Neural Comput & Applic (2010) 19:343351 DOI 10.

1007/s00521-009-0271-1

ORIGINAL PAPER

Model reference controlled separately excited DC motor

Moleykutty George Kartik Prasad Basu Alan Tan Wee Chiat

Received: 23 April 2008 / Accepted: 6 April 2009 / Published online: 23 April 2009 Springer-Verlag London Limited 2009

Abstract This research article proposes the speed control of a separately excited DC motor (SEDM) in the constant torque region. The novelty of this article lies in the application of articial neural network-based model reference controller (MRC) for the speed control of SEDM. This paper also discusses and compares the speed control systems of SEDM using PI-controlled and fuzzy logic-controlled chopper circuit with MRC. The entire system has been modeled using MATLAB 7.0/SIMULINK toolbox. It has been observed that chopper-controlled speed control system could be eliminated by the use of MRC and the performance of the proposed system is comparable with speed control system using chopper circuit. Keywords Chopper circuit Separately excited DC motor Model reference controller Speed control Hysteresis current controller PI controller Fuzzy logic controller

1 Introduction Of all electrical drives, direct current (DC) drives are the ones which offer wide speed control ranges which can be precisely manipulated and operated stably. The nature of speed-torque characteristics of separately excited DC motor (SEDM) could be classied as constant torque operation and
M. George (&) A. T. W. Chiat Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Multimedia University, Melaka Campus, 75450 Melaka, Malaysia e-mail: moley.george@mmu.edu.my K. P. Basu Faculty of Engineering, Multimedia University, 63100 Cyberjaya, Malaysia

constant speed operation as shown in Fig. 1. Armature voltage control method is used to vary the speed up to the rated speed and the motor operates in the constant torque region. Whereas, in order to achieve speed above the rated speed, the magnetic eld ux is reduced and the motor operates in the constant power region. Traditional WardLeonard armature voltage control method was widely used to achieve speed in clockwise as well as anti-clockwise direction. However, lower efciency, bulkiness, and high capital investment of this traditional speed control technique urged power system experts to employ static power electronic converters for the speed control of DC drives. The better controllability, cheapness, higher efciency, and higher current carrying capabilities of static power converters in fact brought a major change in the performance of electrical drives. The required response could be achieved by controlling the switching patterns of static power converters. Several control techniques using conventional controllers have been reported for the control of SEDM [117]. The learning ability, self-adapting capability, super fast computing features of articial intelligence (AI) technology has brought a new challenge to electrical engineers who are struggling with complex, fast advancing, and interdisciplinary areas of technology. Published literatures [1830] illustrate the application of AI based controllers for the speed control of DC drives. In this research article, articial neural network-based model reference controller (MRC) [31] has been proposed for the speed control of separately excited DC motor (SEDM) in the constant torque region. The novelty of this article lies in the application of MRC for the speed control of separately excited DC motor. This article also discusses speed control of SEDM using PI-controlled and FLCcontrolled chopper circuits. The speed control techniques of SEDM are detailed in the second part of this paper.

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Constant Torque

Constant Power

Voltage

Current

Torque

rated speed Power Speed

speed to determine the reference armature current required by the motor. One may note that any variation in the actual speed is a measure of the armature current required by the motor. Hysteresis current controller (HCC) could be used in the current control loop to generate switching patterns required for the chopper circuit by comparing the actual current being drawn by the motor with the reference current. In an HCC, a positive pulse is generated if the actual current is less than the lower hysteresis limit, whereas a negative pulse is produced if the actual current exceeds the upper hysteresis limit. Thus, the armature current is forced to stay within the hysteresis band determined by the upper and lower hysteresis limits. 2.1 Mathematical modeling of separately excited DC motor A separately excited DC motor could be characterized by the following mathematical model: v a t Ra i a t L a eb t kxtif t dia t eb t dt 1 2 3 4

Fig. 1 Ideal DC drive characteristics

Simulation results in the third part demonstrate the successful application of MRC to control the speed of a separately excited DC motor.

2 Speed control of separately excited DC motor using chopper circuit The speed of a separately excited DC motor could be varied from zero to rated speed mainly by varying armature voltage in the constant torque region. Whereas in the constant power region, eld ux should be reduced to achieve speed above the rated speed. Figure 2 shows the speed control circuit of an armature controlled separately excited DC motor using chopper circuit. It consists of a separately excited DC motor fed by a DC source through a chopper circuit. A single-gate turn off thyristor (GTO) with its control circuit and a freewheeling diode form the chopper circuit. The control circuit consists of a speed control loop and a current control loop. A PI controller or fuzzy logic controller (FLC) could be used in the speed control loop to compare the actual speed of the motor with the reference
Fig. 2 Speed control circuit of separately excited DC motor
Ir wr wa PI Controller

Td t J

dxt Dxt TL dt dif t dt

vf t Rf if t Lf

where, va(t) is the armature supply voltage (V); ia(t), the armature current (A); eb(t), the back emf (V) vf(t), the eld supply voltage (V); if(t), the eld current (A); Ra, the armature resistance (X); La, the armature inductance (H); Rf, the eld resistance (X); Lf, the eld inductance (H); Td(t), the developed torque (Nm); w(t), the motor speed (rad./s); TL, the load torque (Nm); J, inertia of the system (kgm2); Dm, viscous friction coefcient (Nms); k, motor constant. On taking Laplace transform of the system differential equations (1)(4) with zero initialconditions, we may write, Ia s Va s E b s Ra sLa 5

HCC Ia EC Vs A

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Neural Comput & Applic (2010) 19:343351 Fig. 3 Fuzzy inference system

345

e(t)

I r Fuzzification Defuzzification I r =I r(n-1) +I r

ce(t) r

Decision making

Eb s kIf sxs x m s I f s Td s T L Dm sJa

6 7 8

Table 1 Control rule table

e NB NM NS Z PS PM PB

Vf s Rf sLf

NB NM NS ce Z PS PM PB

NB NB NB NM NM NS PS

NB NB NB NM NS PS PS

NB NB NM NS Z PS PM

NM NM NS Z PS PM PB

NM NS PS PS PM PB PB

NS PS PS PM PB PB PB

ZE PS PM PB PB PB PB

2.2 Reference current generation using FLC Fuzzy logic controller uses linguistic variables instead of numeric variables and basically depends on the experience gained by the human operator. Unlike conventional controllers, FLC does not require accurate mathematical model. Figure 3 shows the internal structure of an FLC. The fuzzy inference system mainly consists of three stages, namely, fuzzication stage, decision making stage, and defuzzication stage. One may note that the inputs of the FLC are error in speed and change in error and the output is change in reference supply current. In the fuzzication stage, the input variables and output variables are converted into linguistic variables and a membership function value in between zero and one is assigned to each of the variables. Triangular membership function has been chosen for simplicity. Seven linguistic variables, namely, negative big (NB), negative small (NS), zero (Z), positive small (PS), positive medium (PM), and positive big (PB) are assigned to each of the variables. As there are seven variables there can be 7 9 7 inputoutput relationship as tabulated in Table 1. Mamdani implication method has been used in the implication stage to determine the nal membership function graph of the output variable. Defuzzication method uses mean of maxima method to convert the linguistic output variable to crisp output. The reference source current could then be determined by integrating the output of the fuzzy logic controller. 2.3 Speed control of separately excited DC motor using chopper circuit Figure 4 shows the SIMULINK model of PI-controlled separately excited DC motor using chopper circuit, whereas

in Fig. 5 fuzzy logic implementation is shown. The specications of the DC motor are detailed as follows:
Shaft power (Pout) Field resistance (Ra) Total inertia (J) 5-hp; rated voltage (Vt) 240 X; eld inductance (La) 1 kgm2; viscous friction coefcient (Dm) 240 V 120 H 0.02 Nms

Armature resistance (Ra) 0.6 X; armature inductance (La) 0.012 H

GTO is modeled using a switch. The switch block has three inputs: the middle input controls which of the two other inputs is routed to the output. If the control input is one, 240 V is routed to the output, on the other hand if the control input is zero, a zero will be routed to the output. 2.4 Speed control of separately excited DC motor using MRC ANN is one of the branches of articial intelligence nding widespread application in controlling the power ow of transmission and distribution networks using FACTS

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Ia

1 La.s+Ra

Vt

Switch

240

Vf

1 Lf.s+Rf

If k Eb = Wm*k*If

Vf Source Wm 1 J.s+Dm TL k Td TL

PI Speed Controller Current Controller

Iref g Ia Iref wref wm

Wr

Fig. 4 SIMULINK model of PI-controlled SEDM

Ia

1 La.s+Ra

Vt

Switch

240

Vf

1 Lf.s+Rf

If k Eb = Wm*k*If

Vf Source Wm 1 J.s+Dm TL k Td TL

-C-

Wr

-CCurrent Controller
I ref g Ia

Fuzzy Logic Controller

1/s

du/dt -C-

Fig. 5 SIMULINK model of FLC-controlled SEDM

technology. ANN has been successfully applied in the identication and control of dynamic systems. Neural network controllers have been implemented in the eld of electrical power in many applications such as (electric load forecasting, transient ability assessment, harmonic source identication, inverter current controllers, speed control of DC drives, etc. The self-adapting and superfast computing features of ANN make them well suited to handle nonlinearities, uncertainities, and parameter variations that can occur in power electronic systems. In learning process, neural network adjusts its structure such that it is able to output the same signals as the supervisor. The learning is repeated until the difference between network output and supervisor is enough.

u plant

yp

neural network model

+ ym
error

Learning Algorithm

Fig. 6 Block diagram representation of system identication stage

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Neural Comput & Applic (2010) 19:343351 Fig. 7 SIMULINK plant model
In1 1

347

Ia

1/Ra Ta.s+1 Transfer Fcn1

Vf

1/Rf Tf.s+1

If Laf Ea = Wr*Laf*If

Vf Source

Transfer Fcn Wm 1 J.s+Dm Transfer Fcn2 Laf Te Tm Load Tm

1 Out 1

This research article introduces the application of one of the popular neural network controllers, namely, model reference controller implemented in neural network toolbox of MATLAB. MRC could be used to regulate the speed by controlling the armature voltage. There are two stages involved in the implementation of this controller, namely, system identication stage and controller training stage. Figure 6 shows the block diagram representation of the system identication stage. Plant identication GUI is an interactive environment for developing a neural network capable of modeling a given plant. In the control design stage, the developed neural network plant model is used to the train the controller. It has been observed that well trained controllers will be able to keep track of the reference signal. 2.4.1 System identication stage The rst phase of plant identication process is to generate input/output data to train a neural network to represent the forward dynamics of the plant. This could be achieved by either generating the training data from simulink plant

model or by importing the training data from a valid data le with input and output values. The LevenbergMarquadrat algorithm is used for training the plant model. Once the training data is acceptable, a neural network could be trained to identify the function of the plant identication model described as: yk d N yk; yk 1; . . .; yk n 1; 9 uk; uk 1; . . .; uk n 1 where u(k)is the system input, y(k) is the system output and d is the system delay. To determine the control input that causes the plant output to follow a specic reference, the controller could be identied using the expression
" yr k d f uk yk; yk 1; . . .; yk n 1; uk 1; . . .; uk m 1 10 #

gyk; yk 1; . . .; yk n 1; uk 1; . . .; uk n 1

However, determination of the control input based on the output at the same time is not realistic and hence uses the model yk d f yk; yk 1; . . .; yk n 1; uk; uk 1; . . .; uk n 1 gyk; . . .; yk n 1; uk; . . .; uk n 1:uk 1

Table 2 Plant model specications Size of hidden layer Sampling interval (s) No. of delayed plant inputs No. of delayed plant outputs Training samples Maximum plant input Minimum plant input Maximum interval value (s) Minimum interval value (s) Maximum plant output Minimum plant output Training epochs Training function Use current weights Use validation data Use testing data 9 6.254e-5 3 2 40,000 240 0 2 1 150 0 100 Trainlm Selected Unselected Unselected

10 -1

Performance is 0.00402152, Goal is 0

Training-Blue

10 -2

10 -3 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50

50 Epochs

Fig. 8 Performance graph

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and the controller is then given by the following equation

" yr k d f uk 1 yk; . . .; yk n 1; uk; . . .; uk n 1 # 11

gyk; . . .; yk n 1; uk; . . .; uk m 1

The SIMULINK plant model shown in Fig. 7 is used to generate the inputoutput pattern required in the controller training stage. The plant model must have an input port and
Fig. 9 Training data for NN model reference control
250 200 150 100 50 0

output port. One may note that the input of the plant is the driving voltage to the armature and the output is the corresponding speed of the motor. Plant model specications are tabulated in Table 2. As specied in Table 2, the maximum and minimum input voltages to the armature have been treated as 240 and 0 V, respectively. Random inputs in between 240 and 0 V will be applied to the SIMULINK plant model to generate the training data. The
Input
100

Plant Output

50

Error
0.2 100 0.1

NN Output

0 50 -0.1

-0.2

time (s)

time (s)

Fig. 10 Model reference controller

Reference Model

+
NN Plant model model error

control error

Command input

NN Controller

Plant Control input plant output

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Neural Comput & Applic (2010) 19:343351 Table 3 Reference model specications Size of hidden layer Sampling interval (s) No. of delayed reference inputs No. of delayed controller outputs No. delayed plant outputs Training samples Maximum reference value Minimum reference value Maximum interval value (s) Minimum interval value (s) Training epochs Controller training segments Use current weights Use cumulative training 1 6.254e-5 2 1 1 56,000 150 0 2 1 10 2 Selected Unselected

349

Goldfarb, and Shanno) training algorithm was used to train the controller. Model reference controller structure has two layers and three sets of inputs, namely, reference inputs, controller output, and plant output. Reference model specications are tabulated in Table 3. The SIMULINK model of the MRC controlled separately excited DC motor is shown in Fig. 11. One may note that the inputs of this controller are the required reference speed and the actual speed of the motor and the output is the driving voltage to the armature.

3 Results and discussion MRC has been successfully modeled and tested to control the speed of a separately excited DC motor. MATLAB 7.0 toolbox is used to model the system. The performance of the developed system is compared with two other systems: one with PI-controlled chopper circuit and the other one FLC-controlled chopper. In chopper-controlled circuits, HCC is used to generate the switching patterns required by the chopper circuit. It has been found that the chopper and its control circuit could be eliminated by the use of MRC. The validity of the system has been examined with different load torque. Simulation results are plotted as shown in Fig. 12. Plots of rated speed (wr), load torque (TL), actual speed of the motor using PI controller (wap), FLC (waf) and MRC (wamrc) are shown in Fig. 12. It has been observed that MRC is able to regulate the speed of SEDM independent of load torque.
Ia 1 La.s+Ra Vt

maximum plant output has been taken as the rated speed of the motor. Performance graph and training data obtained for NN model reference control at the system identication stage are illustrated in Figs. 8 and 9, respectively. 2.4.2 Model reference controller Model reference architecture uses two neural networks: a controller network and a plant model network as shown in Fig. 10. The plant model is identied rst, and then the controller is trained so that the plant output follows the reference model output. The BFGS (Broyden, Fletcher,
Fig. 11 Model referencecontrolled SEDM
Vf 1 Lf.s+Rf Vf Source If k

Eb = Wm*k*If

Wm

1 J.s+Dm

TL TL

Td

Model Reference Controller Wr Reference Neural Network Controller Plant Output

Control Signal

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200 180 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 TL*6 (Nm) wr(rad/s) wap(rad/s) waf(rad/s) wamrc(rad/s)

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Time (s)

Fig. 12 Simulation results

4 Conclusion Speed controller system based on MRC has been successfully developed using MATLAB 7.1 toolbox to control the speed of a separately excited DC motor. The novelty of this paper lies in the application of MRC to control of a separately excited DC motor. This paper also discusses modeling and control of SEDM using PI- and FLC-controlled chopper circuit. The performance of the system has been compared using two different types of controllers. It has been found that speed control system using chopper circuit could be eliminated by the use of MRC.

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