2018 15th International Multi-Conference on Systems, Signals & Devices (SSD)

Analysis and Design of Adaptive Current Controller

for DC Drive Using Z-Transform

Mohammed T. Lazim Mohammed BeniYounis Huthaifa Alkhashashna

Philadelphia University
Amman ,Jordan
drmohamadtofik@yahoo.com MBaniyounis@philadelphia.edu.jo hudefah_hb@yahoo.com

 The need for high performance drive systems with adaptive

Abstract— Tracking applications such as robotics,
actuation, manipulation and radar antenna system
employing four-quadrant thyristorized D.C. drive require
precise and optimal speed control. In this paper, the
analysis and design of an adaptive current controller of a
separately excited d.c. motor with a thyristor converter
using z-transform technique is presented. With an
adaptive current controller, the current loop will have the
same dynamic characteristics whatever may be its
operational state regarding continuous or discontinuous
current modes. A hardware realization of the controller is
also presented and discussed. A digital simulation study is
made of the performance of the closed loop speed control
system using an approximate continuous time
representation for describing its dynamics. The hardware
design of the proposed controller is simple, reliable and
easy to implement.
Index Terms— power electronics, d.c. machines, d.c. drives,
control theory, z-transform, adaptive control
I. INTRODUCTION
control in various industrial applications has produced great
research efforts in the application of modern control theory
with power semiconductor technologies and microelectronics.
In this, position control is done by means of reversible
thyristor converter. The optimal design of the motor-converter
system is of great importance in order to have optimal tracking
and safe operation of the motor.
Diverse control approaches have been reported in the
literature for electric motors speed control using continuous
linear mode [1-6].However, there are several controllers based
on sliding modes [2,3], predictive control [4], conventional
proportional-integral-derivative (PID) techniques [5–8],
particle swarm optimization [9], robust control [10], sliding
mode neuro-adaptive control [11,12], and fuzzy logic [13,14].
Most of these proposed controllers require full or partial
information of the mathematical model and motor parameters,
limiting their application because controllers are depending on
the availability of these values [4, 10, 11]. Motors as electric
actuators are employed in many practical engineering systems;
therefore, obtaining this information is an additional task, and
it is possible that the controller performance could be
degraded. Moreover, some of them have a high computational
cost which could restrict their operation for real time

A djustable speed d.c. drives are extensively used in many

industrial complex applications such as robotics or
manipulations requires not only a position control at the
final time, but also tracking or trajectory control. A track is a
time history of position and/or velocity that the end effector of
a manipulator should follow at all time. These applications
are also found in many military applications using d.c. drives
such as tracking radar antenna, precision speed control in
tactical navigational means, drives for controlling ships,
aircraft, rockets, rocket launchers, artillery system, etc.
In all these applications, the mechanical load varies
considerably during operation. When a fixed controller setting
is used in a drive system with a widely changing load,
unsatisfactory
performance is often produced. This is quite obvious in
position controlled drives where slightly misaligned
controllers can cause considerable overshoot and oscillations.
In tracking applications, such a control system is deficient and
cannot be considered a viable option.
applications [10].
A more realistic approach to describe the dynamics of a closed
loop speed control system with a thyristor converter is to
consider it as a nonlinear sampled data with variable
parameters. In the present study a sampler and hold
representation is used to describe the thyristor converter. The
nonlinear static characteristics of the converter are
approximated by a linear characteristic. The dynamic
characteristics of the current loop are dependent upon the
mode of operation, namely, whether the current is continuous
or discontinuous. Hence the current loop must be design in
such a way that it is stable and has the same dynamic
characteristics irrespective of its operational state. An adaptive
current controller is proposed to achieve this objective.
Stability analysis is carried out with the aid of root locus plots.
Z-transform technique is used for current loop analysis.
Finally, using an approximate continuous time representation
the dynamics of the closed loop speed control system is
evaluated, a digital simulation study is made of its
performance. The adaptive current controller developed in the
present work, together with the theoretical ana1ysis are found

978-1-5386-5305-0/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE 1305

 2018 15th International Multi-Conference on Systems, Signals & Devices (SSD)
to help improving the overall system response, and make the
position control and hence the tracking process of any object
very stable and reliable. Typical application to radar antenna
positional control with thyristorized reversible drive is shown
in Fig.1.
Fig.1 Radar antenna positional control with thyristor
reversible drive.
II. ANALYSIS OF CURRENT LOOP USING
Z-TRANSFORM TECHNIQUE
When a closed loop variable speed reversible D.C. drive is
used to drive a radar antenna two modes of operation can
occur during tracking. These are, continuous a discontinuous
current operation depending on the type of information
received from the surveillance radar. For continuous current
operation, the parameters of the current loop are constant; a
block diagram representation of the current loop is given in
Fig.2. However, when the current is discontinuous the total
armature resistance Ra is variable depending on the pulse
duration λ of the current, and the dynamic of the current loop
is variable. The average value of the current can be given as
V − (λ⁄π) V
i = (1)
R i(z) =
where = ∅ is the induced voltage in the motor.
Fig. 2 Block diagram of speed control system including the
effect of load torque.
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It is obvious that eq. (1) is valid for the conduction period
( t= λ) only. For the remaining period (π-λ) the average
current i will be equal to zero. Hence the current pulse
duration will depends on the load torque created by the
tracking antenna itself. In this case the electrical time constant
= ⁄ ≈ 0.
The thyristor converter shown in Fig.1 is represented by a
sample and hold. The nonlinear static characteristic of the
converter is approximated by a linear sampled data system
with variable parameters [4]. In Fig.3 a family of curves
i = ( ) are shown for different values of ( ), for
discontinuous current case, it can be seen that the relation is
nonlinear. In order to obtain a linear characteristic as in the
case of continuous current, the variation in R must be
compensated. An adaptive current controller is used for this
purpose. It suppresses the variation in R by varying the gain
of the current controller.
Using z-transform technique,i(z) , z-transform of the open
loop current ( ),is
R G (z)G (z)G (z)
(2)
1 + G G G G (z)
In the analysis R(t) = Vr(t) = δ(t) , Unit impulse function.
 2018 15th International Multi-Conference on Systems, Signals & Devices (SSD)

(A) Continuous Current Operation:

Referring to Fig.2, the open loop transfer function of the Using inverse z-transform technique
current loop is ( ) = 0.1756 + 0.1998 + 0.191 + 0.1765
(1 + )(1 − ) + 0.162 + 0.15 + 0.141
( )= (3)
( + + 1) + 0.133 (7)
A graphical representation of ( ) is shown in Fig.4.

Fig.4 Weighting function of speed control loop.

Fig.3 Plot of current i against Vx for discontinuous current
(B) Discontinuous Current Operation:
operation: Curves 2, 3, and 4 without adaptive controller.
For this case = 0 and ′ = (π/λ) , the open loop
Curve 1 with the adaptive controller.
pulse transfer function is ·
The corresponding pulse transfer function is
( + )
( )= (4) ( ⁄ ′ )( − 1) + 1 −
−2 ( )+ ( )= (8)
−
where Where
−( ( ) ( + )) 1
= = , =
1−2 ( )+ ( ) ( + ) ′
with For = 3.563 and = 2.2 × 10 , a root locus plot can be plot to
/ determine the value of ; such that the system just become unstable.
1 1 1 1
= , = , = − For this case it is found that = 56.4.
2 2
III. THE ADAPTIVE CURRENT CONTROLLER
+ − The PI-current controller must have variable gain and time
=
constant, in order to compensate the variation of and .
The parameter settings are governed by the state of operation
and of the current loop. The controller gain has to be large, if the
= current is discontinuous to compensate for the increase in the
(1 − 2 ( )+ ( ) ( + )) value of . However, the time constant is small because the
The critical value of the gain for instability can be found value of is very much reduced. For continuous current
from a root locus plot, for this case = 22.8. mode the controller gain has to be small and the time constant
Using the block diagram of Fig.2, ( ) is evaluated as should be large to compensate the effect of large value of .
A hardware realization of the adaptive current controller that
( − ⁄ + 1) ( + )
( )= ( + 1) (5) satisfies the criteria stated above is shown in Fig.5. The input
( − 1) ( + + )
and output waveforms of the adaptive current controller are
shown in Fig.6.
where The transfer function of the controller is
=1−2 + ( + )
= −( ( + )) 1 (1 + )(1 + )
= (1 − 2 + ( + )) ( )=− .
( + ) (1 + )
−2
= + ( − ( + )) 1 (1 + )
= =− . (9)
( + )
For the given set of parameters
0.1756 − 0.165 + 0.007 where = , = ,
( )= ( + 1) (6)
− 2.076 + 1.312 − 0.236
and =( ⁄( + ))( + )
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 2018 15th International Multi-Conference on Systems, Signals & Devices (SSD)

IV. DESIGN OF THYRISTOR DRIVE

The design of the speed control system for an armature
controlled D.C. motor with permanent excitation is described.
The phase margin of the system Δφ = 66° so as to have
satisfactory transient response the gain = = 8.
The closed loop transfer function of the current loop of the
speed control system is
( )=
1+

(1 + ) 1−
4

( ⁄4) ( ⁄4) − + ( ⁄4) − ( ⁄4) +

+ 4 + +1
1+ 1+ 1+
Fig.5 Hardware of the proposed adaptive current controller.
(11)

The value of the current controller gain = 8⁄

The open loop transfer function of the overall speed control
system is
( )
(1 + )(1 + )(1 + ⁄4)
=( ⁄1 + ) (12)
( + + + )
where =
=
4(1 + )
+( ⁄4) − ( ⁄4 )
=
1+
+ ( ⁄4) − ( ⁄4) +
=
1+
=1

From a Bode plot of the open loop transfer function of eq.(12)

it has been found that in order to increase the stability of the
system the phase margin Δφ should be > 70° .

V. DIGITAL SIMULATION OF THE SPEED CONTROL

Fig.6 Input and output waveforms of the adaptive current
controller.
For zero current, the J-FET switch shown in Fig.5 is
permanently on and the controller has a small time constant.
The transfer function of the controller for zero current is
1 (1 + ) Kutta numerical integration procedure.
( )=− . (10)
A block diagram representation of the speed current control
system with the adaptive current controller is shown in Fig.7.
SYSTEM
The effect of controller parameters on the performance of the
system is studied through digital simulation. A state variable
model of the speed control system is used for this purpose.
The state and output equation are solved for a step =
5.24 , with zero initial conditions, using fourth order Runga-
During simulation the open loop gain is kept constant
at = 8, and the integral time constant of the speed controller
is varied from = 0.0 to = 0.6 (design value). A plot of
speed, ω(t), against time t is shown in Fig.8 for various values
of . It can be seen that the percentage overshoot and settling
time increases as the value of is decreased. For = 0 the
closed loop system is unstable. The continuous time model is
also simulated on the digital computer and the transient
response as well as the load transient response of the system is
shown in Fig.9 and 10 respectively.

Fig. 7 Block diagram representation of the speed control
system with the adaptive current controller.
CONCLUSION
The analysis and design of an adaptive current controller for
the speed control of a separately excited D.C. motor driving a
radar tracking system using z-transform technique is
described. The adaptive current controller makes it possible

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 2018 15th International Multi-Conference on Systems, Signals & Devices (SSD)
Fig. 8 No load speed variation for different values of T1.
Fig. 9 Transient response with load and no load for two values
of T1.
Fig.10 Load transient response.
for the current loop to have the same dynamic characteristics
for both continuous and discontinuous current operation to
have optimal tracking action. Root locus method is used to
investigate the closed loop stability. A hardware realization
of the adaptive current controller for a tracking system d.c.
motor drive with permanent excitation of type 3. SHAT 112 M
used in radar tracking system is also discussed. Digital
simulation study is carried out of the performance of the speed
control system using approximate continuous time
representation for describing its dynamics. The proposed
adaptive current controller is electrically simple and reliable.
The optimal value of the current controller gain was obtain by
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digital simulation using conventional control engineering
without applying complex techniques such as neural network
concepts or genetic algorithm.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors wish to acknowledge the support and
encouragements given by Prof. Kasim Alobaidy the dean of
engineering faculty and all the staff of the Electrical Machines
Laboratory in the Department of Electrical Engineering at
Philadelphia University -Jordan.
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LIST OF SYMBOLS

a = Number of parallel paths.

t = Time, seconds.
C = Motor constructional constant. =
G (s) = Transfer function.
J = Polar moment of inertia of armature. . .
Km = 1/C = gain of the motor.
La = Armature circuit inductance, H.
P= number of poles
Ra = Armature circuit resistance, Ohms.
T = Sampling period, seconds
TE = Electrical time constant of a motor, seconds.
TEM = Mechanical time constant of a motor, seconds.
TL=Load torque. N.m
Vav= Average output voltage of the thyristor, volts.
Vmax= Maximum voltage (rectified) ,volts.
Vo = Reference voltage of triggering circuit, volt.
Vx= Control voltage of the triggering circuit, volts.
Z= Total number of conductors in the machine.
ω = Angular speed (or angular frequency in Bode plot),
rad /second.
Φ = Magnetic flux, Weber.
φ(ω) = phase frequency.

APPENDIX- I
D.C. motor data.

Parameters of d.c. armature controlled motor with permanent

magnet excitation.
Type 3 SHAT 112M used in radar tracking system:
Rated torque 47 Nm.
Rated voltage 67 V.
Rated current 47 A.
Max. Torque 280 Nm.
Moment of inertia = 0.033 . .
Armature inductance = 1.83 × 10 .
Armature resistance Ra = 0.3345 ohm (at 20˚ C).
Km = 0.606, Kc = 0.48, KT = 0.2.

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