Performance of Fuzzy-Logic Based Indirect
Vector Control for Induction Motor Drive
Rabinarayana Parida, M.I.E.E.E, BPUT,Orissa,rabiparida@rediffmail.com
Prof. K.B. Mohanty, M.I.E.E.E,NIT,Rourkela,barada5@rediffmail.com
Abstract-This paper presents a novel speed control scheme of an
induction motor (IM) using fuzzy-logic control. The fuzzy-logic
controller (FLC) is based on the indirect vector control. The
fuzzy-logic speed controller is employed in the outer loop. The
complete vector control scheme of the IM drive incorporating
the FLC is experimentally implemented using a digital signal
processor board DS-1104 for the laboratory 1-hp squirrel-cage
IM. The performances of the proposed FLC-based IM drive are
investigated and compared to those obtained from the
conventional proportional-integral (PI) controller-based drive
both theoretically and experimentally at different dynamic
operating conditions such as sudden change in command speed,
step change in load etc. The comparative experimental results
show that the FLC is more robust and, hence, found to be a
suitable replacement of the conventional PI controller for the
high-performance industrial drive applications.
Index Terms - Digital signal processor, fuzzy-logic
controller, induction motor, PI controller, real-time
implementation, speed control.
1. INTRODUCTION
AC MOTOR drives are used in a multitude of industrial and
process applications requiring high performances. In high-
performance drive systems, the motor speed should closely
follow a specified reference trajectory regardless of any load
disturbances, parameter variations, and model uncertainties.
In order to achieve high performance, field-oriented control
of induction motor (IM) drive is employed [1]. However, the
controller design of such a system plays a crucial role in
system performance. The decoupling characteristics of
vector-controlled IM are adversely affected by the parameter
changes in the motor. The motor-control issues are
traditionally handled by fixed-gain proportional-integral (PI)
and proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controllers.
However, the fixed-gain controllers are very sensitive to
parameter variations, load disturbances, etc. Thus, the
controller parameters have to be continually adapted. The
problem can be solved by several adaptive control techniques
such as model reference adaptive control (MRAC) [2],
sliding-mode control (SMC) [3], variable structure control
(VSC) [4], and self-tuning PI controllers [5], etc. The design
of all of the above controllers depends on the exact system
mathematical model. However, it is often difficult to develop
an accurate system mathematical model due to unknown load
variation, unknown and unavoidable parameter variations
due to saturation, temperature variations, and system
disturbances. In order to overcome to above problems,
recently, the fuzzy-logic controller (FLC) is being used for
motor control purpose [7]–[12]. The mathematical tool for
the FLC is the fuzzy set theory introduced by Zadeb [6]. As
compared to the conventional PI, PID, and their adaptive
versions, the FLC has some advantages such as: 1) it does
not need any exact system mathematical model; 2) it can
handle nonlinearity of arbitrary complexity; and 3) it is based
on the linguistic rules with an IF-THEN general structure,
which is the basis of human logic. However, the application
of FLC has faced some disadvantages during hardware and
software implementation due to its high computational
burden [7]. The earlier reported works for fuzzy-logic
applications in motor drives [8]–[11] are mainly theoretical
and based on either simulation or experimental results at low-
speed operating conditions. This paper investigates the
successful application of the FLC for normal speed control of
IM drives. The complete vector control scheme of IM
incorporating the FLC has been successfully implemented in
real time using digital-signal-processor (DSP) controller-
board DS1104. The performances of the proposed drive have
also been compared with those obtained from the
conventional PI controller both theoretically and
experimentally. It is found that the proposed FLC is
insensitive to temperature changes, inertia variations, and
load torque disturbances. This novel FLC could be a suitable
replacement for the conventional PI controller for high-
performance drive systems.
II. DESIGN OF FLC FOR IM
For the proposed FLC, the speed error and rate of change of
the speed error are considered as the input linguistic variables
and the torque-producing current component is considered as
the output linguistic variable.
Thus, the functional relation of the FLC can be expressed as
[14].
i q ( n ) = ∫ discrete ∆ i q ( n ) = f ( ∆ e ( n ), ∆ ω r ( n )) (9)
where ∆ e ( n ) = ∆ ω r ( n ) − ∆ ω r ( n − 1 ) is the change of
speed error, is the present sample of speed error,
∆ ω r ( n ) = w r* ( n ) − ω r ( n ) is the sample of speed error,
∆ωr (n − 1) past sample of speed error, is the present sample
*
of actual, speed, ωr (n) is the present sample of command
speed, and f denotes the nonlinear function. The main goal of
the control system is to track the command speed by
providing the appropriate torque-producing current
component iq depending upon the operating conditions. In
real time, the motor position information and output of the
FLC, which is considered as the command q-axis current, as
well as the command d-axis current, are used to get the
command phase current and using (5). The electrical position
of the motor can be expressed as
θ e = θ r + θ sl
where θ e is the rotating field position, θr is the rotor
position due to slip speed, and θ sl is the slip position due to
slip speed. In the next step, the scaling factors Kω, Ke and Ki
are chosen for fuzzification, as well as for obtaining the
actual output of the command current. These scaling factors
play a vital role for the FLC. The factors Kw and Ke are
chosen to normalize the speed error ∆ wn , and the change of
speed error ∆ en , respectively, so that these remain within the
limit of ± 1 . Factor Ki is so chosen that one can get the rated
current for rated conditions. Here, the constants are taken as
Kw = w r* (command speed), Ke =10, and Ki = 10 in order
to get the optimum drive performances. After selecting the
scaling factors, the next step is to choose the membership
function of ∆ w rn , ∆ en and i *qn , which perform the
important task of the FLC. The membership functions used
for the input and output fuzzy sets are shown in Fig.2.
The trapezoidal functions are used as membership functions
for all the fuzzy sets except the fuzzy set ZE (zero) of the
input vectors. The triangular membership functions are used
for the fuzzy set ZE of the input vectors and all the fuzzy sets
of the output vector. The trapezoidal and triangular functions
are used to reduce the computation for online
implementation. Mathematically, the trapezoidal membership
function can be defined as
Trapezoidal: f (x; a, b, c, d) =
The triangular membership function can be obtained from the
trapezoidal function by setting b = c. The rules used for the
proposed IM specific FLC algorithm are shown in Table I.
Based on the above rules, the fuzzy-rule-based matrix is
shown in Table II. For this study, Mamdani-type fuzzy
inference is used [14]. The values of the constants,
membership functions, fuzzy sets for the input/output
variables, and the rules used in this study are selected by trial
and error to obtain the optimum drive performance. In this
study, the center of gravity defuzzification is used [15]. The
output function is given as
N
∑ iµ
k =1
c (k ) (i)
output i = N
∑µ
k =1
c (k ) (i)
where N is the total number of rules and µ c (k ) (i) denotes the
output membership grade for the kth rule with the output
subset C.
III. EXPERIMENTAL IMPLEMENTATION
The proposed FLC-based vector control of IM is
experimentally implemented using DSP-board DS1104
through both hardware and software [16]. The DSP board is
installed in a personal computer (PC) with uninterrupted
communication capabilities through dual-port memory. The
hardware schematic for real-time implementation of the
proposed FLC-based IM drive is shown in Fig.3. The
DS1104 board is based on a Texas Instrument (TI)
Incorporated TMS320C31 32-bit floating-point DSP. The
DSP has been supplemented by a set of on-board peripherals
used in digital control systems, such as A/D, D/A converters,
and incremental encoder interfaces. The DS 1104 is also
equipped with a TI TMS320P14 16-bit micro controller DSP
that acts as a slave processor and provides the necessary
digital input/output (I/O) ports and powerful timer functions
such as input capture, output capture, and pulse width
modulation (PWM) waveform generation. In this study, the
slave processor is used for digital I/O configuration. The
actual motor currents are measured by the Hall-effect
sensors, which have good frequency response and are fed to
the DSP board through the A/D converter. As the motor
neutral is isolated, only two-phase currents are fed back and
the third phase current is calculated from them. The rotor
position is measured by an optical incremental encoder,
which is mounted at the rotor-shaft end. It is then fed to the
DSP board through an encoder interface. The encoder
generates 4096 pulses per revolution. By using a fourfold
pulse multiplication, the number of pulses is increased to 4 ×
4096 in order to get better resolution. A 24-bit position
counter is used to count the encoder pulses and is read by a
calling function in the software.
The motor speed is calculated from the rotor position
by backward difference interpolation. A digital moving
average filter is used to remove the noise from the speed
signal.
The input vectors of the FLC are generated from the present
and the delayed samples of the speed error. The command
currents are generated from the FLC. The hysteresis current
controller compares the command currents with the
corresponding actual motor currents and generates the logic
signals, which act as firing pulses for the inverter switches.
Thus, these six PWM logic signals are the output of the DSP
board and fed to the base drive circuit of the inverter power
module. The D/A channels are used to capture the necessary
output signals in a digital storage oscilloscope. The complete
IM drive is implemented through software by developing a
program in high-level American National Standards Institute
(ANSI) “C” programming language. The program is
compiled by the TI “C” code generator. Finally, the program
is downloaded to the DSP controller board using loader
program LD31 [16]. The sampling frequency for
experimental implementation of the proposed FLC-based IM
motor drive system is 5 kHz.
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
Several tests were performed to evaluate the performance of
the proposed FLC-based vector control of the IM drive
system both theoretically and experimentally. The speed-
control loop of the drive was also designed, simulated, and
experimentally implemented with the PI controller in order to
compare the performances to those obtained from the
respective FLC-based drive system. The speed responses are
observed under different operating conditions such as a
sudden change in command speed, step change in load, etc.
Some sample results are presented in the following section.
The PI controller is tuned at rated conditions in order
to make a fair comparison. Figs. 4 and 5 show the simulated
starting performance of the drive with PI-and FLC-based
drive systems, respectively. Although the PI controller is
tuned to give an optimum response at this rated condition, the
fuzzy controller yielded better performances in terms of
faster response time and lower starting current. Fig.6 (a) and
(b) shows the speed responses of the drive system using the
PI and FLC, respectively, with a step change in the reference
speed. It is evident from Fig.6 (a) and (b) that the proposed
FLC-based IM drive system can follow the command speed
without any overshoot and steady-state error. Thus, the FLC-
based drive system is not affected by the sudden change of
the command speed. Thus, a good tracking has been achieved
for the FLC, whereas the PI-controller-based drive system is
affected with the sudden change in command speed. Fig.7(a)
and (b) shows the speed responses for step change in the load
torque using the PI and fuzzy controller, respectively. It is to
be noted that, in Fig.7 (a), the vertical scale for current iq is
to be divided by five and, in Fig. 7(b), it is to be divided by
four. The motor starts from standstill without load and, at t
=0.8s, a sudden full load is applied. The motor speed follows
its reference with zero steady-state error and a fast response
using a fuzzy controller. On the other hand, the PI controller
shows steady-state error with a high starting iq current. It is
to be noted that the speed response is affected by the load
conditions. This is the drawback of a PI controller with
varying operating conditions.

The simulated results are verified by the experimental results.
Fig.8 (a) and (b) shows the experimental speed responses of
the drive system using the PI and FLC, respectively. It is to
be noted that the fuzzy controller gives better responses in
terms of overshoot, steady-state error, and fast response. The
experimental speed responses with step increase in command
speed are shown in Fig. 9(a) and (b) for the conventional PI
and the proposed FLC-based IM drive system, respectively.
These figures also show that the FLC-based drive system can
handle the sudden increase in command speed quickly
without overshoot, undershoot, and steady-state error,
whereas the PI-controller-based drive system has steady-state
error and the response is not as fast as compared to the FLC.
Thus, the proposed FLC-based drive has been found superior
to the conventional PI-controller-based system.
VI. CONCLUSION
A novel FLC- based indirect vector control of an IM has
been presented in this paper. The FLC has been designed for
a speed-control loop. The simulation has been carried out
using the Simulink Fuzzy Logic Toolbox Manual Guide [17].
The complete IM drive incorporating the FLC has been
successfully implemented in real time using a DSP controller
board DS 1104 for the prototype 1-hp motor. In order to
minimize the real-time computational burden, simple
membership functions and rules have been used. Since exact
system parameters are not required in the implementation of
the proposed controller, the performance of the drive system
is robust, stable, and insensitive to parameters and operating
condition variations. In order to prove the superiority of the
FLC, a conventional PI-controller-based IM drive system has
also been simulated and experimentally implemented.
The performance has been investigated at different dynamic
operating conditions both theoretically and experimentally. It
is concluded that the proposed FLC has shown superior
performances over the PI controller.
APPENDIX
MOTOR PARAMETERS
1hp, 3φ, 208 V, 50 Hz, 3.4 A, P =4, Rs= 4.0Ω, Rr =
1.143Ω, Ls = 0.3676 H, Lr = 0.3676 H, Lm = 0.3489, Jm =
0.03Kg.m2, Bm = 0.00098 (N.m)/rad/s.
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