Uppue Revista Visión Politécnica 1

Speed control of brushless motors using virtual

instrumentation
PATRICK C ÉSAR M ARTÍNEZ M ARROQUÍN1 AND J ACOB J AVIER VÁSQUEZ S ANJUAN2
1 Maestría en Ingeniería en Automatización de Procesos Industriales, Universidad Politécnica de Puebla, 3er. Carril del ejido serrano s/n, San Mateo Cuanalá,
Puebla, México. C.P. 72640, patrick.martinez4404@uppuebla.edu.mx
2 Ingeniería en Sistemas Automotrices, Universidad Politécnica de Puebla, 3er. Carril del ejido serrano s/n, San Mateo Cuanalá, Puebla, México. C.P. 72640,

jacob.vasquez@uppuebla.edu.mx

Compiled 17 de mayo de 2018

In this article we propose the design and implementation

of a PID controller, whose purpose is to control the an- Cuadro 1. Differences between the brushless motor and the
gular velocity of two brushless electric motors type SG induction motor [3].
/ F10 without gear. The design is developed using Lab- Induction motor
Entry Brushless Motor
VIEW software and implemented through the NI myRIO (squirrel cage)
1900 embedded device. © 2018 Universidad Politécnica de Puebla
Characteristics Operation in the entire speed range Non-linear, low torque at
OCIS codes: (140.3490) Lasers, distributed feedback; (060.2420) Fibers,
speed/pair at nominal torque. low speeds.
polarization-maintaining;(060.3735) Fiber Bragg gratings.
Low. Better dynamic High. Poor dynamic
http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/ao.XX.XXXXXX Rotor inertia
characteristics. characteristics.
Above 7 times the
1. INTRODUCTION Starting current Nominal.
rated current.
At the end of the 1990s, computer techniques and control A controller is always At constant speed no controller
theories developed rapidly, that is what promoted the evolution Control
of the brushless motor (MB) [1]. In recent years the development required to maintain is required, at variable speed
requirements
of the electric vehicle has increased, as well as the development motor operation it is required.
of electric motors capable of satisfying the traction requirements.
The frequency of the rotor is smaller
A general classification of the motors is shown in the figure 1, There is no sliding
standing out the induction motor and the MB as the most used Slip than that of the stator; the slip
between rotor and stator.
to provide traction to a vehicle [2]. increases with the load.

Brushless motors require less maintenance, so they have a

longer life compared to DC motors.

The MB produce more power output by frame size than DC

motors and induction motors, because the rotor is made
of permanent magnets, the inertia causes the rotor to be
smaller, compared to other types of motors.

Fig. 1. Classification of electric motors [2].
From figure 1 it can be identified that both the MB and the
induction are of alternating current with synchronous and asyn-
chronous operation respectively, so in table 1 the differences
between the MB and the induction motor are presented.
In comparison with the DC motors with brushes and induc-
tion motors, the MB have many advantages and few disadvan-
tages, highlighting the following:
Brushless motors are ideal for limited access areas and applica-
tions where service is difficult. MBs operate more quietly than
DC with brushes motors, which reduces electromagnetic interfe-
rence (EMI) [3].
A. MB of alternating current
The MB of three-phase permanent magnet of alternating cu-
rrent (AC), is called synchronous motor since the angular speed
of the rotor is related to the angular velocity of the rotating mag-
netic field in the stator and there is no slip between these two
speeds [4].
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Figure 2 shows the MB with its parts, which consists of 4 basic same speed and torque.
elements: The necessary elements for this system are:
1. Rotor Two brushless motors
2. Stator
Speed controller
3. Hall Sensor
NI myRIO 1900 embedded device
4. Permanent magnets
PC with LabVIEW software

A. Brushless motor (MB)

They are brushless motors that perform the same function of
a normal DC motor, which work with a logic for the switching
of the windings [10, 11].
Figure 3 shows the MB used in our project.

Fig. 2. MB parts [5].

In the MB, the rotor is made of a permanent magnet that is

driven by the magnetic force of the stator winding circuit. It
uses a sensor and an electronic circuit for the current switching.
The current and the voltage are respectively proportional to the
torque and the speed of rotation [5].
The stator of this motor is like that of any three-phase motor, Fig. 3. Brushless motor.
depending on the construction of the rotor there are different
types of synchronous motors [6].
B. Brushless DC 48V speed controller
B. Control systems
It is responsible for supplying the necessary three-phase sig-
Automatic control is of vital importance in the world of en-
nal so that the MB can rotate. The function of this device is to
gineering. In addition to being essential in robotic systems or
maintain the revolutions per minute (RPM) in a constant manner
modern manufacturing processes, among other applications,
under load conditions.
it has become essential in industrial operations such as pres-
Figure 4 shows the driver provided by the manufacturer. Each
sure control, temperature, humidity, viscosity, and flow in the
motor is accompanied by its controller.
processing industries[7].
More than half of the industrial controllers used today use
PID or modified PID control schemes.

The usefulness of PID controls is that they are applied almost

universally to most control systems [8].
In the year of 1983, Truchard and Kodosky, of National Ins-
truments, decided to face the problem of creating a software
that allowed to use the personal computer (PC) as an instrument
to make measurements. Three years were necessary to create
the first version of the software that allowed, in a graphic and
simple way, to design an instrument on the PC. In this way, the
concept of a virtual instrument (VI) arises, which is executed
on a computer and has its functions defined by software [9].
This software was given the name of Laboratory Virtual Instru- Fig. 4. MB speed controller.
ment Engineering Workbench, more commonly known by the
acronym LabVIEW.
It has 4 groups of necessary cables (power cables, electronic
blocking cables, accelerator cables and motor phase cables),
2. INSTRUMENTATION
in the table 2 the description of all the cable groups that the
The speed control system presented is designed for two controller has is shown.
brushless motors that must work simultaneously and with the
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Cuadro 2. Controller connections

Color Description
Red + Black (Gauge 14 AWG) Power wires
Yellow + Green + Blue (Gauge 14 AWG) Motor wires (3-Phase wires)
Orange + Yellow (Gauge 14 AWG) Electric Lock
Red + Black + Yellow + Green + Blue
Hall Sensor Wire
(Gauge 16 AWG)
Red (5v) + Blue(señal) + Black(negativo)
Speed Throttle
(Gauge 16 AWG)
Black + Blue (Gauge 16 AWG) Brake Wire
Fig. 6. Block diagram of the PID controller.

Limited speed cables. These cables must

2 White be kept connected to each other so that 4. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE CONTROL SYSTEM
the MB functions normally (Speed limit) For the implementation of the PID control that modifies the
angular velocity of the wheels, it was necessary to perform the
characterization of the speed behavior of the MB with respect to
C. NI myRIO 1900 embedded device the voltage.
The embedded device is an essential part for the MB speed The MB used in the project are coupled to wheels with a diameter
control shown in figure 5, since with it the data of the encoder of 16 inches as shown in the figure 7.
sensors present in the motors is acquired. The signals that the
device acquires are used for the control algorithm that is in char-
ge of maintaining the desired angular velocity and the stability
of the motors against any disturbance.
The National Instruments myRIO-1900 system has an Xilinx
internal FPGA and a dual-core ARM CortexA9 processor,
compatible with LabView or C programming [12–14].

Fig. 7. Motor with wheels.

In order to perform the control and speed tests using the

embedded device, it was necessary to mount the motors with a
wheel to a fixed support previously designed, which is shown
in the figure 8.

Fig. 5. NI myRIO 1900 embedded device.

3. CONTROL STRATEGY
A. PID controller
The PID controller can be described by the equation (1)

1 t
 
de(t)
Z
u(t) = K e(t) + e(t)dt + Td (1)
Ti dt

where, the error e is the difference between the reference signals

(the fixed point) and the process output y (the measured varia-
ble). K is the proportional gain or gain of the controller, Ti , the
integration time or the restart time, and Td the derived time [15].
In figure 6 the block diagram of a PID controller is displayed. Fig. 8. Brushless motors mounted on fixed support.
In this project, its design is done in LabVIEW and is implemen-
ted in the myRIO 1900 device. Figure 9 shows the way in which the values were obtained
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of input voltage by the Speed Throttle terminal of the controller
and the angular velocity of the wheels. From the use of a digital
multimeter and a DT-2230 tachometer
Fig. 9. Obtaining voltage and RPM values.
The values obtained of voltage and RPM are shown in the
graphs of figures 10 and 11, from these it was possible to obtain
the functions that characterize each motor depending on the
input voltage and RPM.
Fig. 10. Functions of the speed behavior (RPM) with respect to
the voltage (V) of the left wheel.
Fig. 11. Functions of the speed behavior (RPM) with respect to
the voltage (V) of the right wheel.
A. Analysis of obtained functions
The functions obtained for the left wheel are described in the
equations (2) and (3), it should be noted that these equations
are 3o and 5o order. Since the equation of order 5 describes the
Revista Visión Politécnica 4
behavior of the angular velocity with respect to the voltage up to
a speed of 375 RPM, from this velocity it is the equation of order
3 that best describes the behavior of this wheel, both equations
are used. The right wheel is described by the equations (4) and
(5); the equation (4) describes the behavior correctly up to 170
RPM, from this speed is the equation (5) which best fits the
behavior of the right wheel.
Equations for left wheel:
y = −1x10−13 ( x5 ) + 1x10−10 ( x4 ) − 1x10−8 ( x3 )
(2)
−6x10−6 ( x2 ) + 0,0048x + 1,818
y = 1x10−8 ( x3 ) − 2x10−6 ( x2 ) + 0,0036x + 1,8722 (3)
Equations for right wheel:
y = −1x10−13 ( x5 ) + 1x10−10 ( x4 ) − 1x10−8 ( x3 )
(4)
−2x10−6 ( x2 ) + 0,0044x + 1,9186
y = 2x10−9 ( x3 ) + 4x10−6 ( x2 ) + 0,0028x + 1,9855 (5)
B. Speed control in LabVIEW
With the obtaining of the equations that describe the behavior
of the right and left wheels, the front panel of the program shown
in figure 12 was made by the LabVIEW software, which has a
desired speed selector, a voltage indicator, given by the myRIO
device.
The front panel has two indicators: a speedometer and an
indicator of speed, both perform the reading of the speed in
real time of each wheel. At the bottom of each graph that also
shows the real-time speed of each wheel and the reference, the
constants of the PID controller (Kp, Ki and Kd) are displayed.
Fig. 12. Front panel.
LabVIEW has a PID controller block as shown in figure 13
with which it is only necessary to make the connections of each
terminal. There are several methods in the literature to determine
the values of controller constants if you have the mathematical
model of the plant, in this case you do not have the model and
that is why through experimentation, varying these constants
and seeing the answer of each MB these values were determined;
for the left wheel are: Kp = 0.006, Ki = 0.001, Kd = 0.030. and for
the right wheel are: Kp = 0.008, Ki = 0.001, Kd = 0.010 with a
sampling time of 200ms
Figure 14 shows the block diagram of the MB speed control.
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Fig. 13. LabVIEW PID Block.
Fig. 14. Block diagram of the control.
C. Connection diagram
Figure 15 shows the complete connection diagram of the
system. It consists of 5 stages: 1. power supply, 2. Driver for each
motor, 3. Brushless motors, 4. Embedded device and 5. PC.
Fig. 15. Connection diagram.
5. RESULTS
A. Experimentation
In order to validate the performance of the implementation
by means of virtual instrumentation for speed control of two
brushless motors with the proposed controller (PID), it was re-
quired to evaluate different desired speeds in real time.
In this way you can see in the figures 16, 17, 18 and 19 the re-
sult of the different speeds desired and the variation that exists
between the acquisition of this speed with the embedded my-
RIO device and the measured speed with an optical DT-2230
tachometer and contact that offers a resolution/precision of 0.1
RPM.
En el caso de la velocidad adquirida por myRIO es importante
mencionar que de las velocidades presentadas en las anteriores
Revista Visión Politécnica 5
Fig. 16. Wheel speed comparison left.
Fig. 17. Left wheel speed chart.
figuras existe un variación de ± 3 RPM a través del tiempo. El
tiempo de establecimiento Ts que es el tiempo necesario para
que la respuesta del sistema esté dentro de un porcentaje (sobre
el 5 %) del valor final de la velocidad deseada es de 6 segundos.
In figures 20 and 21 you can see the real-time response of
each of the wheels to the desired speed variation, it is shown
that both wheels are stabilized at the same time allowing the
vehicle where these wheels are assembled not slip when you are
go in a straight path.
6. CONCLUSIONS
The virtual implementation was developed through Lab-
VIEW software and hardware (NI myRIO 1900) for the speed
control of two brushless motors, allowing to obtain favorable re-
sults. The developed system allows to change the desired speed
between 40-450 RPM in real time.
Currently working on the implementation of an electrical dif-
ferential using the controller proposed in this article with the
conditions that in a straight line the wheels turn at the same
speed and in a curved trajectory the wheels turn at different
speeds depending on the angle of the steering wheel.
 Uppue Revista Visión Politécnica 6

Fig. 18. Wheel speed comparison right.

Fig. 21. Right wheel response.

12. N. Instruments, Austin, TX, U.S.A (2014).

13. E. Doering, Austin, TX, U.S.A (2014).
14. N. Instruments, Austin, TX, U.S.A (2015).
15. K. J. Aström and B. Wittenmark, “Computer-controlled systems: theory
and design,” Tech. rep. (1997).
Fig. 19. Right wheel speed chart.

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Fig. 20. Left wheel response.