Real Time simulation of Vector Control for an Induction Motor

A Progress Report submitted by Vikrant More (Roll No. 110905063) Akshay Mhalgi (Roll No. 110905048) Akshat Khanna (Roll No. 110905066) Under the guidance of Prof. Suhas Kakade, Prof. Subhojit Basu and Prof. Dr. Sanjay Dambhare

Department of Electrical Engineering COLLEGE OF ENGINEERINGPUNE

I.

Introduction :

Traction motors for automotive applications are gaining ground in the industry in view of rising energy prices and significant environmental issues. International Energy Agency (IEA) in its 2009 report had mentioned that fossil fuel based transportation is the second largest source of carbon dioxide emission. The stage is set for high efficiency electric motors for traction in hybrid or purely electric vehicles. Several vehicle manufacturers have introduced hybrid electric vehicles for example the Honda FCX, Toyota Prius. Major points of concern in these cars have been their efficiency levels. The true potential of electric vehicles was unleashed with the introduction of Tesla Roadster, which offered significantly higher mileage and performance comparable to current gasoline versions in the market . The Indian Government plans to pump in Rs 23,000 crore for infrastructure, subsidies, car finance over the next eight years. Our project involves designing a vector control strategy for an induction motor. AC Induction motors have been predominantly used for constant and variable speed operations because of its robustness and reliability. These motors can be optimized for operating in electric vehicles. Induction motors offer a wide range of operation in terms of speed with a higher overall efficiency. A comparison between efficiencies of Tesla Roadster and Toyota Prius supports this claim.

II.

Work done :

1) Literature survey was carried out for the following topics by referring to the papers mentioned in the references and also various sources on the internet The motor to be used for the application (Induction motor vs IPM motors) The vector control technique to be used (Direct vs Indirect) & flux orientation. Type of controller used for finding torque reference (PI vs PD vs PID) Control strategies for induction motors can be divided in two major parts : Scalar : These traditional methods control the frequency and amplitude of the motor drive voltage .The disadvantage of scalar control technique is the poor dynamic response because the flux control and torque control is not independent of each other. Vector : This method controls the frequency, amplitude and phase of the motor drive voltage. Vector control is a better solution because control of flux and torque becomes independent of each other. Motor is operated like a separately excited DC motor. There are two types of vector control strategies: Direct Vector Control : Also called feedback method, the flux vector is obtained by means of direct flux measurement of estimation. Direct flux measurement is achieved using Hall Effect sensor. The sensors need to be fixed in the stator slots and add to the manufacturing cost of new motor. Problems such as drift because of temperature, poor flux sensing at lower speed also persist.

Indirect Vector Control : The rotor flux vector position is computed from the speed feedback signal of the motor. The difference between the reference speed and the rotor speed is fed to the controller. The controller computes the slip speed that on addition to feedback motor speed provides the speed of rotor flux vector from which the angle of inclination of the rotor flux is computed. Currently the 2 commercially viable motors available for this application as induction motors and PMSM. We make our case supporting the induction motor based on the following points Compared to the IPM, an IM motor can tolerate a wide range of temperatures. Consider the following case - Providing adequate cooling for the Toyota Prius's permanent magnet motor adds significantly to the vehicle's weight. An induction motor, by contrast, can be cooled passively, thereby reducing weight and achieving far higher levels of performance. In a typical driving cycle over a wide speed range, the induction machine turns out to be more efficient as compared to a permanent magnet machine which is more efficient only at its peak efficiency operating point. China holds monopoly (97% production) over the rare earth material Neodymium, the cost of which has quadrupled over the past few years. This is a major hindrance in using IPM as machines using Neodymium. REACT (Rare Earth Alternatives in Critical Technologies) is a grant set up under the Department of Energy, US Government which promotes research for replacing Neodymium based magnets with suitable alternatives. This further substantiates the argument for not using Permanent Magnet motors.

We will be using rotor flux oriented vector control as it offers natural decoupling control as compared to stator flux oriented control(which requires a decoupler), thereby improving the dynamic response of the motor. The motor will be operated in field weakening region to achieve wide speed response, i.e. above the base speed, where the motor is operated constant power. To get the reference torque, we will be using a PI controller. The speed controller is required to keep the motor speed equal to the reference speed in steady state and provide good dynamic response during the transients. The advantages of a PI controller are that it provides feedback, eliminates steady state error, improves damping factor and reduces maximum overshoot. The PI controller used for vector control of an induction motor

is also called a speed controller. The input to the PI controller is the speed reference. The output of the controller is given to a hysteresis band controller and the output of the hysteresis band controller is torque reference, which is used in the system.
2) The Simulink model for vector control of Induction motor (using indirect vector control method) is being designed. The model diagram has been attached in the appendix for reference The various control blocks are being modeled now ( Flux estimator, direct axis and quadrature- axis current estimator, PI controller, slip frequency estimator and coordinate transformation blocks (Parks , Clarkes transformation) have been modeled already).

III. Conclusion:
We have substantiated the best methods to be employed for simulating vector control strategy for a hybrid electric vehicle i.e. using indirect vector control with rotor flux orientation on an induction motor for achieving best possible dynamic performance. We have simulated individual blocks of vector control in MATLAB and are currently trying to fix problems in reference torque generation and PI controller tuning.

IV.

Future course of action :

Develop a lookup table for flux reference values in the flux weakening mode operation. Tuning of PI controller for generation of accurate reference torque. Design of appropriate current controller (hysteresis band or synchronous) for 3 phase current reference values. Tackle singularity problem(during integration) in generation of theta for vector rotation. Simulation of MATLAB model in the flux weakening mode. Study dspace software, implementation of model in dspace and generation of gate pulses using the dspace kit.

V.

References :

[1] Bose, B. K. (2002). Modern Power Electronics and AC Drives. Prentice-Hall, N. J. [2] The 21st Century Electric Car. Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Tesla Motors Inc. [3]SimPowerSystems. Hydro-Qubec. Transnergie Technologies. [4] Mohd Khursheed, Adil Sarwar, Shirazul Islam, Farhad Ilahi Bakhsh. Performance Evaluation of an Indirect Vector Controlled Drive Using Synchronous Current Controller. International Journal of Engineering Research and Applications (IJERA) ISSN: 2248-9622 [5] Government maps road for Electric Vehicles, Economic Times. [6] R. Krishnan , Electric Motor Drives - Modeling, Analysis and Control. Prentice-Hall, N.J. [7] Mihai Cheles, Dr-Ing. Hafedh Sammoud. Sensorless field oriented control of AC Induction motor using field weakening. Microchip Inc. [8] James L. Kirtley, Traction Motor Design Considerations. MIT. [9] David G. Dorrell, Andrew M. Knight, Lyndon Evans, Mircea Popescu, Analysis and Design Techniques applied to hybrid vehicle drive machines. IEEE

Appendix
1. Underlying model for Vector Control.

2. Ongoing Simulink Model diagram