Measurement 178 (2021) 109342

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Measurement
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/measurement

Energy modeling and online parameter identification for permanent magnet

synchronous motor driven belt conveyors
Chunyu Yang a,b,c ,∗, Lingchao Bu a,b , Bin Chen a,b
a Engineering Research Center of Intelligent Control for Underground Space, Ministry of Education, China University of Mining and
Technology, Xuzhou, 221116, China
b
School of Information and Control Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, 221116, China
c
State Key Laboratory of Synthetical Automation for Process Industries, Northeastern University, Shenyang, 110819, China

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: This paper studies the problems of energy modeling and online parameter identification method for permanent
PMSM driven belt conveyors magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) driven belt conveyors. Firstly, a new dynamic energy model is established
Energy model by combining the existing energy model and the PMSM dynamic model. The model is free of the drive system
Parameter identification
efficiency which is usually not known exactly. Then, a parameter identification method is designed based on
Load observer
load observer, bulk material mass calculator and recursive least squares (RLS), by which a two-stage parameter
identification method with waiting period is further proposed to overcome the influence of load observation
errors and large differences between the model parameters. Finally, the effectiveness and feasibility of the
proposed method are verified by a hardware-in-the-loop simulation system.

1. Introduction which can lead to larger parameter identification error. To alleviate

Belt conveyors are widely used for transporting bulk material in the
fields of mining, metallurgy, chemicals, and ports [1–6]. The load may
vary according to the practical production process [7], which usually
lead to underload operation of belt conveyors [8–10]. Such underload
operation will result in remarkable energy waste [11]. An energy model
is the base for optimizing the speed for energy saving [12]. According
to the modeling principle, the existing energy models of belt conveyors
are mainly classified into two types: data-driven energy models [13–
15] and analytic energy models [16–19]. The analytic energy models
are more convenient to describe and solve the energy optimization
problems than the data-driven models. The parameters of the analyt-
ical energy models are related to the mechanical parameters of belt
conveyors and may change slowly with the operation conditions and
equipment status [20]. Therefore, many scholars and engineers have
studied analytic energy modeling and online parameter identification
methods for belt conveyors [7,17,21,22].
The analytical energy models of belt conveyors include static models
and dynamic models [16]. The traditional static energy models are
mainly based on the resistance calculation methodology or energy
conversion methodology [23]. Zhang established a static energy model
by combining the two thoughts and proposed an RLS-based parameter
identification method [19,22]. However, the energy model depends on
the drive system efficiency that is usually not exactly known [24],
this problem, the static energy model proposed in [19] is further
improved by taking into account the dynamics of the drive motors.
In [18], for belt conveyors driven by DC motor, an energy model free
of the drive system efficiency was established by combining the static
energy model proposed in [19] and the dynamics of DC motor, and
then a parameter identification method was proposed by designing
an adaptive observer. In [20] and [16], for belt conveyors driven by
induction motors, energy model free of the drive system efficiency with
motor dynamics was established, and the model parameter identifica-
tion methods were proposed by combining the flux observer and extend
Kalman filter algorithms with RLS, respectively. In recent years, PMSMs
are widely used in bulk material transportation because of their simple
mechanical structure, high transmission efficiency, high reliability, and
little routine maintenance [25,26]. Thus PMSM driven belt conveyors
are widely used in practice, but the energy modeling with the PMSM
dynamics and parameter identification problems are still open.
The above-mentioned static energy models are all established based
on the assumption that the bulk material is evenly distributed on the
whole conveyor belts. However, in practice, it usually takes a long time
for the bulk material to move from a loading point to the discharge
point which implies that the effect of variable mass per unit length
is significant [17,27,28]. Thus it is valuable for the energy model to
accurately capture the amounts of material on each section of the belt

∗ Corresponding author at: Engineering Research Center of Intelligent Control for Underground Space, Ministry of Education, China University of Mining and
Technology, Xuzhou, 221116, China.
E-mail address: chunyuyang@cumt.edu.cn (C. Yang).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.measurement.2021.109342
Received 6 January 2021; Received in revised form 3 March 2021; Accepted 23 March 2021
Available online 3 April 2021
0263-2241/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
C. Yang et al. Measurement 178 (2021) 109342

Fig. 1. Structure diagram for PMSM driven belt conveyor.

conveyor. In [17], Mathaba used a first-order partial different equation friction between the drive pulley and the conveyor belt. The friction be-
to capture the state of material on the belt, and then established the tween the conveyor belt and the bulk material is generated to transport
following dynamic energy model the bulk material.
𝐿 In this section, based on the dynamic model of PMSM and the
1 𝜑
𝑃 (𝑡) = (𝜑1 + 2 𝑞(𝑥, 𝑡)𝑑𝑥) ⋅ 𝑣(𝑡) (1) existing dynamic energy model of belt conveyors, a new energy model
𝜂 𝐿 ∫0 that is free of the drive system efficiency will be proposed for the PMSM
where, 𝑃 (𝑡) is the power consumed by the belt conveyor system at driven belt conveyors.
time 𝑡, W; 𝜂 is the efficiency of drive system; 𝐿 is the length of the
conveyor belt, m; 𝑞(𝑥, 𝑡) is material mass per unit length at position 2.1. Analysis of PMSM
𝑥 at time 𝑡, kg/m; 𝑣(𝑡) is the conveyor belt speed at time 𝑡, m/s. 𝜑1
and 𝜑2 are the parameters to be identified which are related to the The stator voltage equations of PMSM in the synchronous rotating
inherent parameters and running state of the belt conveyors. And a frame 𝑑 − 𝑞 can be expressed as follows [29]
sequential parameter estimator based parameter identification method {d
𝑖 = (𝑢𝑑 − 𝑅𝑖𝑑 + 𝜔e 𝐿𝑞 𝑖𝑞 )∕𝐿𝑑
d𝑡 𝑑
was proposed. It should be pointed out that Eq. (1) is a steady state (2)
d
equation since it depends on 𝑣(𝑡) rather than 𝑣(𝑥, 𝑡) . Compared with the 𝑖 = (𝑢𝑞 − 𝑅𝑖𝑞 − 𝜔e (𝐿𝑑 𝑖𝑑 + 𝜓f ))∕𝐿𝑞
d𝑡 𝑞
static model, the dynamic model (1) is more efficient. The limitations The mechanical motion equation of PMSM is as follows
of the proposed method in [17] are two-folds. Firstly, the dynamic 𝑝 𝑝
d 𝐵
energy model (1) depends on the drive system efficiency 𝜂 which is 𝜔 = n 𝑇e − 𝑛 𝑇L − 𝜔e (3)
d𝑡 e 𝐽 𝐽 𝐽
easily affected by the operating environment of the belt conveyors
where, 𝑇e can be written as follows
and usually not exactly known; secondly, the parameters 𝜑1 and 𝜑2
to be identified are quite different in magnitude which will affect 3
𝑇e = 𝑝 𝑖 (𝑖 (𝐿 − 𝐿𝑞 ) + 𝜓f ) (4)
the parameter identification accuracy. These limitations motivate this 2 n𝑞 𝑑 𝑑
study. The variables used in Eqs. (2)–(4) are defined in Table 1.
In this paper, we consider the problems of energy modeling and 2.2. Analysis of belt conveyor
online parameter identification for PMSM driven belt conveyors. By
combining the dynamic model (1) and the PMSM dynamic model, we When PMSM is used as the drive motor of belt conveyors, its load
can be described as 𝑇L = 𝑟𝐹U and the belt speed can be described as
establish a new dynamic energy model which is free of the drive system
𝑣 = 𝑟𝜔e ∕𝑝𝑛 , where 𝐹U is the peripheral driving force of belt conveyors,
efficiency. Based on the sequential parameter estimator given in [17],
N. According to [17], 𝐹U can be calculated by the following equation
a parameter identification method based on load observer and RLS is
presented. To overcome the influence of load observation errors and 𝐹U = 𝐶M 𝑓 𝐿𝑔(𝑞RU + 𝑞RO + 2𝑞B cos 𝛿) + 𝜇0 𝐿𝜀 𝑔 sin 𝜀 cos 𝛿(𝑐𝜀 + cos 𝜆)𝑞B +
large differences between the model parameters, a two-stage parameter 𝐴s 𝑝𝜇3 + 𝐵𝐾a + (𝐶M 𝑓 𝐿𝑔 cos 𝛿 + 𝑐𝜀 𝜇0 𝐿𝜀 𝑔 sin 𝜀 cos 𝛿 + 𝑔𝐻)𝑞̄
identification method with waiting period is further proposed by taking
into account the characteristics of the energy model and operation (5)
process of the belt conveyors. Finally, we illustrate the feasibility of the The symbols are defined in Table 2.
proposed method on a hardware-in-the-loop platform for PMSM driven According to the standard ISO 5048 [30], 𝐶M is selected as follows
belt conveyors. {
𝐶M = 0.85 + 13.31𝐿−0.576 (10 ≤ 𝐿 ≤ 1840)
The rest of the paper is as follows. In Section 2, the structure (6)
𝐶M = 1.025(1840 ≤ 𝐿)
and operating dynamics of the belt conveyor system are introduced,
and a new energy model of PMSM driven belt conveyors is proposed. The state of bulk material of each section on the conveyor belt
Section 3 proposes an online parameter identification method. Sec- can be described by means of the following partial differential equa-
tion 4 verifies the rationality of the proposed parameter identification tion [17]
method. Conclusions are given in Section 5. 𝜕 𝜕
𝑞(𝑥, 𝑡) = −𝑣(𝑡) 𝑞(𝑥, 𝑡) (7)
𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑥
2. Energy model where 𝑣(𝑡) is the conveyor belt speed at time 𝑡, m/s. According to [17],
the backward Euler method is used to solve equation (7), and the results
This paper considers the PMSM driven belt conveyor shown in are shown as follows
Fig. 1. It is composed of conveyor belt, drive motor, drive pulley, tail
𝑞(𝑖, 𝑛 + 1)
pulley, take-up, idlers and other components. The drive motor is a
PMSM located at the head of the belt conveyor. The drive motor is ⎧2{𝑞(𝑖 − 1, 𝑛) − 𝑞(𝑖 − 1, 𝑛 + 1)}
⎪
rigidly connected with the drive pulley to drive the drive pulley to = ⎨ ∕𝛾𝑛 + 𝑞(𝑖 − 2, 𝑛 + 1) 𝑖 = 2, 3, … , 𝑁𝑥 − 1 (8)
rotate. The drive pulley drives the conveyor belt to run through the ⎪{𝑞(𝑁𝑥 , 𝑛) − 𝑞(𝑁𝑥 − 1, 𝑛 + 1)}∕(𝛾𝑛 + 1) 𝑖 = 𝑁𝑥
⎩

2
C. Yang et al. Measurement 178 (2021) 109342

Table 1
The parameters of PMSM.
Symbol Description Equations
𝐵 The damping coefficient (N.m.s) (3), (13), (14), (15), (16), (17)
𝑖𝑑 , 𝑖𝑞 The 𝑑 − 𝑞 axis components of stator current (A) (2), (4), (13)
𝐽 The moment of inertia (kg.m2 ) (3), (13), (14), (15), (16), (17)
𝐿𝑑 and 𝐿𝑞 The 𝑑 − 𝑞 axis components of inductance (H) (2), (4), (13)
𝑝n The pole-pair number (3), (4), (13), (14), (15), (16), (17)
𝑅 Stator resistance (Ω) (2), (13)
𝑇e The electromagnetic torque (N.m) (3), (4), (13)
𝑇L The load torque (N.m) (3), (12), (13), (14)
𝑢𝑑 , 𝑢𝑞 The 𝑑 − 𝑞 axis components of stator voltage (V) (2), (13)
𝜓f The flux of permanent magnet (Wb) (2), (4), (13)
𝜔e The electrical angular velocity (rad/s) (2), (3), (13), (14)

Table 2
The parameters of the belt conveyor.
Symbol Value Description Equations
𝐴𝑠 0.253 Contact area between the belt and the belt cleaner (m2 ) (5)
𝐵 1.4 Conveyor belt width (m) (5)
𝐶M 1.336 Coefficient (5), (6)
𝑐𝜀 0.45 Trough factor (5)
𝑓 0.024 Artificial friction coefficient (5)
𝑔 9.8 Acceleration of gravity (m/s2 ) (5)
𝐾a 1500 Scraping factor (N/m) (5)
𝐿 313.25 Conveyor length (center-to-center distance, m) (5), (6)
𝐿𝜀 313.25 Length of the installation equipped with tilted idlers (m) (5)
𝑁𝑥 Number of space samples in discrete domain (11)
𝑝 1 × 105 Pressure between the belt cleaner and the belt (N/m2 ) (5)
𝑞̄ Average mass of bulk material on the conveyor belt (kg/m) (5)
𝑞𝐵 18.73 Mass per meter of the belt along the carrying side and along the return side (kg/m) (5)
𝑞RO 15.75 Mass per meter of the revolving idler parts along the carrying side of the belt conveyor (kg/m) (5)
𝑞RU 7.76 Mass per meter of the revolving idler parts along the return side of the belt conveyor (kg/m) (5)
𝑞(𝑥, 𝑡) Mass of bulk material per unit length at 𝑥 position at time 𝑡 of the conveyor belt (kg/m) (7), (11)
𝑟 0.6 The radius of drive pulley (m)
𝛿 1.825 Slope angle of the installation in the direction of movement (◦ ) (5)
𝜀 2 Tilt angle of the idler axis with respect to the plane perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the belt (◦ ) (5)
𝜆 35 Angle between the side axis of the troughed carrying idlers and the horizontal (◦ ) (5)
𝜇0 0.3 Friction coefficient between the carrying idlers and the belt (5)
𝜇3 0.6 Friction coefficient between the belt and the belt cleaner (5)

where 𝛾𝑛 = 𝑣𝑛 ⋅ 𝛥𝑡∕𝛥𝑥, 𝛥𝑡 and 𝛥𝑥 are sampling time and the distance 2.3. A new energy model
of a space sample, s and m, respectively; 𝑞(0, 𝑛) = 𝐼𝑛−1 ∕𝑣𝑛−1 , 𝐼𝑛 and 𝑣𝑛
are the feed rate and the conveyor belt speed at 𝑛th sampling, kg/s and The drive motor provides the driving torque for the belt conveyor
through the shaft. From 𝑇L = 𝑟𝐹U and Eq. (5), we can get
m/s, respectively.
𝑇L = 𝑋𝜑 (12)
Eq. (8) can be rewritten as [17]
where 𝑋 = [𝑟 𝑟𝑞(𝑡)],
̄ 𝜑 = [𝜑1 𝜑2 ]T , and
𝐺𝑛 𝐪𝑛+1 = 𝐪𝑛 + 𝐛𝑛 ⋅ 𝐼𝑛 ∕𝑣𝑛 (9)
⎧ 𝜑1 = 𝐶M 𝑓 𝐿𝑔(𝑞RU + 𝑞RO + 2𝑞B cos 𝛿) + 𝐵𝐾a
⎪
where, 𝐪𝑛 = [𝑞(1, 𝑛) 𝑞(2, 𝑛) ⋯ 𝑞(𝑁x , 𝑛)]T , 𝐺𝑛 ∈ 𝑅𝑁x ×𝑁x , 𝑏𝑛 ∈ 𝑅𝑁x ×1 . ⎨ 𝜇0 𝐿𝜀 𝑔 sin 𝜀 cos 𝛿(𝑐𝜀 + cos 𝜆)𝑞B + 𝐴s 𝑝𝜇3 , N
𝐺𝑛 and 𝐛𝑛 are given as follows ⎪ 2 2
⎩ 2
𝜑 = 𝐶 M 𝐿𝑔 cos 𝛿 + 𝑐𝜀 𝜇0 𝐿𝜀 𝑔 sin 𝜀 cos 𝛿 + 𝑔𝐻, m ∕s
𝑓

⎡ 1 𝛾𝑛 ∕2 0 ⋯ 0 0 0 ⎤ It can be seen from the above equations that 𝜑1 and 𝜑2 are deter-
⎢−𝛾 ∕2 1 𝛾𝑛 ∕2 0 0 0 ⎥ mined by the inherent parameters of the belt conveyors. In practice,
⎢ 𝑛 ⎥ these inherent parameters may change according to the working con-
⎢ 0 −𝛾𝑛 ∕2 1 ⋱ 0 0 0 ⎥
𝐺𝑛 = ⎢ ⋮ ⋱ ⋱ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ ⎥ (10a) dition and environment [22]. Thus online parameter identification of
⎢ ⎥ 𝜑1 and 𝜑2 is significant.
⎢ 0 0 0 1 𝛾𝑛 ∕2 0 ⎥
⎢ 0 According to power calculation formula and Eqs. (2) and (11), the
0 0 −𝛾𝑛 ∕2 1 𝛾𝑛 ∕2 ⎥
⎢ ⎥ energy model of PMSM driven belt conveyors can be written as follows
⎣ 0 0 0 0 −𝛾𝑛 (1 + 𝛾𝑛 )⎦
d 𝑝 𝑝 B
⎧ d𝑡 𝜔e = 𝐽n 𝑇e − 𝐽𝑛 𝑇𝐿 − 𝐽 𝜔e
[ ]T ⎪d 1
𝐛𝑛 = 𝛾𝑛 ∕2 0 0 0 ⋯ 0 0 (10b) ⎪ d𝑡 𝑖𝑑 = 𝐿 (𝑢𝑑 − 𝑅𝑖𝑑 + 𝜔e 𝐿𝑞 𝑖𝑞 )
⎪ 𝑑
⎨ d 𝑖𝑞 = 1 (𝑢𝑞 − 𝑅𝑖𝑞 − 𝜔e (𝐿𝑑 𝑖𝑑 + 𝜓f )) (13)
The mass of bulk material on the conveyor belt can be captured by ⎪ d𝑡 𝐿𝑑
⎪𝑇 = 𝑋𝜑
(9). Average mass per length at time 𝑡 = 𝑛𝛥𝑡 is as follows ⎪ L
⎩𝑝(𝑡) = (𝜑1 + 𝜑2 ⋅ 𝑞(𝑡))𝑣(𝑡)
̄
∑𝑁X
𝑖=1
𝑞(𝑖, 𝑛) where 𝑝(𝑡) is the power consumed by belt conveyors at time 𝑡, W. 𝑞(𝑡)
̄ is
̄ =
𝑞(𝑛) (11) the average mass of bulk material on the conveyor belt at time 𝑡, kg/m.
𝑁X

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C. Yang et al. Measurement 178 (2021) 109342

initial values 𝑒(0), 𝑥(0) and any input 𝑢, which makes the error system
asymptotically stable. Thus, the observer can effectively estimate the
load of the drive motor.

Remark 2. Theoretically, as long as the observer poles have negative

real parts, the convergence of estimation errors can be guaranteed.
However, the convergence speed and accuracy, which are closely re-
lated to the pole position, directly affect the efficiency and accuracy of
the parameter identification algorithm. The farther the pole is from the
imaginary axis, the faster the convergence speed is, but the larger the
Fig. 2. Flow chart of online parameter identification.
convergence fluctuation is. A trade-off scheme can be determined by
simulation.

Remark 1. The traditional energy model contains drive system ef- 3.2. RLS-based parameter identification
ficiency 𝜂 that is not easy to know accurately, which is extremely
inconvenient for parameter identification. Compared with the existing This subsection will present a parameter identification method
energy models of belt conveyors, the energy model proposed in this based on the RLS algorithm.
paper combines the dynamic model of PMSM and the dynamic energy At the 𝑛th sampling time 𝑡 = 𝑛𝛥𝑡, it follows from Eq. (13) that
model of belt conveyors for the first time. The model is free of the drive
system efficiency 𝜂, which facilitates the parameter identification. 𝑦(𝑛) = 𝑋(𝑛)𝜑 (18)

where, 𝑦(𝑛) = 𝑇̂L (𝑛), which is derived from the load observer; 𝑋(𝑛) =
3. Parameter identification method
[𝑟 𝑟𝑞(𝑛)],
̄ ̄ is computed by Eq. (11).
𝑞(𝑛)
Therefore, the parameters can be estimated online through the
According to the energy model (13), to identify the parameters 𝜑1
following RLS algorithm [32]
and 𝜑2 , the load 𝑇L should be estimated and the mass of bulk material
on the conveyor belt should be calculated. This section will propose a ⎧𝜑(𝑛)
̂ ̂ − 1) + 𝑘(𝑛)[𝑦(𝑛) − 𝑋(𝑛)T 𝜑(𝑛
= 𝜑(𝑛 ̂ − 1)]
parameter identification method by combining the load observer, bulk ⎪
⎨ 𝑘(𝑛) = 𝑝(𝑛 − 1)𝑋(𝑛)∕[1 + 𝑋(𝑛)T 𝑝(𝑛 − 1)𝑋(𝑛)] (19)
material average mass calculator and RLS algorithm, as shown in Fig. 2, ⎪𝑝(𝑛) = [𝐸 − 𝑘(𝑛)𝑋(𝑛)T ]𝑝(𝑛 − 1)
and then establish a two-stage parameter identification method with ⎩
waiting period by taking into account the operation condition of belt where 𝑘(𝑛) is incremental matrix; 𝑝(𝑛) is covariance matrix with 𝑝(0) =
conveyors. 10𝛽 𝐸, 𝐸 is the identity matrix, and 𝛽 is a large positive integer to be
chosen; 𝜑̂ is the estimation of the model parameters and 𝜑(0)
̂ = [0 0]T .
3.1. Load observer The RLS-based parameter identification method is summarized as
follows
The electrical time constant of PMSM is much smaller than the
mechanical time constant, so it is assumed that the load torque is Algorithm: RLS-based parameter identification method
constant within a sampling period [31]. According to Eqs. (3) and Input: 𝑖𝑑 , 𝑖𝑞 , 𝜔e , 𝑣 and 𝐼;
(4), the load is taken as the expansion state variable of the observing Output: 𝜑̂ 1 and 𝜑̂ 2 ;
system. The system expansion equation is as follows Step1: Initialize 𝑝(0) = 10𝛽 𝐸 and 𝜑(0) ̂ = [0 0]T ;
[ ][ ] [ ]
⎧[𝑇̇ ] 0 0 𝑇L 0
Step2: Measure 𝑖𝑑 , 𝑖𝑞 , 𝜔e , 𝑣 and 𝐼;
⎪ L = 𝑝𝑛 + 𝑢 Step3: Compute 𝑞(𝑛) ̄ and 𝑇̂L (𝑛) by Eqs. (11) and (16), respectively;
⎪ 𝜔̇ e −𝐽 − 𝐵𝐽 𝜔e 1
⎨ [ ] (14) then 𝑋(𝑛) = [𝑟 𝑟𝑞(𝑛)] ̄ and 𝑦(𝑛) = 𝑇̂L ;
⎪ [ ] 𝑇L Step4: Implement the Eq. (19).
⎪𝜔 e = 0 1 𝜔
⎩ e

where 𝑢 = 1.5𝑝2 𝑖𝑞 [𝜓f + (𝐿𝑑 − 𝐿𝑞 )𝑖𝑑 ]∕𝐽 . In the system (14), 𝑝𝑛 is the Remark 3. The RLS algorithm is widely used for energy model
pole-pair number, 𝐵 is the damping coefficient and 𝐽 is the moment of parameter identification because of its simplicity and practicality. To
inertia. 𝑝𝑛 , 𝐵 and 𝐽 are considered known. guarantee the identification effect, it is usually required that the system
[ ]T
Let 𝑥1 = 𝑇L , 𝑥2 = 𝜔e , 𝑥 = 𝑥1 𝑥2 , 𝑦 = 𝜔e . Then, the system (14) input should satisfy the so-called persistence of excitation condition.
is described as follows For example, in [16,22], it is assumed that the feed rate or belt speed
[ ] [ ] changes frequently.
⎧ 0 0 0
⎪𝑥̇ = 𝑝𝑛 𝐵 𝑥+ 𝑢
⎨ − 𝐽
− 𝐽
1 (15) 3.3. Two-stage parameter identification method with waiting period
⎪ [ ]
⎩𝑦 = 0 1 𝑥
The previously proposed parameter identification method based
It is easy to verify that the observability matrix 𝑄0 of the system
on load observer and RLS is feasible under the assumption that the
(15) is a full-rank, that is Rank(𝑄0 )=2. Thus the system is observable.
feed rate or belt speed can change frequently [10]. However, this
The Luenberger observer can be designed as follows
[ ] [ ] [ ] assumption may affect production efficiency, or even cause unnecessary
0 𝑘1 𝑘2 𝐽 ∕𝑝𝑛 −𝑘1 𝑘2 𝐽 ∕𝑝𝑛 0 wear to the belt conveyors. In addition, the proposed method in the pre-
𝑥̂̇ = 𝑥̂ + 𝑦+ 𝑢 (16)
−𝑝𝑛 ∕𝐽 (𝐽 − 1)𝐵∕𝐽 − (𝑘1 + 𝑘2 ) (𝑘1 + 𝑘2 ) − 𝐵 1 vious subsection may lead to remarkable identification error because
where 𝑘1 and 𝑘2 are the poles of the observer. It can be obtained from of the load observer error and the large-scale difference between the
(15) and (16) that parameters 𝜑1 and 𝜑2 to be identified.
[ ] To overcome the challenges mentioned above, this subsection
0 𝑘1 𝑘2 𝐽 ∕𝑝𝑛 presents a two-stage parameter identification method with waiting
𝑒̇ = 𝑒 (17)
−𝑝𝑛 ∕𝐽 (𝐽 − 1)𝐵∕𝐽 − (𝑘1 + 𝑘2 ) period by using the RLS-based identification method. As shown in
where 𝑒 = 𝑥̂ − 𝑥. As long as the selected poles 𝑘1 and 𝑘2 have Fig. 3, the belt conveyor starts at the initial time 𝑡0 , and the parameter
negative real parts, it exists that lim𝑡→∞ 𝑒 = lim𝑡→∞ (𝑥̂ − 𝑥) = 0, for any 𝜑1 is identified during [𝑡𝑎 , 𝑡𝑏 ) without any bulk material on the belt

4
C. Yang et al.
Fig. 3. Flow chart of two-stage parameter identification method with waiting period.
conveyor. The waiting period [𝑡0 , 𝑡𝑎 ] is adopted to make the load
observation error small enough. After the identification process for 𝜑1
converges, feeding is started at 𝑡𝑏 to add load and the parameter 𝜑2 is
identified during [𝑡𝑏 , 𝑇 ].
Remark 4. For the two-stage parameter identification method, proper
values of 𝑡𝑎 , 𝑡𝑏 and 𝑇 can be chosen according to experience. An
alternative to determine critical switching instant is replacing the cri-
teria 𝑡 < 𝑡𝑎[, 𝑡 < 𝑡𝑏 and 𝑡 < ]𝑇 by the conditions [ 𝑒[𝑇̂L (𝑡𝑎 ) − 𝑇
̂
] L (𝑡𝑎 −
𝛥𝑡)] ≤ 𝛿1 , 𝑒 𝜑̂ 1 (𝑡𝑏 ) − 𝜑̂ 1 (𝑡𝑏 − 𝛥𝑡) ≤ 𝛿2 and 𝑒 𝜑̂ 2 (𝑇 ) − 𝜑̂ 2 (𝑇 − 𝛥𝑡) ≤ 𝛿3 ,
respectively, where 𝛿1 , 𝛿2 and 𝛿3 represent the threshold values.
Remark 5. From the energy model (12), it can be seen that 𝑇L =
𝑟𝜑1 when the belt conveyor is running without load, that is, 𝑞̄ =
0. Thus it is reasonable to identify the parameters 𝜑1 and 𝜑2 suc-
cessively, which can alleviate the challenges of choosing persistent
excitation input and large-scale difference between the two parameters.
In addition, the waiting period [𝑡0 , 𝑡𝑎 ] can make the load observation
error sufficiently small. Therefore, the proposed two-stage parame-
ter identification method with waiting period is more efficient than
the RLS-based method proposed in the last subsection. It is worth
mentioning that the proposed energy model and online parameter
identification algorithm can be implemented on the host computer of
the belt conveyor control system without any additional cost.
Remark 6. By (13), we have
{ 𝑝
𝑆𝜑1 = 𝑑𝑝∕𝑑𝜑1 = 𝑣(𝑡)
(20)
𝑆𝜑𝑝 2 = 𝑑𝑝∕𝑑𝜑2 = 𝑞(𝑡)
̄ ⋅ 𝑣(𝑡)
which shows that the energy consumption of the belt conveyor is
more sensitive to the variation of 𝜑2 because the average mass of bulk
material on the belt conveyor 𝑞(𝑡)
̄ > 1 kg/m. Thus the parameter 𝜑2 has
a greater influence on the energy consumption computation results by
using the proposed energy model.
4. Simulation study
4.1. The hardware-in-the-loop simulation experiment system
In this section, the proposed energy model and parameter identifi-
cation method will be verified by the hardware-in-the-loop simulation
platform shown in Fig. 4.
5
Measurement 178 (2021) 109342
Fig. 4. Hardware-in-the-loop simulation experiment system.
The hardware-in-the-loop simulation experiment system consists
of a belt conveyor controller and a virtual PMSM driven belt con-
veyor. The controller is composed of a computer and a SIMATIC PLC
(S7-1500). The control algorithm is compiled by the TIA Portal v14
software in the computer and executed by the PLC to control the
motion of the virtual PMSM driven belt conveyor. The computer is also
used to implement the parameter identification algorithm and show
the monitoring signals from the PLC. The virtual PMSM driven belt
conveyor is composed of a computer and a dSPACE-1202 platform. The
simulation models of the PMSM and belt conveyor are built by using
MATLAB/Simulink plugged into the computer and are downloaded to
dSPACE-1202 platform to run as a virtual PMSM driven belt conveyor.
The control signals of PLC and the operating status of the virtual PMSM
driven belt conveyor system are transmitted through the I/O interface.
In this simulation, the parameters of the belt conveyor are borrowed
from [19] and shown in Table 2. The true values of the two parameters
of the energy model are 𝜑1 = 24.042 kN and 𝜑2 = 210.6343 m2 ∕s2 ,
respectively. Set the conveyor belt speed 𝑣 as 2.52 m/s, the sampling
time 𝛥𝑡 as 0.005 s and the simulation duration 𝑇 as 25 s. The poles of
the load observer are set as −60 and −70.
This section will compare the results of the RLS-based parame-
ter identification method and the two-stage parameter identification
method with waiting period. Since the RLS-based method requires the
feed rate to satisfy the so-called persistence of excitation condition,
this paper adopts the following feed rate 𝐼𝑅𝐿𝑆 which is similar to that
in [16].
𝐼𝑅𝐿𝑆 = 0.09 × [2000 + sin(10 × 𝑡 + 1) + 2 × cos(−5 × 𝑡 + 2) + sin(20 × 𝑡)]
+0.3 × [100 + 2 × cos(−5 × 𝑡 + 2) + sin(15 × 𝑡 + 0.4)
+ sin(20 × 𝑡) + 4 × sin(𝑡)] × |sin(4 × 𝑡 + 0.5)| kg∕s, 0 ≤ 𝑡 ≤ 25
For the two-stage parameter identification method with waiting
period, we set 𝑡𝑎 = 0.5 s, 𝑡𝑏 = 10 s, and adopt the following feed rate
𝐼𝑇 𝑆
{
= 0 kg/s, 0 ≤ 𝑡 < 10
𝐼𝑇 𝑆 =
= 200 kg/s, 10 ≤ 𝑡 ≤ 25
C. Yang et al. Measurement 178 (2021) 109342

Fig. 5. Performance of the load observer.

Fig. 6. The identification result.

The data used for parameter identification of the energy model can Table 3
be obtained by the host computer of the controller and the parameter The identification error.

identification algorithms are carried out there. Implementing the two RLS-based method Proposed method

methods separately, the estimated values of load by load observer and Estimated value (kN) 23.913 24.043
𝜑1
true values of load are shown in Fig. 5, which are represented by a Error 0.540% 0.001%

dashed line and a solid line, respectively. The 𝑦-axis of Fig. 5 represents Estimated value (m2 /s2 ) 222.5766 210.2096
𝜑2
the load torque 𝑇L , kN.m; the 𝑥-axis represents time 𝑡, s. It can be seen Error 5.670% 0.202%

that the load observer can estimate the load after 0.2 s in both of the
identification processes and the estimated load torque can track the
time-varying load. Thus it is reasonable to use the estimated values of
the load estimator for parameter identification and choose the waiting
time as 𝑡𝑎 = 0.5 s.
4.2. Results and discussion
The identification processes are depicted in Fig. 6. The solid line
and the dashed line in Fig. 6 represent the identification processes of
the RLS-based method and the two-stage method for the two energy
parameters, respectively. In Figs. 6(a) and 6(b), the 𝑦-axis represents
the values of the model parameters 𝜑1 and 𝜑2 , respectively. The 𝑥-
axis represents the number of iterations of the parameter identification
algorithm in the experiment. The two identification algorithms iterates
5,000 times in this experiment. It can be seen that the convergence
rate of the two-stage method is much faster than that of the RLS-based
method. The final identification results of the parameters in the energy
model and the errors are given in Table 3. The errors in Table 3 were
relative errors, that is, the difference between the final identification
value and the true value divided by the true value. It can be seen
that the two-stage method has obvious advantages on the identification
accuracy over the RLS-based method.
To show the effectiveness of the proposed two-stage method under
measurement noise, we add 10% noise to the measurements of 𝑖𝑑 , 𝑖𝑞
and 𝜔e , respectively. As shown in Table 4, the noise has little effect on
the identification result.
In summary, the proposed load observer can estimate the load well.
Convergence rate and identification accuracy of the two-stage method

6
C. Yang et al.
Table 4
The parameter identification results when adding 10% noise.
Noised variable 𝜑1 (kN) 𝜑2 (m2 /s2 )
𝑖𝑑 24.043 210.0206
𝑖𝑞 24.043 210.1800
𝜔e 24.043 209.8856
are better than those of the RLS-based method. The identification
results are not sensitive with respect to measurement noise. Thus,
the proposed two-stage parameter identification method for the PMSM
driven belt conveyors is feasible.
5. Conclusions
In this paper, we have considered the energy modeling and pa-
rameter identification problems for PMSM driven belt conveyors. An
energy model of PMSM driven belt conveyors has been established
by using the existing dynamic energy model and the PMSM dynamic
model, which can accurately capture the amounts of material on each
section of the belt conveyor and is free of the drive system efficiency.
An RLS-based parameter identification method consisting of the load
observer, bulk material average mass calculator and RLS algorithm has
been proposed. Furthermore, the RLS-based method has been improved
as a two-stage parameter identification method with waiting period by
taking into account the conveyor operating conditions and the char-
acteristics of the proposed energy model. By a hardware-in-the-loop
simulation experiment system, it has been shown that the proposed
two-stage parameter identification method with waiting period is of
better convergence rate and identification accuracy than the RLS-based
method and the measurement noise has little effect on the identification
results. In the future, we will apply the obtained energy model to study
optimal operation control problem of belt conveyors for energy saving.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Chunyu Yang: Conceptualization, Methodology, Supervision, Writ-
ing - review & editing, Validation. Lingchao Bu: Software, Formal
analysis, Writing - original draft. Bin Chen: Visualization, Writing -
review & editing.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to
influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Founda-
tion of China under Grant 61873272, 62073327, 61973306, in part
by Open Project Foundation of State Key Laboratory of Synthetical
Automation for Process Industries of Northeastern University, China
(2019-KF-23-04).
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