Fault Tolerant Control for a Five-Phase

Permanent Magnet Synchronous Machine Driving System

Shichuan Ding* Wen Chen Minghao Tong Fang Xie Changbao Zheng
1.School of Electrical 1.School of Electrical 1.School of Electrical 1.School of Electrical 1.School of Electrical
Engineering and Engineering and Engineering, Engineering and Engineering and
Automation, Automation, Southeast , Automation, Automation,
Anhui University, Anhui University, University, Nanjing, Anhui University, Anhui University,
Hefei, China Hefei, China China Hefei, China Hefei, China
2.National 2.National 2.National 2.National 2.National
Engineering Engineering Engineering Engineering Engineering
Laboratory of Laboratory of Laboratory of Laboratory of Laboratory of
Energy-Saving Energy-Saving Energy-Saving Energy-Saving Energy-Saving
Motor & Control Motor & Control Motor & Control Motor & Control Motor & Control
Technology, Anhui Technology, Anhui Technology, Anhui Technology, Anhui Technology, Anhui
University, Hefei, University, Hefei, University, Hefei, University, Hefei, University, Hefei,
China China China China China
3. Engineering 3. Engineering 3.Engineering 3. Engineering 3. Engineering
Research Center of Research Center of Research Center of Research Center of Research Center of
Power Quality, Power Quality, Power Quality, Power Quality, Power Quality,
Ministry of Ministry of Ministry of Ministry of Ministry of
Education, , Anhui Education, , Anhui Education, , Anhui Education, , Anhui Education, , Anhui
University, Hefei, University, Hefei, University, Hefei, University, Hefei, University, Hefei,
China China China China China
dsc@ahu.edu 819199705@qq.com tong127@icloud.com vavaxie@sohu.com zhengchb@sina.com

Abstract—In this paper, an open-circuit fault tolerant
strategy for a five-phase permanent magnet synchronous
machine (PMSM) is proposed based on the theory of keeping the
magneto-motive force constant under both healthy and faulty
conditions. According to the principle, the corresponding
modified current vectors of healthy windings under three
different open-circuit faults are derived, respectively. Then, Both
the finite element analysis-based predictions for the five-phase
PMSM machine and Matlab/Simulink-based simulation for the
whole driving system verify the effectiveness of the fault tolerant
strategies under each open-circuit fault. Finally, a 5kW
five-phase PMSM prototyped machine is manufactured and a
DSP-based driving system is set up to verify the strategies.
Keywords—Fault tolerant, PMSM, open-circuit fault, brushless
machine, multi-phase machine.
I. INTRODUCTION
Permanent-magnet machines (PMSMs) have received
considerable attentions recently in high performance and
critical drive applications, namely, electric/hybrid vehicles,
aerospace applications, and ship propulsion due to the
remarkable advantages including high power density, robust
structure and high efficiency [1]-[3].
On the other hand, the reliability of driving system is
crucial in many critical traction and drive applications [4]-[6].
As a result, an increasing research trend has been occurred in
multi-phase motor driving field. Multi-phase motor drives
poses many advantages over the traditional three-phase motor
drives such as reducing the amplitude and increasing the
This work was supported in part by the National Nature Science
Foundation of China (Project 51507002) and by the National Nature Science
Foundation of Anhui Province (Project 1508085ME87).
frequency of torque pulsation, reducing the stator current per
phase without increasing the voltage per phase and lowering
the dc link current harmonics. Especially, compared with
three-phase motor drives, the multi-phase motor drives could
operate safely under loss of up to two phases without any
additional hardware connections [7]-[8].
Currently, the fault tolerant research usually focuses on
either optimal design of novel machines. Hence, in this paper
from the viewpoint of the whole five-phase PMSM-based
driving system, three open-circuit fault tolerant control
strategies are proposed based on the theory of keeping the
magneto-motive force (MMF) constant under both healthy and
faulty conditions, where the corresponding armature current
vectors for each open-circuit fault are deduced analytically.
Then, Matlab/Simulink-based simulations for an ideal
five-phase PMSM driving system and FEA-based predictions
for the actual five-phase PMSM machine driving system are
performed, respectively, to verify the effectiveness of the fault
tolerant strategies. Finally, a 5kW five-phase prototyped
PMSM is manufactured and experiments are carried out on a
DSP-based digital driving system to verify the theoretical and
simulated results.
II. FAULT-TOLERANT CONTROL STRATEGY
The five-phase back-EMF waveforms of the proposed
PMSM are shown in fig. 1, which is almost sinusoidal with
slightly higher harmonics. Hence, it is supposed that the vector
control strategy could be employed.

978-1-4673-8644-9/16/$31.00 2016
c IEEE 2021
 Based on the equations all above, a set of equations could
be established as equation (5).
5 2 4
‫ ۓ‬Im · cos ș = cos ʌ ·൫i'B +i'E ൯+ cos ʌ ·൫i'C +i'D ൯
ۖ2 5 5
ۖ 5 2 4
I · sin ș = sin ʌ ·൫iB -iE ൯+ cos ʌ ·൫i'C -i'D ൯
' '
2 m 5 5  (5)
‫۔‬ i'B +i'C +i'D +i'E =0
ۖ
ۖ i'B =-i'D
‫ە‬ i'C =-i'E
Then, the solution is shown in equation (6).
Fig. 1 Predicted phase back-EMFs of the five-phase PMSM. ' ʌ
‫ ۓ‬iB =1.382·Im · cos (ș- 5 )
A. Basic Theory of Fault-Tolerant Control Strategy ۖ 4ʌ
It is well known that a circular rotating MMF in the air gap ۖi'C =1.382·Im · cos (ș- )
5
is the guarantee for a machine to operate stably. Hence, the  (6)
basic theory of the fault-tolerant control strategy is to keep the ‫۔‬i' =1.382·I · cos (ș- 6ʌ )
D m
ۖ 5
rotating MMF circular the same as under the healthy condition ۖ' 9ʌ
no matter what kind of open-circuit fault occurs. It could be ‫ ە‬iE =1.382·Im · cos (ș- 5 )
easily deduced that the rotating MMF can be described by
equation (1).
5
F= NS ·Im ·൫ejș e-j‫ ׋‬+ej‫ ׋‬e-jș ൯ (1)
8
where, F is the rotating MMF, NS is the quantity of the coils,
Im is the amplitude of phase current, ș and ‫ ׋‬are the time- and
space- angles, respectively. Equation (1) implies that the
space-time relationship of the MMF, and keeping the MMF F
constant before and after a fault occurs is the key for the
fault-tolerant control strategy. Fig. 2 Phase current vectors of SPOC fault tolerant operation.
At the same time, the rotating MMF could also be It means that when a single-phase open-circuit fault
happens, the machine could operate safely without any
described as the following equation (2).
additional hardware connections or loss of output power only
NS (i +ı4 ·iB +ı3 ·iC +ı2 ·iD +ı·iE )·ej‫׋‬
F= · ቈ A ቉ (2) if the current vectors shown in equation (6) are assigned to the
4 +ሺiA +ı·iB +ı2 ·iC +ı3 ·iD +ı4 ·iE ሻ·e-j‫׋‬ left four phases. The temporal phase diagram of fault-tolerant
where, ı=e2ʌ/5. currents is shown in Fig. 2
These two equations are the theory basic to establish the
C. Double-Phases Open-Circuit Fault Condition
constant MMF when fault occurs. Force the equation (2) to be
always equal to equation (1) is the main idea for the When a neighbor double-phase (DP) or a non-neighbor
fault-tolerant control strategies. double-phase open-circuit (DPOC) fault occurs, two sets of
equations could be built as expressed in equations (7) and (8),
B. Single-Phase Open-Circuit Fault Condition in which the phases A, B are supposed to be the open-fault two
When a single-phase open-circuit (SPOC) fault occurs, the neighbor windings, and phases A, C are supposed to be the
corresponding phase current of the open-circuit winding open-circuit two non-neighbor windings, respectively.
changes to zero, which brings about a distortion to the MMF.
5 2 4
To keep the MMF constant, the left four phase currents must ‫ ۓ‬Im · cos ș = cos ʌ ·i''E + cos ʌ ·൫i''C +i''D ൯
be adjusted. Due to the well-known KCL principle, the new ۖ2 5 5
four phase current vectors should satisfy equation (3), in 5 2 '' 4 '' ''  (7)
‫ ۔‬2 Im · sin ș =- sin 5 ʌ ·iE + sin 5 ʌ ·൫iC -iD ൯
which phase A is supposed to be the open-circuit phase. ۖ
i'B +i'C +i'D +i'E =0(3) ‫ە‬ i''C +i''D +i''E =0
Based on equations (1)-(3), infinite results could be solved, 5 2 4
so that a constraint equation should be given. In order to ‫ ۓ‬Im · cos ș = cos ʌ ·(i'''B +i'''E )+ cos ʌ ·i'''D
facilitate the calculation, equation (4) is given as the constraint ۖ2 5 5
5 2 ''' ''' 4 ''' (8)
equation in which the four current vectors have the same ‫ ۔‬2 Im · sin ș = sin 5 ʌ ·൫iB -iE ൯- sin 5 ʌ ·iD
amplitude. In addition, in the single-phase open-circuit fault ۖ
condition, many other constraint equations could also be given ‫ە‬ i'''B +i'''D +i'''E =0
to produce different control strategies.
i'B =-i'D ,i'C =-i'E (4)

2022 2016 IEEE 11th Conference on Industrial Electronics and Applications (ICIEA)
 It can be found that equations (7) and (8) both have the A. Simulation on an ideal five-phase PMSM drive system
unique solution, so that no constraint equations are needed. Udc
The solutions are given by equation (9) and (10). ¹r* + iq* dq
Ia* +
VSI
PI ib* + -
ic* + -
2ʌ ¹r - id*
id* +
Hysteresis

‫ۓ‬i''C =2.233·Im · cos ൬ș- ൰ © abcde ie* + -

- Controller

ۖ 5 -
'' 6ʌ (9)
‫۔‬iD =3.615·Im · cos ൬ș- 5 ൰ ia
ۖ ib
‫ ە‬i''E =2.236·Im · cos ș ic
id
ie
2ʌ
‫ۓ‬i'''B =1.385·Im · cos ൬ș- ൰ Speed and Encoder
ۖ 5 position Five-phase
PMSM
i'''D =2.236·Im · cosሺș-ʌሻ (10) condition
‫۔‬ 9ʌ Fig. 4 Configuration of an ideal five-phase PMSM drive system.
ۖ '''
‫ ە‬iE =2.236·Im · cos (ș- 5 )
The temporal phase diagrams of current vectors under
these two fault-tolerant conditions are shown in Fig. 3. It can
be seen that the neighbor-DPOC fault condition need a larger
average current per phase, which means that the extreme (a) SPOC fault-tolerant condition
asymmetric space position of the windings needs more
temporal adjustment to keep the MMF constant.

(b) neighbor DPOC fault-tolerant condition

(a) neighbor-DPOC fault condition (b) non-neighbor-DPOC fault condition

Fig. 3 Phase current vectors of DPOC fault tolerant operation.
(c) non-neighbor-DPOC fault-tolerant condition
III. SIMULATION AND ANALYSIS Fig. 5 Predicted results of an ideal five-phase PMSM drive system.
The effectiveness of the proposed three fault-tolerant Based on Matlab/Simulink, an ideal five-phase PMSM
control strategies is verified firstly through a simulation on an drive system model is built to verify the fault-tolerant control
ideal five-phase PMSM-based driving system, in which the strategies, in which an ideal five-phase PMSM model is used
harmonics in phase back-EMF waveforms are neglected. that ignores the harmonics of the phase back-EMF and the
Secondly, a co-simulation on a FEA-circuit based model for ripple of winding inductances. The configuration of the
the actual five-phase FSPM machine is conducted. The main driving system is shown in Fig. 4. In this system, it is easy to
parameters of the PMSM are shown in Table I. realize the reference phase currents to be calculated in real
TABLE I. KEY PARAMETERS OF THE FIVE-PHASE PMSM time by the Current Calculation block according to the
Rated power (kW) 5 temporal phase relationship shown in Figs. 2 and 3 when an
Rated speed (rpm) 1500
OC fault occurs.
Rated current (A) (Peak or RMS) 11
The predicted results of the system simulation are shown
Rotor pole number 36
in Fig. 5. It can be seen that the machine could maintain the
Stator outer diameter (mm) 215
Rotor outer diameter (mm) 128
output torque nearly constant under all three OC fault-tolerant
Stack length (mm) 75 conditions. Of course, the peak ripple during the fault transient
Air-gap length (mm) 0.5 is inevitable.
B. Co-simulation on a FEA-circuit based model
The simulations based on the driving system with an ideal
machine model above can only verify that the three OC fault
tolerant control strategies are available and effective. However,
the influences of harmonics in back-EMF waveforms, the
ripple pulsation of winding inductances, and the nonlinear
characteristics due to saturation are not taken into account.
Hence, a co-simulation on a FEA-circuit based drive system

2016 IEEE 11th Conference on Industrial Electronics and Applications (ICIEA) 2023
 with the five-phase PMSM instead of the ideal PMSM is
conducted to further confirm the effectiveness of the OC
fault-tolerant strategies, where the predicted output torque is
obtained by a 2-D FEA model and the fault-tolerant currents
are calculated according to the control strategies and then
input into the ports of the healthy windings.
40
a 5.5kW PMSM as load machine and a 5kW five-phase
PMSM. Fig. 7(a) shows the measured phase back-EMF
waveforms of the proposed machine, which is closed with the
predicted one shown in fig. 1.
40

30 30

Torque (Nm)
Torque (Nm)

20 20

10 10
Fault-tolerant operation
Healthy Operation Open-circuit operation
0 0
0 60 120 180 240 300 360 0 60 120 180 240 300 360 (a) measured phase back-EMF waveforms of the five-phase PMSM
Rotor Position (elec.deg) Rotor Position (elec.deg)
(a) healthy condition (b) SPOC condition
40 40
Fault-tolerant
operation
30
Torque (Nm)

30
Torque (Nm)

20 20

10 10
Fault-tolerant operation
0 Open-circuit operation 0
0 60 120 180 240 300 360 0 60 120 180 240 300 360 (b) four-phase currents under SPOC fault-tolerant operation
Rotor Position (elec.deg) Rotor Position (elec.deg)
(c) neighbor-DPOC condition (d) non-neighbor-DPOC condition
Fig. 6 Output torque of five-phase PMSM under three OC conditions.
Fig. 6 shows the predicted results of the co-simulation
analysis, it could be easily found that under three OC fault
conditions, although the fault-tolerant control strategy cannot
exactly produce the same output torque as the healthy
condition, it leads to an output torque with higher amplitude
and less ripple compared with the torque under open-circuit (c) phase currents under neighbor DPOC

fault operation.
The detail data of the output torque under every OC
condition is shown in Table II. It could be seen that the
fault-tolerant strategy exhibits the worst performance in the
neighbor-DPOC condition due to the extreme asymmetric
space position of the left windings, which is also agreed with
the theoretical analysis above.
(d) phase currents under non-neighbor-DPOC fault-tolerant operation
TABLE II AVERAGE TORQUE AND TORQUE RIPPLE
Fig. 7 Configuration of the system and experiment results@200rpm/15Nm.
Operation State Average Torque(Nm) Torque Ripple
Figs. 7(b)-(d) shows the healthy phase currents waveforms
Healthy 30.9 9%
under the three fault-tolerant conditions, respectively. It can be
OC 24.5 57.1% seen that the three kinds of phase currents waveforms are
SPOC condition
FT 28.4 25.7% controllable as desired, which means a stable torque is output
Neighbor- OC 22.9 47% under the corresponding control strategies.
DPOC condition FT 28.2 66.4% On the other hand, the operations that may damage the
prototyped machine such as high speed, overload and e.g., are
Non-neighbor- OC 18.5 108%
not included in this paper, so that the experiments here are at a
DPOC condition FT 25.4 32%
low speed and a half load. The completed experimental results,
*OC means Open-Circuit operation; FT means Fault-Tolerant operation including high-speed, overloaded fault-tolerant operation, and
IV. EXPERIMENT RESULTS transient performance will be presented soon.
To verify the control strategies above, a 5kW prototyped V. CONCLUSION
five-phase PMSM and a DSP-based driving system are In this paper, in order to guarantee a five-phase
designed and manufactured. The system consists of a PMSM-based drive system could operate under loss of up to
DSP(TMS320F28335)-based control board, a full-bridge two phase windings without additional hardware connection
IGBT-based inverter, a set of Hall effect-based current sensors, and loss of output power, an open-circuit fault-tolerant control

2024 2016 IEEE 11th Conference on Industrial Electronics and Applications (ICIEA)
strategy is proposed based on the theory that keep the rotating
MMF constant under both healthy and fault conditions. The
modified currents of healthy windings under three open-circuit
fault conditions, namely, single-phase fault, two neighbor
windings fault and two non-neighbor winding fault, are
derived respectively according to the “rotating MMF constant”
principle. The theoretical analysis indicate that when a SPOC
occurs, a 1.382 time current of the original one should be
supplied to insure the machine can operate continuously with
the same output torque (power). In addition, a half load is
tolerable for a non-neighbor-DPOC fault to continue operating.
However, if a neighbor-DPOC fault occurs, the reliability of
the machine will be decreased sharply.
Then, to verify the control strategies, firstly a
proof-of-principle simulation is conducted on an ideal
five-phase PMSM-based model, and the results validate the
correctness and feasibility of control strategies. Further, the
effectiveness of the strategies is proved by a co-simulation
based on a combined model integrating finite element analysis,
power electronics circuits, and a real five-phase PMSM.
Finally, some preliminary experimental results are carried out
to validate the proposed fault-tolerant control techniques.
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