2012 International Conference on Computer Communication and Informatics (ICCCI -2012), Jan.

10 – 12, 2012, Coimbatore, INDIA

Improve the Transient Response of Speed and Torque

Ripple Minimization of the BLDC Motor
by Varies Controllers
G. Ranjith Kumar K.N.V. Prasad M. Arun Noyal Doss
Department of Electrical & Electronics Department of Electrical & Electronics Department of Electrical & Electronics
Engineering Engineering Engineering
CJITS, Warangal, Andhra Pradesh, India MIC College of Technology, Vijayawada SRM University, Chennai, India
ranjith.gatla@gmail.com Andhra Pradesh, India, arunnoyal@gmail.com
prasadkp123@gmail.com

Abstract- The objective of this paper is to build a simple voltage and
current controlled modulation techniques for brushless dc motors
using PSIM. In electric traction and most other applications, a wide
range of speed and torque control of the electric motor is required.
The dc machine fulfills these requirements, but the dc machine
requires constant maintenance. But the brushless permanent
magnet motors do not have brushes and so they require less
maintenance only. Brushless dc motors are widely used in
applications which require wide range of speed and torque control
because of its low inertia, fast response, high reliability and
maintenance free. The current controlled technique is based on the
generation of quasi- square wave currents using only one controller
for the three phases. The current control strategy uses a triangular
carrier for the power transistors which is simpler and more
accurate than any other options. Its Implementation has been done
in PSIM. PSIM is a soft computing technique which has user
friendly approach and some basic theories, the corresponding
PSIM models for the BLDC can easily can be constructed.
Keywords- BLDC Motor, PSIM, FFT Analysis, Voltage Source
Inverter (VSI), Total Harmonic Distortion (THD).
I. INTRODUCTION
The brushless dc motor (BLDCM) has found to be more
efficient than the existing DC motor and induction motors due to
the simplicity in control scheme, high power density, reliability,
and maintenance free operation, BLDC motors are used in the
field of industrial automation, Computer numerical control
machines and in the field of robotics. The mechanical losses are
minimized since no brushes and no mechanical commutator
present in the motor. Nowadays, many studies have been
focused on how to reduce the cost of the BLDC motor and its
control system without performance degradation [1]–[4].
Due to the power electronic commutation, the usage of high
frequency switching of power devices, imperfections in the
stator and the associated control system, the input supply
voltage to the motor contains various harmonics components.
During its operation, high frequency components present in the
voltage input will cause serious electromagnet interference
(EMI) problem and the pulsating current input due to electronic
commutation causes torque ripple. So an efficient controller is
required to reduce the harmonics present in the input voltage to
the motor and to reduce the pulsating variation of line current to
the motor.
Industry control systems often require that brushless DC
motors possess low torque ripple coefficient. Generally, the
causes of torque ripples of brushless motors include: cogging
torque ripple, commutations torque ripple. Cogging torque
ripple come from the interaction of teeth and slots with
permanent magnet, usually it is reduced through rational motor
structure, such as skewing stator teeth or rotor magnet poles,
notching in teeth, shifting magnet poles pair, optimum ratio of
pole arc to pole pitch [5-9]. Commutation torque ripple due to
the exists of inductances of windings, which restrict the current
rising speed of in-going phase and make current sunken during
the interval of commutation. Renato etc analyzed the cause of
commutation torque ripple analytically, and presented keeping
the conduct current invariable by detecting phase currents solely
so as to reduce the commutation torque ripple [10]. So we can
improve the system performance that is we can reduce the
torque ripples by using Voltage Controller, Current Controller.
Hysteresis current control and pulse width modulation
(PWM) control coupled with continuous control theory have
produced the most widely used BLDC motor control techniques
[11-14]. Hysteresis current control is essential toward achieving
adequate servo performance, namely, instantaneous torque
control, yielding faster speed response compared to PWM
control. For most applications, proportional-integral (PI) current
and speed compensators are sufficient to establish a well-
regulated speed/torque controller. In other cases, state feedback
control is needed to achieve a more precise control of the BLDC
motor. Classic control theory and linear system theory are well
understood but are highly complex and require extensive control
systems knowledge to develop a well-designed controller [15].
Discrete control theory allows for such controllers to be
digitally implemented with microcontrollers, microprocessors,
or digital signal processors (DSP’s). Digitizing analog
controllers serves to add complexity to the overall design
procedure [16], [17]. Moreover, digital implementation of a
continuous control technique does not produce a digital

978-1-4577-1583-9/ 12/ $26.00 © 2012 IEEE

2012 International Conference on Computer Communication and Informatics (ICCCI -2012), Jan. 10 – 12, 2012, Coimbatore, INDIA
controller. Instead, what results is a digitally implemented
control technique, which typically results in high controller cost.
PSIM is a simulation package specifically designed for
power electronics and motor control. With fast simulation,
friendly user interface and waveform processing, PSIM provides
a powerful simulation environment for power converter
analysis, control loop design, and motor drive system studies.
PSIM supports links to third-party software like JMAG,
MATLAB through Simcoupler blocks. And also we can use the
C code in either the power circuit or the control circuit through
DLL (Dynamic Link Library) block, The external DLL blocks
allow to write one’s own code in C language, compile it into
DLL using either Microsoft C/C++ or Borland C++, and link it
with PSIM[18].
The PSIM simulation package consists of the circuit
schematic program PSIM, the simulator engine, and the
waveform processing program SIMVIEW. The simulation
process is shown in Fig.1.
Figure 1: PSIM Simulation Process
II. VOLTAGE CONTROLLER
The BLDC Motor requires a power electronic drive circuit
and a commutation system for its operation. The Fig.2 describes
the functional units present in the drive circuit and the
associated commutation controller for the BLDC Motor.
Fig.2 Voltage Controller for BLDC Motor with Filter
A 4-pole BLDC motor is driven by the inverter for 120 0
commutation. The rotor position can be sensed by a hall-effect
sensor or slotted optical disk, providing three square wave
signals with phase shift of 1200. These signals are decoded by a
combinational logic to provide the firing signals for 120 0
conduction on each of the three phases. The inverter voltage for
the motor is filtered by the filter circuit provided, which
minimizes the high frequency switching voltage ripple
component. The LC filter for the proposed work is connected in
the interface of the drive and the motor. The LC filter in this
system acts as a low pass filtering circuit which offer high
impedance to high frequency component of the voltage and very
minimum impedance to the power frequency voltage
components and thereby minimizes harmonics in the supply
voltage to the motor and the series inductance opposes the
sudden changes in the current due to electronic commutation
and thereby reduces the torque ripple.
A. Filter Design
The selection of LC component present in the filter plays a
major role in the performance of the drive. The charging and
discharging of the capacitor improves the quality of the voltage
given to the motor. This filter possesses the advantages of both
L-filter and C-filter. In addition, ripple factor in LC filter has
lower value than obtained by either L-filter or C-filter for the
same values of L and C.
Fig 3.Equivalent LC filter for one phase
Fig. 3 shows the equivalent circuit of LC filter for reducing
the ripple from the output voltage. The inductor current rating
should be equal to the current ratings of the motor.
The value of filter capacitor C can be calculated by
RL is the load resistance and LL is the load inductance
The value of filter inductor L can be obtained by
VRF =
VRF is Voltage Ripple Factor and according to IEEE
standard maximum allowable range to ripples is up to 10%. So
we are taking VRF as 0.01 and calculating L using C as already
obtained.
III. CURRENT CONTROLLER
Fig.4 shows the simple block diagram of the proposed
method. The current controller block is shown in the Fig.5. The
operation of the system is as follows: as the motor is of the
brushless dc type, the waveforms of the armature currents are
quasi square. These currents are sensed through current sensors,
and converted to voltage signals. These signals are then
rectified, and a dc component, with the value of the ceiling of
2012 International Conference on Computer Communication and Informatics (ICCCI -2012), Jan. 10 – 12, 2012, Coimbatore, INDIA

the currents, is obtained as shown in Fig.5 this dc signal is

compared with a desired reference , and from this
comparison, and error signal is obtained. This error is then
passed through a PI control to generate the PWM for all the six
valves of the inverter, which are sequentially activated by the
shaft position sensor. The torque is directly commanded by .
Fig.5 Current Controller Block
The larger the reference , the higher the torque produced. The slopes . And are a function of the dc
The strategy becomes simple, because the control only needs to link voltage, and the motor model. The motor model comprises
be in command of one dc current instead of three alternating the phase inductance, and the back emf. Then, the maximum
waveforms. Another advantage of this strategy is that the error based on a carrier will depend on the slopes
modulation of the currents can be done using one of the simplest and . And hence on the operating point, and the carrier
control strategies available: the “Triangular carrier modulation frequency. This situation can be expressed mathematically, with
strategy” which offers the following additional advantages: the help of Fig.6, as seen in
1) the switching frequency becomes defined by the triangular
carrier Fig.5. Stator and Rotor’s MMF during step change from
motor to brake operation. 2) The ability to follow the template
with the proposed method becomes quite accurate when
triangular carrier is used 3) the hardware implementation is very
simple. From the above two equations

The term “x” in (1a) represents the fraction of the period of

the carrier, “T”, when the current is increasing. According with
this equation, the term “x” defines the ideal output of the PWM
pattern. Then, the control parameters have to be adjusted
according with the index “x” Note that represents the “peak-
to-peak” error of the signal.
According to the time reference of Fig.6, the following
relations can be written:
Fig.4 Current Controller of BLDC Motor
The control strategy also allows regenerative braking, which
is very important in many applications, like electric vehicles,
where energy can be returned to the battery pack. To brake the
(2)
motor (regenerative braking) the stator magnetic field is
reversed. This action is accomplished through the inversion of
the signals given by the position sensor. The position sensor
discriminates six positions each electric degrees. During
motor operation, the rotor moves clockwise. When the brake Now, when the current is increasing, the error can
signal is applied, the stator field is reversed electric be modeled as
degrees. This action produces an instantaneous change in the t (3)
direction of the torque, making a fast reduction of the speed of If the rate of conversion of the magnitudes is , then the
the machine, which begins to return its energy to the dc link. expressions of the error becomes as shown in
The same strategy can be used for reversal of rotation of the (4)
machine. On the other hand, the output of the PI control can be
expressed as:
A. Current Controller Design = + (5)
The tuning of the current controller starts with the Now, if we assume that the operation of the machine is
determination of the amplitude and frequency of the triangular stable, and operates under steady-state, the integrator output is
carrier, and the gains of the PI control. To get a PWM signal close to a constant. That means
operating at the carrier frequency, the control should be adjusted
to keep the reference current moving around the reference. The M= (6)
Fig.6 shows the way the stator currents are controlled, through
the feedback signal .
2012 International Conference on Computer Communication and Informatics (ICCCI -2012), Jan. 10 – 12, 2012, Coimbatore, INDIA

The triangular carrier and the PI output have the same value IV. SIMULATION RESULTS
at and , because these are intersections points that define the
PWM generation
= => +M= (7)
= => +M = (8)

Fig.8 Closed loop PSIM Diagram of Voltage Controller of BLDC Motor

A. Voltage Controller without Filters

Fig.6 Ideal waveforms of (a) Feedback Signal , (b) Error Signal , and
(c) Control Signals
With (7) and (8), and M are obtained

(9) Fig.9 Phase current wave form for phase A

M= – (10)

Now, with the help of (2), (9), and (10), can be resumed as

< (11)

M=A (12) Fig.10 Three phase current wave forms

Replacing (12) in (6), the value of is obtained

= = (13)

Fig.11 Speed wave form of BLDC motor

Fig.12 Electromagnetic torque wave form of BLDC motor

Fig 7. Approach for the error’s integral value
2012 International Conference on Computer Communication and Informatics (ICCCI -2012), Jan. 10 – 12, 2012, Coimbatore, INDIA

Fig.13 FFT analysis of phase A current (THD = 32.4 %) Fig.20 FFT analysis of phase a voltage (THD = 37.24 %)

C. Current Controller

Fig.14 FFT analysis of phase a voltage (THD = 47.7 %)

B. Voltage Controller with Filters

Fig.21 Closed loop PSIM Diagram of Current Controller of BLDC Motor

Fig.15 Phase current wave form for phase A

Fig.22 Phase current wave form for phase A

Fig.16 Three phase current wave forms

Fig.17 Speed wave form of BLDC motor

Fig.23 Three phase current wave forms

Fig.18 Electromagnetic torque wave form of BLDC motor Fig.24 Speed wave form of BLDC motor

Fig.19 FFT analysis of phase A current (THD = 21.32 %)

Fig.25 Electromagnetic torque wave form of BLDC motor
2012 International Conference on Computer Communication and Informatics (ICCCI -2012), Jan. 10 – 12, 2012, Coimbatore, INDIA

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