SENSORLESS SPEED CONTROL OF
BRUSHLESS DC MOTOR
Haritha M
Department of Electrical and electronics
NSS college of engineering,Palakkad, kerala,India
haripronotes@gmail.com
Abstract--- By definition, a brushless-dc motor is a synchronous
electric motor powered by a dc-power source. While derived
from the brushed-dc motor, an electronic commutation circuit
takes the place of the standard commutator and brush
assembly.Of course, the primary difference between brushed-dc
and BLDC motors is the method in which each type is
commutated. The control of BLDC motors can be done in sensor
or sensorless mode, but to reduce overall cost of actuating
devices, sensorless control techniques are normally used. The
advantage of sensorless BLDC motor control is that the sensing
part can be omitted, and thus overall costs can be considerably
reduced. Conventional sensorless speed control is based on back
emf method, but it has some disadvantages.The motor must be
moving at a minimum rate to generate sufficient BEMF to be
sensed and Abrupt changes to the motor load can cause the
motor drive loop to go out of lock.Due to the above said problems
we are using a microcontroller based speed control of BLDC
motor by varying the time period between two phase
energization.
Index terms--- Brushless dc motor,sensorless,
microcontroller
I .INTRODUCTION
An electric motor is an electromechanical device that
converts electrical energy into mechanical energy. Most
electric motors operate through the interaction of magnetic
fields and current-carrying conductors to generate force. The
reverse process, producing electrical energy from mechanical
energy, is done by generators such as an alternator or a
dynamo; some electric motors can also be used as generators,
for example, a traction motor on a vehicle may perform both
tasks. Electric motors and generators are commonly referred
to as electric machines.
Brushless Direct Current (BLDC) motors are one of the
motor types rapidly gaining popularity. BLDC motors are
used in industries such as Appliances, Automotive,
Aerospace, Consumer, Medical, Industrial Automation
Equipment and Instrumentation. As the name implies, BLDC
motors do not use brushes for commutation; instead, they are
electronically commutated. BLDC motors have many
advantages over brushed DC motors and induction motors.
Brushless DC electric motor (BLDC motors, BL motors)
also known as electronically commutated motors (ECMs, EC
motors) are synchronous motors that are powered by a DC
electric source via an integrated inverter/switching power
supply, which produces an AC electric signal to drive the
motor. In this context, AC, alternating current, does not imply
a sinusoidal waveform, but rather a bi-directional current with
no restriction on waveform. Additional sensors and electronics
control the inverter output amplitude and waveform (and
therefore percent of DC bus usage/efficiency) and frequency
(i.e. rotor speed). The rotor part of a brushless motor is often
a permanent magnet synchronous motor, but can also be
a switched reluctance motor, or induction motor.
Brushless motors may be described as stepper motors;
however, the term stepper motor tends to be used for motors
that are designed specifically to be operated in a mode where
they are frequently stopped with the rotor in a defined angular
position. This page describes more general brushless motor
principles, though there is overlap. Two key performance
parameters of brushless DC motors are the motor
constants Kv and Km (which are numerically equal in SI
units).
The brushes of a conventional motor transmit power to the
rotor windings which, when energized, turn in a fixed
magnetic field. Friction between the stationary brushes and a
rotating metal contact on the spinning rotor causes wear. In
addition, power can be lost due to poor brush to metal contact
and arcing. Because a BLDC motor dispenses with the
brushes – instead employing an “electronic commutator” – the
motor’s reliability and efficiency is improved by eliminating
this source of wear and power loss. In addition, BLDC motors
boast a number of other advantages over brush DC motors and
induction motors, including better speed versus torque
characteristics; faster dynamic response; noiseless operation;
and higher speed ranges. Moreover, the ratio of torque
delivered relative to the motor’s size is higher, making it a
good choice for applications such as washing machines and
EVs, where high power is needed but compactness and
lightness are critical factors. (However, it should be noted that
brush-type DC motors do have a higher starting torque.)
II. CONVENTIONAL CONTROL METHOD USING
SENSORS
A BLDC motor is driven by voltage strokes coupled with
the rotor position. These strokes must be properly applied to
the active phases of the three-phase winding system so that the
angle between the stator flux and the rotor flux is kept close to
90° to get the maximum generated torque. Therefore, the
controller needs some means of determining the rotor's
orientation/position (relative to the stator coils), such as Hall-
effect sensors, which are mounted in or near the machine’s air
gap to detect the magnetic field of the passing rotor magnets.
Each sensor outputs a high level for 180° of an electrical
rotation, and a low level for the other 180°. The three sensors
have a 60° relative offset from each other. This divides a
rotation into six phases (3-bit code).
The process of switching the current to flow through only
two phases for every 60 electrical degree rotation of the rotor
is called electronic commutation. The motor is supplied from
a three-phase inverter, and the switching actions can be simply
triggered by the use of signals from position sensors that are
mounted at appropriate points around the stator. When
mounted at 60 electrical degree intervals and aligned properly
with the stator phase windings these Hall switches deliver
digital pulses that can be decoded into the desired three-phase
switching sequence.
Such a drive usually also has a current loop to regulate the
stator current, and an outer speed loop for speed control . The
speed of the motor can be controlled if the voltage across the
motor is changed, which can be achieved easily varying the
duty cycle of the PWM signal used to control the six switches
of the three-phase bridge. Only two inverter switches, one in
the upper inverter bank and one in the lower inverter bank, are
conducting at any instant. These discrete switching events
ensure that the sequence of conducting pairs of stator
terminals is maintained . One of the Hall sensors changes the
state every 60 electrical degrees of rotation. Given this, it
takes six steps to complete an electrical cycle. However, one
electrical cycle may not correspond to a complete mechanical
revolution of the rotor. The number of electrical cycles to be
repeated to complete a mechanical rotation is determined by
the rotor pole pairs. For each rotor pole pair, one electrical
cycle is completed. The number of electrical cycles/rotations
equals the rotor pole pairs. This sequence of conducting pairs
is essential to the production of a constant output torque.
III. DISADVANTAGES OF SENSORED CONTROL
In sensored control, sensors determine the position of the
motor rotor with respect to the motor stator. This makes for
fairly simple control of the motor. A processor need only wait
for a Hall effect sensor to change state, determine which
sector the rotor is in based on the output of the three Hall
effect sensors and commutate the motor windings
appropriately. Sensored control has several drawbacks.
Sensors cost money. In addition to the sensor itself, there is
the further cost of mounting the sensors to the motor during
manufacturing as well as the cost of sensor wires. . Sensors
add another potential failure point to the motor. If a sensor
fails, the motor fails.. In some environments it is just not
practical to use sensors. For instance, in an environment
where the motor is flooded (like a compressor or pump), the
sensors may be subject to failure before the rest of the motor.
For these and other reasons, sensorless BLDC control is
desirable in many applications.
IV. ADVANCES IN SENSORLESS CONTROL
Position sensors can be completely eliminated, thus
reducing further cost and size of motor assembly, in those
applications in which only variable speed control (i.e., no
positioning) is required and system dynamics is not
particularly demanding (i.e., slowly or, at least, predictably
varying load). In fact, some control methods, such as back-
EMF and current sensing, provide, in most cases, enough
information to estimate with sufficient precision the rotor
position and, therefore, to operate the motor with synchronous
phase currents. A PM brushless drive that does not require
position sensors but only electrical measurements is called a
sensorless drive.
The BLDC motor provides an attractive candidate for
sensorless operation because the nature of its excitation
inherently offers a low-cost way to extract rotor position
information from motor-terminal voltages. In the excitation of
a three-phase BLDC motor, except for the phase-commutation
periods, only two of the three phase windings are conducting
at a time and the no conducting phase carries the back-EMF.
There are many categories of sensorless control strategies;
however, the most popular category is based on back
electromotive forces or back-EMFs. Sensing back-EMF of
unused phase is the most cost efficient method to obtain the
commutation sequence in star wound motors. Since back-
EMF is zero at standstill and proportional to speed, the
measured terminal voltage that has large signal-to-noise ratio
cannot detect zero crossing at low speeds. That is the reason
why in all back-EMF-based sensorless methods the low-speed
performance is limited, and an open-loop starting strategy is
required.
V. CONVENTIONAL SENSORLESS CONTROL
TECHNIQUE
Sensorless speed control can be accomplished mainly
using two techniques:
 Back EMF detection
 PWM technique
A. Back emf
For block commutation, the polarity of the BEMF changes
within the coil that is perpendicularly oriented to the rotor.
Hall sensors are mounted on those positions that their polarity
changes in phase with the BEMF of the associated coils. In
other words, Hall sensor signals represent the polarities of the
BEMF of their associated coils. Three Hall sensor signals
resp. BEMF polarities together represent the actual position of
the rotor. For normal operation, the switching to the next
commutation position is done with each zero crossing. Direct
measurement of the BEMF is possible if there is direct access
to the null terminal N of the BLDC motor. Although the N
terminal is available at some Y connected BLDC motors, it is
not available for DELTA connected motors. So for a flexible
implementation, the zero crossing detection has to be realized
without the N terminal. Other solutions reconstruct the voltage
of the N terminal. The sensorless commutation is also possible
without reconstruction of the N terminal voltage.
Additionally, other solutions strongly focus on post processing
of signals that are noisy due to PWM switching and self-
induction of coils. With the right signal conditioning, the
sensorless commutation becomes as simple as commutation
based on Hall sensors.

Fig 1.Blockdiagram of proposed system

An important physical difference concerning voltage, the motor is driven in voltage mode. When it is
determination of the rotor position via BEMF or using Hall controlling the current, the motor is driven in current mode.
sensors is that for the BEMF the change of the magnetic flux Voltage mode allows you to control the speed easily by
in time within the coil gives the BEMF where for the Hall changing the motor reference voltage. It does not give you
sensor the magnetic flux is sensed. Because of this, for fine control of the current but you can limit the current and
sensorless commutation based on the measurement of the consequently the torque to a maximum value. The voltage
BEMF the rotor has to move before one can determine its control is done by the PWM duty cycle.
position. In contrast to that, Hall sensors always give a valid
signal representing a position. The position of the rotor is
represented by a three bit vector with a resolution of 60°
within the electrical period. For most BLDC motors, the Hall
sensors are mounted within the 120° scheme that is direct
compatible to the BEMF. Nevertheless, there are BLDC
motors with Hall sensors mounted within a 60° scheme
resulting in a different Hall signal pattern.

B. PWM

BLDC motors that have a high efficiency might have a

very low resistance and very low inductance. The final speed
of a BLDC motor is determined by the applied supply voltage
and by the BEMF constant of the motor. The speed can be
adjusted by adjusting the applied supply voltage. Normally,
one has a fixed voltage source e.g. a battery, a rechargeable
battery, or a power supply unit – with a constant voltage. The Fig 2. PWM control by voltage method
advantage of the PWM is its low power dissipation compared
to voltage adjustment by a linear regulator. A current VI. CIRCUIT DIAGRAM DESCRIPTION
regulation can be achieved by adjusting the effective voltage
by varying the PWM duty cycle depending on a measured The main components in the circuit diagram are BLDC
current. motor, Arduino Uno microcontroller based ATmega328, two
dual H Bridge L298N, voltage regulator LM 7805,iverter
Pulse width modulation can be in two modes, voltage bridge ULN20003A . A 1800kv, 12V BLDC motor is used
mode and current mode. When the PWM signal controls the and all other components are operating under 5V.
 Fig 3.Circuit diagram of proposed system
There are 7 digital outputs coming from the Arduino Uno,
out of that only six outputs are given to the inverter pins(1B to
6B).Out of that 6 digital outputs 3 are used to energize the
three phases and the other three are used to enable the three
phase. The main purpose of the inverter is to invert the input
given to it (i.e. if a low input is given the output will be high
and vice versa.) and also to produce a constant current
required for the operation of the dual full bridge drivers. In
order to invert the signals the input contains a zener diode and
a resistor in series to control the input to a safer limit.
The six outputs of inverter bridges (1C to 6C) are
connected to two dual full bridge drivers. Each full bridge
driver contains 2 H Bridges, each H Bridge comprise of an
input pin, output pin and an enable pin. Hence 3 H Bridges are
required for the three phases and for that two dual full bridge
drivers are used.
The inverter output 1C is given to IN1 (or IN2) of the
driver1 (representing the first phase), 2C is given to the
corresponding enable pin ENA of the first phase. Similarly 3C
is connected to IN3 (or IN4) of driver1 (representing the
second phase), 4C is connected to the corresponding enable
pin ENB of the second phase. The output 5C is connected to
IN1 (or IN2) of the driver2 (representing the third phase), 6C
connected to the enable pin ENA of the third phase.
OUT1, OUT2, OUT3 corresponds to the input to the three
phases of the motor. SENSA and SENSB act as the ground to
VS whenever the driver switches to VS necessary for driving
the motor corresponding to phase switching. The driver also
contains a GND which act as ground to the operating voltage
VCC of the driver. Each phase connection to the motor
contains two diodes each(i.e., D1-D2 for first phase ,D3-D4
for second phase,D5-D6 for third phase). In BLDC motor a
short time interval is produced between switching of phases
and during this time interval no supply is given to the motor,
but due to inertia rotor continues its rotation. According to
Faradays law of electromagnetic induction, a back emf is
induced in the stator conductors and third back emf will flow
back to the bridge circuit. This can cause an unbalanced
condition which can damage the circuit. So the main purpose
of the diodes is to prevent this back emf. Back emf is
sinusoidal in nature and therefore to block back emf in both
positive and negative direction two diodes are used.
The voltage regulator used here regulates the input voltage
12V to 5V as required for the operation of other components.
In the circuit diagram J1 represents the main 12V dc supply,
from which the input is taken to the voltage regulator and J3
represents the 5V supply required for the microcontroller
ATmega328. The output 5V of the voltage regulator is being
supplied to the VCC of the two full bridge drivers and to
COM terminal of the inverter chip. A capacitor is placed in
both the input and output path. A led in series with a resistor is
connected to the output path of voltage regulator so as to
sense the continuous supply of 5V supply to the components
in the circuit.
 A potentiometer provides a variable resistance, which we
can read into the aruino board as an analog value. We connect
three wires to the Arduino board. The first goes from one of
the outer pins of the potentiometer. The second goes from 5
volts to the outer pin of the potentiometer. The third goes from
analog input 2 to the middle pin of the potentiometer.
By turning the shaft of the potentiometer, we change the
amount of resistance on either side of wiper which is
connected to the center pin of the potentiometer. This changes
relative closeness of that pin to 5V and ground give us a
different analog input. When the shaft is turned all the way in
one direction there are zero volts going into the pin and we
read zero. When the shaft is turned all the way in the other
direction, there are 5volts going to the pin and we read 1023.
In between analogRead() returns a number between 0 and
1023 that is proportional to the amount of voltage being
applied to the pin.
VII. CIRCUIT SPECIFICATIONS:
This section covers a BLDC motor drive controlled by
microcontroller with the following specifications
Input : 12 volts to voltage regulator
Power supplies : 5V to microcontroller
: 5 V and 12 voltage to dual full bridge driver
: 5 V to inverter
Microcontroller : ATmega328
Microcontroller board : ArduinULN20003Ao UNO
Inverter chip : ULN20003A
Dual full bridge driver : L298N
Regulator : LM7805
VIII. CONCLUSION
Brushless motors fulfil many functions originally
performed by brushed DC motors, but cost and control
complexity prevents brushless motors from replacing brushed
motors completely in the lowest-cost areas. Sensors cannot be
used in where the rotor is in a closed housing and requires
minimal electrical entries such as a compressor or applications
where the rotor is immersed in a liquid .But sensorless
commutation provides a lowest cost method for the speed
control and can simplify the motor structure. Applications in
dusty or oily environment that require only occasional
cleaning, or where the motor is generally inaccessible, benefit
from sensorless commutation. Moreover sensorless BLDC
speed control provides simplicity, reliability and can be
operated in dusty and humid environment. The absence of
sensor enables for the future advancements in underwater
operations. From the above discussion, it is obvious that the
control for bldc motors using position sensors such as shaft
encoders , resolvers or hall-effect probes , can be improved by
means of elimination of these sensors to further reduce cost
and increase reliability. Thus, sensorless control is the only
choice for some applications where those sensors cannot
function reliably due to harsh environmental conditions and a
higher performance is required
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