
and 3) The extended Kalman filter, which is a non-
linear, recursive, stochastic filter, based on noise
properties of systems. Its feedback gain is a
function of the covariance matrices of the system Figure 1.control mechanism of BLDC motor.
and measurement noise. This last solution needs
knowledge of noise properties and is PI SPEED CONTROLLER
computationally more intensive than the previous
PI controller is widely used in industry due to its
methods.For BLDC motors, a precise ease in design and simple structure. The rotor speed
determination of the rotor angle is not necessary. It ωr(n) is compared with the reference speed ωr(n)* and
is only required to know the position of the resulting error is estimated at the nth sampling
commutation points, because the objective is to instant
achieve quasi-square current waveforms, with dead
time periods of 60º. DIGITAL CONTROL OF BLDC
This paper has been divided into two main
research areas; the first consists on the design and The drive consists of speed controller, reference
implementation of a current control system for the current generator, PWM current controller, position
BLDC machine, and the second part describes the sensor the motor and IGBT. The speed of the motor
design of the logic, which calculates the is compared with its reference value and the speed
instantaneous position of the rotor. All this error is processed in proportional - integral (PI) speed
calculations are realized with the DSP controller. The output of this controller is considered
TMS320F241. as the reference torque. The BLDC motor is
characterized by a two phase ON operation to control
II.CURRENT CONTROL SYSTEM the inverter. In this control scheme, torque production
follows the principle that current should flow in only
The circuit of figure.1 shows, in an equivalent two of the three phases at a time and that there should
hardware configuration, the basic topology of the
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be no torque production in the region of Back EMF
zero crossings [4].
Commutation provides the creation of a rotation
field. As explained, it is necessary to keep the
angle between stator and rotor flux close to 60° for
a BLDC motor [10] to operate properly. Six-step
control creates a total of six possible stator flux
vectors. The stator flux vector must be changed at a
certain rotor position. Hall sensors usually sense
the rotor position. The Hall sensors generate three
signals that also comprise six states. Indeed the
drive characteristic and control methods are very
similar for the trapezoidal and sinusoidal machines
and in both cases the motor must be energized with
controlled currents that are synchronized with rotor
position.
next layer through links which either attenuate or
amplify the signal [9]. ANNs are trained to emulate a
function by presenting it with a representative set of
input or output functional patterns. The back-
propagation training technique adjusts the weights in
all connecting links and thresholds in the nodes so
that the difference between the actual output and
target output are minimized for all given training
patterns. It is also widely accepted that maximum of
two hidden layers are sufficient to learn any arbitrary
nonlinearity. However, the number of hidden neurons
and the values of learning parameters, which are
equally critical for satisfactory learning, are not
supported by such well established selection Criteria.

f1: tansig; f2:tansig; f3: purelin

Figure3. Structure of ANN1

The ANN1 and ANN2 structure is shown in

Figure 3, and Figure 4. It consists of an input layer,
output layer and one hidden layer. The input and
hidden layers are tansig-sigmoid activation functions,
while the output layer is a linear function. Three
inputs of ANN1 are a reference speed ωr(k), a
terminal voltage Vt(k-1) and an armature current
Figure 2: Stator phase voltages and current waves ia(k-1). And output of ANN1 is an estimated speed
indicating the converter conducting devices ωp*(k). The ANN2 has four inputs: reference speed
ωr(k), a terminal voltage Vt(k-1), an armature current
However a distinction is now being drawn ia(k-1) and an estimated speed ωp*(k) from ANN1.
between the two drive because of the differences in The output of ANN2 is the control signal for
machine construction and because the standard converter Alpha.
synchronous motor requires sinusoidal current
excitation whereas the trapezoidal machine is
energized, with square-wave and quasi square
wave currents [11]. The rotor position sensor for
the trapezoidal machine usually consist of a
number of simple position detectors such as hall,
effect devices that can sense rotor magnetic field
and so determine the phase switching points. The
sinusoidal machine requires more precise position f1: tansig; f2:tansig; f3: purelin
information to allow accurate synthesis of the Figure4. Structure of ANN2
sinusoidal current waveforms.
The obtained decision and the designed neural
III. NEURO-FUZZY CONTROLLING network are observed to be higher in decision
APPROACH accuracy but takes larger computation time for the
error convergence to give an estimation decision [8],
Neural network have been found to be [12]. To improve the decision speed by the network
effective systems for learning discriminates for fuzzy decision architecture in incorporated with the
patterns from a body of examples. Activation neural network. The fuzzy modeling is done by using
signals of nodes in one layer are transmitted to the the characteristic function defined as
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convergence of the neural network [6]. Basic model

of such an neuro fuzzy architecture is as shown
below in figure 5.
1 if x Y
μY (x) = B

0,other wise Fuzzy Neural L

D
interfac
e
network C

The subset Y can be uniquely represented by

ordered pairs Y = {(x1, 1), (x2, 1), (x3, 0), (x4, 0),
(x5, 1)}. The second member of an ordered pair Training
called as the membership grade of the appropriate l ih
Figure 5. A Neuro-fuzzy controlling unit
element can take its value not only from the set {0,
1} but from the closed interval [0, 1] as well. For a
The obtained control signals from this neuro
X a universal crisp set (observation set). The set of
fuzzy logic model is then passed to a inverter model
ordered pairs
design with a inverter logic.
Y = {(x, μY (x))|x X, μY : X [0, 1]} is said to be
the fuzzy subset of X. The μY: X [0, 1] function is 0.025
Toruqe plot

called as membership function and its value is said mean-ref modelling

conventional approach

to be the membership grade of x [7]. 0.02

A if-then rule is used for the decision approach for

the input observation in fuzzy model. if-then rules, 0.015

Torque
cik(k = 0, 1, . . . , n) are the consequent parameter
resulting in yi output from the ith if-then rule, for 0.01

Xk is a fuzzy set. Given an input (x1, x2, . . ., xn),

the final output of the fuzzy model is referred as 0.005

follows:
0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
time

Y= Figure6: Generated torque reference wrt. Time

Figure 6 illustrates the obtained torque

= reference generated for the designed system based on
the control logic generated by Mean reference
Modeling and Conventional Approach it observed
that the generated torque per unit is more accurately
=
controlled in Mean Reference Modeling as compared
to conventional approach due to faster controlling
operation Mean reference modeling based system
Where x0 = 1, i is the weight of the ith If-Then generates higher torque than the conventional
rule for the input and is calculated as,
approach.
System error plot
300
Neuro-fuzzy-SPWM modelling
conventional approach
Aik(xk), where Aik(xk) is the grad of membership of 250

Xk. If x1 is Ai1 . . . , xn is Ain then yi = ki(c0 + c1x1 +

. . . + cnxn) where i = 1, 2, . . .,N, N is the number 200
System error

of if-then rules. The advantage of solving the

150
complex nonlinear problems by utilizing fuzzy
logic methodologies is that the experience or 100
expert’s knowledge described as a fuzzy rule base
can be directly embedded into the systems for 50

dealing with the problems. This advantage of the

fuzzy rules help in making the network designed to 0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
take more accurate decision based on the selected time

information by fuzzy node resulting in faster

Figure7. Proposed system error evaluation
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Figure7. a system error evaluation is carried IV.CONCLUSION

out for the developed neuro-fuzzy model with a
SPWM driving logic for a BLDC motor drive. it is The Neuro-fuzzy logic controllers of brushless
observed that the system error is comparatively DC (BLDC) motor with rapid control method are
better than conventional approach due to high simulated. Initially a MATLAB/Simulink model
accuracy in learning approach based an neuro- develops the six pulse BLDC motor and its power
fuzzy and very low distortion input in driver side. electronic driver. A neuro-fuzzy controller is also
4
x 10 Speed plot developed by using MATLAB Fuzzy-Logic Toolbox
3.5
Neuro-fuzzy-SPWM modelling
and NN tool box then it is inserted into the Simulink
3
conventional approach model. PWM pulses are produced on the simulation
model. It is shown that, neuro-fuzzy controller is
2.5 successfully controlling the motor and, a system error
evaluation is carried out for the developed neuro-
2
fuzzy model with a SPWM driving logic for a BLDC
speed

1.5 motor drive. It is also observed that the system error

is comparatively better than conventional approach
1
due to high accuracy in learning approach. the model
0.5
based programming of DSPs is very simple and
versatile comparing with that of conventional
0
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
method.
time

Figure.8. Comparison of system error and the V.REFERENCES

conventional Method
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WWW.JOURNALOFCOMPUTING.ORG
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82
AUTHOR’S BIOGRAPHY
1
G.MadhusudhanaRao, Professor in K L University, and
thesis report submited in JNT University Hyderabad and
completed M.Tech from JNT University-Hyderabad .He
has Published 9 research papers in International Journals
and 5 International conference papers and 8 national
conference papers.
2
B.Sampath Kumar, Asst. Professor in the Department of
EEE, ARJUN CET-Hyderabad, He has published 2
International journals and 2more national conferences.
Ph: 9676939109
3
I.Narasimhaswamy, Asst. Professor in ACTS, and
completed M.Tech from JNT University-Hyderabad .He
has Published 1 research paper in International Journal and
1 International conference papers and many national
conference papers.