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2018 1 International Scientific Conference of Engineering Sciences - 3 Scientific Conference of Engineering Science (ISCES)

Brushless DC Motor Controller Design

Using Matlab Applications
Hayder Salim Hameed
Department of Electrical Power and Machine Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Diyala
Baquba, Diyala, Iraq
hayderalskooki@engineering.uodiyala.edu.iq

Abstract— Brushless DC motor has many properties including
high starting torque, high efficiency, high torque, as well less
electrical noise. Therefore, it is widely utilized in industrial
applications. The number of controllers are presented in this
paper to drive the BLDC motor. The paper has been attempted to
design (PID) controller and compare it with Proportional (P) and
Proportional Integral (PI) controllers in order to control the speed
of BLDC motor. The results of simulation BLDC with PID carry
out better performance of speed control in comparing with PI and
P controllers. In addition, BLDC motor modeling and simulation
controllers are applied by using Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL)
technique through the software package MATLAB/SIMULINK
with Simulink support package for Arduino.
dynamic equivalent circuit of the BLDC motor is used to
understand and analyze the transient behavior of the BLDC
motor [5]. The equivalent circuit which is used to simulate a
three-phase, P-pole, symmetrical BLDC motor and the model of
electrical drive for BLDC motor from which the basic equations
are determined are shown in Fig.1. Modeling of a BLDC is like
that of synchronous machines. The machine is supplied by a
three phase voltage source converter. The maximum voltage
should not be more than the rated of the motor; therefor square
or sinusoidal wave shape can be applied as the input voltage [6].

Keywords— BLDCM; PID controller; HIL technique; arduino

I. INTRODUCTION
The vast majority of the issues related with brushed DC
motor have been overcome with the utilization of Brushless DC
(BLDC) motor. BLDC motor utilizes electronic commutation
instead of electro-brush in DC motor so it widely used in
industrial equipment because of having high efficiency and
lower sensitivity to mechanical wear, decent weight/size to
power portion, lower noise ,large speed extend, and simple
maintenance with long life, no spark, high reliability and very
high speed capability. The control of the BLDC motor is an
essential aspect in numerous industrial processes and different
control plans are created for enhancing the speed control
execution of Brushless DC motor drives. Speed control is
Fig.1.The graphic diagram of Brushless DC motor drive [7]
accomplished utilizing (PID) controller or other comparable
control system [1-4].
The diagram of Fig.1 shows that the BLDC motor is
Through this paper the block name PID in Matlab Simulink connected directly to the output terminals of the inverter
is utilized as a digital PID controller. By simply double tapping although a constant supply voltage is linked to the input of the
on this block a window having parameters of PID will be inverter. It is assumed that the inverter with no power losses
opened, by changing these parameters PID is changed over to P and the machine winding is star connection [8].
PI and PID controller. These P PI PID controllers are then at the
same time put in forward way of BLDC model and diverse The brushless DC motor dynamic model is as per the
speed response signals are than analyzed. The simulink and following.
laboratory test results with Hardware-in-the-Loop (HiL) are Stator voltage equations:
presented.
Van = Raia + (Laaia + Lbaib + Lcaic) + ea (1)
II. MODELLING Vbn = Rbib + (Labia + Lbbib + Lcbic) + eb (2)
Vcn = Rcic + (Lacia + Lbcib + Lccic) + ec (3)
The BLDC motor is similar to the traditional DC motor in
Because of similarity, the per phase resistances of stator
the principle of working, but its construction is different from it
.The stator of BLDC motor is same as of the induction machine Ra, Rb, Rc = R (4)
and the rotating part has permanent magnet where the brushes
replaced by electronically commutated system ; therefore the
BLDC motor considered a self-rotating synchronous motor. The The Stator inductance per phase

978-1-5386-1498-3/ 18/31.00$©2018 IEEE

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2018 1 International Scientific Conference of Engineering Sciences - 3 Scientific Conference of Engineering Science (ISCES)

Laa, Lbb, Lcc = Ls (5) The three types of controller will be discussed as follows:
Mutual inductance within the phases
Lba, Lab, Lca, Lac, Lbc, Lcb = M (6) A. P-Controller
Hence the equations of stator winding written as constants of A proportional or P-Only controller is the simplest algorithm
motor electric in the PID family. In this control strategy, the control
framework acts in a way that the control exertion relative to the
(7) error. The control exertion is relative to error in a proportional
control framework, and that is the thing that makes it a
proportional control system. The gain Kp is used in P
The stator currents/phase ia, ib and ic summation is zero, and controller and output produced that is inversely relative to
also steady state error so the system becomes unstable if the gain
M=Ls – L, therefore it simplify to Kp is high [5][14].
The following equation used to govern Proportional (P)
controller.
(8) u(t) =Kp e (t) (12)
Where
u(t): signal of actuating
e (t): signal of error
The equations of the induced emf’s, as follow
Kp: constant of proportional gain
ea = fa(θr)λpωm (9)
A high value of Kp reduces error but it affects stability.
eb = fb(θr)λpωm (10)
ec = fc(θr)λpωm (11) B. PI-controller
P-I controller is fundamentally used to limit the steady state
Where, ωm and θr are the speed and the position of rotor [9]. error coming about because of P-controller hence it is
important to blend the proportional and integral to increase the
speed of response. The speed/position encoder is utilize to
III. BLDC SPEED CONTROLLERS obtain running speed of brushless DC motor and compare it
There are two control loops that used in speed control of with the reference value and the resulting difference is
brushless DC motor. The inside loop is used to synchronize examined by PI-controller which is governed by using the
gate pulse of the inverter and the EMF while the other loop equation below [5][15].
used to change the DC bus voltage to control the speed [10]. u(t) = Kp * e (t) + Ki dt (13)
The speed control is achieved by using the model block
diagram shown in Fig.2 which consists of PID, PMBLDC, VSI,
hall sensor, decoder [11]. C. PID-Controller
PID controller may be the most generally utilized within
closed-loop control system .The three part of PID controller act
as follow, the error response of the system to disturbances can
be reduced by the proportional part, the steady state error
eliminated by the integral part, and the dynamic response with
system stability can be damped and improved by the integral
part. The system's performance is affected by PID parameters
(Kp, Ki, and Kd).The issue in PID-controller is the choosing of
Fig.2 Block diagram of the model
its parameters which make it appropriate to drive plant so
proportional parameter will reduce system rise time ,integral
parameter will reduce steady state error, and derivative
Controller may be a hardware device or a programming parameter will reduce settling time and overshoot . The
system that drives the signals between two entities for a given continuous control signal u(t) of the PID controller on
dynamical system. following equation: [16] [17].
Generally the control systems are classified as open loop and u(t)= Kp * e(t) + Ki e(t) dt + Kd * e(t) (14)
closed loop system [12]. Several controllers are available like
proportional integral derivative (PID), proportional integral (PI)
and proportional (P) can be used in speed control indirectly by IV. SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION AND SIMULATION RESULTS
varying dc voltage [13].
A .Matlab Simulation
This section deals with the simulation of the graphic
diagram of Fig.2 .It was successfully implemented by design
the system with MatLab R2016a simulink environment to test

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2018 1 International Scientific Conference of Engineering Sciences - 3 Scientific Conference of Engineering Science (ISCES)

the speed control of brushless DC motor utilizing familiar P, PI,

and PID controllers. The comparison between these types is
achieved by MATLAB/SIMULINK simulation package only,
but PID-controller is implemented with both
MATLAB/SIMULINK simulation package and hardware
supported packages for Arduino. The brushless DC motor
parameter is the resistance of stator i.e. Rs = 0.7ohm, stator
phase inductance Ls = 0.00272 H, back electromotive force is
120° away from each other, constant of inertia Jm = 0.0008
Kg.nr and frictional constant β = 0.001 N.m.s considering the
voltage is =160 V. The following diagrams show MATLAB
models for the P, PI, and PID controllers and of BLDC motor
with their respective results.

Fig. 5 P, PI, and PID controller in MATLAB/SIMULINK

The comparison of speed response among the results obtained

from using PID, PI, and P controller with brushless DC motor
is shown in Fig.6.

Fig. 3. The BLDC motor modelling block

Sudden load

Fig.6. Comparison of speed response results for PID, PI and P controller

Sudden load

Fig. 4. MATLAB/SIMULINK of closed loop of BLDC motor controllers in

constant speed reference

Fig.5 shows the MATLAB/SIMULINK design of PID, PI,

and P controllers. In this paper PID tuner from Control System
Toolbox is used to tune PID gains automatically in a Simulink
model and consider the value of constant is
Kp=4.2536933484476 for P controller , Ki=140.1490952038
and Kp=0.00070074 for PI controller , and Kp=2.817576718,
Ki=433.36352367, Kd=0.004561709439 for PID controller.
Fig.7. Zoomed Comparison of speed response results for PID, PI and P
controller

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2018 1 International Scientific Conference of Engineering Sciences - 3 Scientific Conference of Engineering Science (ISCES)

Fig.6 presents the relation between speed and time for P, PI,
and PID controllers. Speed is set at 157 rad/s and sudden load
torque is applied at 0.1 sec. The measurements are taken for
operating characteristics like the rise time, settling time and
percentage of maximum overshoot. The comparison of the
speed response is shown in Table I. Table II shows the
comparison in performance with the results in the work of [13]

TABLE I: SPEED RESPONSE COMPARISON RESULTS

Rise Settling Maximum

Contro
Time Time Ts Overshoot Peak Stability
ller
TR (Sec) (Sec) (%)
Fig. 8 Hardware in the loop implementation with Simulink
P 0.00039 0.0902 96.9 1.84 Out of control

PI 0.00652 0.0463 5.54 1.24 stable

PID 0.00151 0.0183 1.24 1.05 stable

Sudden load
TABLE III: PERFORMANCE COMPARISON WITH THE RESULTS IN [13]

Settling
Rise Time Maximum Overshoot
Controller Time Ts
TR(Sec) (%)
(Sec)

PID of [13] 0.0202 0.35 16.53

PID 0.00151 0.0183 1.24

At speed of 157 rad/s as is evident from the results that the

performance of PID controller in this paper has better control
than the conventional PID controller in the work of [13].

Fig. 9 Hardware in the loop implementation with Simulink

B. Hardware-in-the-loop Simulation with MATLAB/SIMULINK
and Arduino
With a specific end goal to test the BLDC motor controller
it's important to have a setup. In this paper the HIL and fast
prototyping techniques as corresponding ways to deal with
programming reenactment and hardware testing. The case in
this paper concentrates for the most part on motor control
design, in spite of the fact that these approaches are
additionally pertinent in different areas. The open-source
hardware Arduino, model Due was selected as a target on
which the Simulink model in Fig.7 was run. As shown the
figure consists of two systems the first include serial
communication block to support Arduino hardware is the real-
time connection for testing the PID controller. The other
system used to make the comparison between the computer and
HIL results. Both systems were synchronously carried out with
the same reference speeds and sampling time of 1e-5 s to
obtain the results as illustrated in Fig.8.
Fig. 10 Zoomed Hardware in the loop implementation with Simulink

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2018 1 International Scientific Conference of Engineering Sciences - 3 Scientific Conference of Engineering Science (ISCES)
C. Laboratory Test
Fig.11 shows the laboratory test board. The laboratory test
consists of a computer and the Arduino Due kit which based on
the CPU (Atmel SAM3X8E ARM Cortex-M3). The
instrumentation computer allows the user to control the
Arduino settings. A micro-USB cable is used to connect the
board to a computer. The PWM signals according to rotor
position of BLDC can be measured directly from the Simulink
as shown in the oscilloscope in Fig.12.
Fig.11 The laboratory test board
Fig. 12 Laboratory test of Hardware in the loop implementation with Simulink
V. CONCLUSIONS
The design of a PID controller is presented and compared to
conventional P and PI speed controllers of a brushless DC
motor. The comparison based on various control system
characteristic parameter like rising time, settling time, and
maximum overshoot. From the results it is obvious that the
PID-controller response is faster than P and PI controllers with
non-overshoot and can follow the reference speed in minimal
time than any other controller at unexpected load. Both system
simulation and HIL Simulink results are given to prove the
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utility of the control system and it is found that the hardware
result is almost close to simulated result.
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2018 1 International Scientific Conference of Engineering Sciences - 3 Scientific Conference of Engineering Science (ISCES)
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