Estimation, Identification, and Sensorless
Control in Motion Control System
Invited Paper
The paper presents the state of the art of motion system particu-
larly emphasizing both estimation and identification of parameters
and control variables of electric-motor-driven motion system. In
modern electrical drive system, it is required to take not only
electrical aspect but also mechanical phase into rota1 system
consideration.
Improvement in electrical aspect needs a variety of information
pertaining to electrical machines and power electronic circuits
for improving ac variable-speed drives. Important techniques of
identification or estimation of parameters and control variables
in ac drives are esplained. Such information includes machine
parameters,$ux, speed, position, and so on. Also, the paper shows
rhat there is some theoretical limit of performance.
For improvement of mechanical phase, the disturbance torque
is the most important variable to be identified. It is used in motion
control system,for example, in feedback loop. Various applications
are possible by modification of such basic approach.
As a conclusion, the paper shows that the total robustness
is attained by integrating advances of control technique on the
electrical aspect and the mechanical aspect. There are numerous
variations of controller by possible cordinations of these two
aspects according to applications.
I. INTRODUCTION
Electric drives have served the motion of mechanical
systems for a long time. Since the early years of the 20th
century, they have been mainly applied to large capacity
applications such as the steel industry and the automo-
bile industry. Recent advances in computer technology
including high-speed Digital Signal Processors (DSP’s) and
parallel processing have brought electric drive technology
into wider applications where more skillful and dexterous
motions are required. Good examples are the mechatronic
applications and robotics. In such applications, it is neces-
sary to realize the integrated performance of both electrical
Manuscript received March 30, 1994; revised April 14, 1994.
K. Ohnishi is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Keio
University, 3-14-1 Hiyoshi, Yokohama 223, Japan.
M. Matsui is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Nagoya
Institute of Technology, Gokiso-cho, Showa, Nagoya 466, Japan.
Y. Hori is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, The University
of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo. Tokyo 113, Japan.
IEEE Log Number 9402593.
0018-9219/94$04.00 0 1994 IEEE
PROCEEDINGS OF THE IEEE, VOL. 82, NO. 8. AUGUST 1994
and mechanical aspects. This paper will describe recent
advances in such areas focusing on estimation and iden-
tification of the system. The results are not only reflected
in control design itself but also are directly used to save
mechanical sensors.
The first half of the paper explains the electrical phase
emphasizing parameter estimation, flux identification, and
speed estimation based on various methods, including STR,
MRAS, and so on, in ac motor drives. Important applica-
tions are the drives of an induction motor and a brushless
motor without speed sensor. Theoretical analyses based
on the physical viewpoint and the associated experimental
results are shown. The latter half of the paper describes
the design of the motion controller which takes mechanical
aspects into account. According to the recent results, the
disturbance observer which estimates the disturbance torque
in an instant is widely utilized to increase robustness of
the total system. In the approach, it is clarified that the
estimation of the disturbance torque and the robustness of
the total system is inseparably related to each other. The
high robustness of the motion system brings the adjustable
stiffness and, as a result, versatile applications will be
possible.
In total, the paper summarizes the state of the art of esti-
mation, identification, and sensorless control of an electric-
motor-driven motion control system in electrical and me-
chanical phase, respectively.
11. PARAMETER ESTIMATION
IN ELECTRICAL
DRIVES
A. Parameter Identijication of Inverter-Fed Induction Motor
The recent ac motor drive based on modem control tech-
nique needs identification of motor parameters. Particularly,
it is well known that the control performance of induction
motor is greatly affected by the identified parameters.
For example, the simple V/f inverter needs a voltage-
boosting function to control the required torque in the
low-speed range. To meet the exact boosting, it is nec-
1253

Dunng the -
jvo.ioad and On-line Sampling of Nb of sampled points
Stnglc Phase Current and Voltage U of identification by simplified algorithm is essential.
Tests (Samples are Saved in 5 U 2 = 167pt/prnod
File Memory)
J 60
Compute Fourier Compute Fouriei
Series Coefficients Series Coefficients
of Voltage of Current
a,] and b,l
0.1 and bvl
Compute Equivalent
Circuit Parameters
Fig. 1. Flowgraph of autonomous identification of inverter pa-
rameters.
essary to identify the induction motor parameters. Some
identification methods of induction motor parameters have
been proposed [l], [ 2 ] ,however, they are applicable only
to certain control algorithms and require additional sensors.
Thus they are not suitable to general inverter drives.
The autonomous identification of induction motor pa-
rameters for V/f inverter drive has been proposed for
such purpose and is put into practice [3]. According to
the flow diagram shown in Fig. 1, the no-load test, the
single-phase test, and the stator resistance measurement are
automatically executed on a given induction motor. As the
desired parameters needed for the simple V/f inverter are
those at the fundamental component, Fourier analysis is
necessary.
Holtz et al. proposed and realized a self-commissioning
scheme for vector-controlled induction motor drive, where
80196 microcontroller with ASIC is employed to identify
the parameters, such as stator resistance, stator transient
time constant, rotor time constant, rotor magnetizing cur-
rent, and mechanical time constant [4]. Following his
approach, several commercially available inverters have
had such functions.
B . Parameter IdentGcation of Brushless Motor
Brushless dc motors are classified into two types from
the standpoint of flux distributions, i.e., the trapezoidal and
the sinusoidal. The control of the brushless motor with a
trapezoidal flux distribution is simple and, therefore, iden-
tification of motor parameters is not always necessary. On
the contrary, the motor with a sinusoidal flux distribution
is generally used when accurate speed and/or torque are
necessary. In these applications, it is requested to achieve
a highly accurate identification of the motor parameters.
The Self-Tuning Regulator (STR) and the Model Reference
Adaptive System (MRAS) have been effective for this
purpose. It should be noted here that direct application
of STR and MRAS to parameter identification does not
always lead to successful results because of the limitation
I254
of the processing time of the controller CPU. Since the
identification should be performed in parallel with the
' current and speed control, the reduction of processing time
Figure 2 shows such a parameter identifier system similar
to STR with experimental results as to error convergence.
Figure 3 shows another identification approach based on
MRAS, which includes the voltage-based motor model in
the process. The input of the identifier is a current difference
between the model and actual motor, which is represented
as follows:
- 1) = ~ ( ~ - 2 1 ~
0
K,/L - k e ( n - 2 ) / i ( n - 2 ) 1
Using the above equation, the identification algorithm is
summarized in the following manner:
[$TnL1j)] = K P sgn [A(n- 2 ) ] A i ( n- 1)
n-1
+ Kr [Sgn {A(k - l)]Ai(k)} ( 2 )
k=l
where
wd(n - 2) - R q n - 2))
A(k)=
0 e(n - 2 )
and K p and Kr are the gain matrices. Figure 3 also shows
an example of identificationprocess of armature inductance
and EMF constant for a given brushless motor.
111. SENSORLESS DRIVESOF AC MOTORS
Basically, the vector-controlled ac motors require speed
or position sensors. However, these sensors bring several
disadvantages from the standpoint of drive cost, reliability,
machine size, and noise immunity. Therefore, it is nec-
essary to achieve the precise control of torque and speed
without using position and speed sensors, i.e., the so-called
sensorless drives of ac motors.
A. Sensorless Drives of Vector-Controlled Induction Motors
Many reports on the speed sensorless drive of the vector-
controlled induction motors have been published [5]. Vari-
ous approaches have been proposed where the basic idea is
estimation of speed by using applied voltage, line current,
and frequency. The approach can be classified as follows:
Slip frequency-based approach.
Field orientation-based approach.
The first approach is relatively simple, as shown in Fig.
4. Here, the inverter frequency is controlled so that the
vector control conditions are satisfied by estimating a
slip frequency from the stator current transformed to the
synchronously rotating co-ordinate (d-q axis) system. The
PROCEEDINGS OF THE IEEE, VOL. 82. NO. 8. AUGUST 1994
 ct Identificationstafis
I

-: -I
.5 1 1.5
t (*I

I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I

t 1.1

Fig. 2. S F - b a s e d parameter identifier with experimental results. (L is estimated armature

inductance. IC, is estimated emf constant.)

slip frequency is given by
and the motor speed is indirectly estimated by the inverter
frequency and the estimated slip frequency as
w, = w - w,.
In this approach, as the estimated slip frequency is directly
fed back to the vector-control algorithm, the vector control
and the speed estimation are coupled and they should run
simultaneously.
In the second approach, not only the speed but also the
rotor flux are simultaneously estimated for the sensorless
drive in wide speed range. Schauder attacked this problem
with MRAS [ 6 ] . His approach was based on the so-
called voltage-reference model where the speed terms are
not explicitly included. The stator equation is used for
correction of adjustable current-reference model. The speed
is estimated by a kind of error of flux components which
is derived from Popov’s stability criteria.
One modified implementation of the above approach is
shown in Fig. 5 so as to apply it to the low-speed range as
well as mid- or high-speed range. The rotor flux observer
based on the motor voltage model estimates the rotor flux
(4) by using the stator current transformed to the stationary co-
ordinates (a-@axis) system and the vector control is carried
out on the basis of the estimated rotor flux while the motor
speed is directly estimated through MRAS by using the flux
and the stator current. Therefore, unlike the slip-frequency-
(5) based approach, the estimated speed is used to adjust the
motor model. The vector control can be decoupled with the
speed estimation. The speed is estimated according to the
following relations:
It should be noted here that ( X ) in (6) is the magnitude of
outer product.
Since the speed estimation is based on the motor model,
the parameter variation, especially the rotor resistance, has
some effect on the speed estimation. As to this prob-
lem, Shin-naka clarified the impossibility of simultaneous
estimation of both the speed and the rotor resistance theoret-

OHNISHI et al.: ESTIMATION. IDENTIFICATION, AND SENSORLESS CONTROL IN MOTION CONTROL SYSTEM 1255
 , , c ldentificationh
algorithm
vector control

model

algorithm
I MRAS b-'
Brus h l ess
I motor 1 Fig. 5. Basic schematic representation of field-Orientation-based
sensorless control of induction motor.

A Titi
60
40
20

-40
0

-10

-60
:;:--------
e
Identification
StpKtc

b
0.5 1.0 I .5

t(sl
It is noted here that the following relation is obtained
from basic equations of vector-controlled induction motor:

By substituting (9) into (7), the following relation is

derived:

Equations (10) and (8) mean that a simultaneous identifi-

cation of the rotor resistance and the motor speed is possible
tlsl
only when the rotor flux is persistently time-variant. Under
the vector control, the rotor flux is kept constant in principle
(b) for the orthogonality of rotor flux and rotor current. Then
Fig. 3. MRAS-based parameter identifier with experimental re- the simultaneous identification is theoretically impossible in
sults. the vector-controlled induction motor. Kubota et al. solved
this problem by adding small ac components to the exciting
current command [8].

SI i p freq .-based
B. Sensorless Drives of Brushless Motors
d-9lff-P
vector control The brushless motor with a trapezoidal rotor flux distri-
bution provides an attractive candidate because two of the
three stator windings are excited at a time. As a result, the
0,-
unexcited winding can be used as a sensor [9], [lo], i.e.,
Estimation of the speed EMF induced in the unexcited winding is used
slip freq.
to determine the rotor position and speed.
Fig. 4. Basic schematic diagram of slip frequency-based sensor- On the contrary, the brushless motor with a sinusoidal
less control of induction motor. flux distribution excites three windings at a time and the
sensorless control algorithm becomes complicated. Figure
6 shows an analytical model of a brushless motor where
ically [7]. From the voltage equation based on the stationary the d-q axis corresponds to an actual rotor position and
co-ordinates system, the relation the 7-6 axis is a fictitious rotor position. Since the actual
d rotor position is not known without a position sensor, the
,114211z = 243-R222 fwmJ421 aim is to converge the angular difference A8 between the
= -2Rz&i2 (7) fictitious and actual rotor positions to be zero.

J= [y -A] Two approaches have been proposed. Both are the es-
timation of the angular difference by using the detected
state variables and the estimated state variables which
is obtained. Rearranging (71, (8) holds. are obtained from a motor model in the controller. The
approaches differ according to the motor model, that is,
voltage model-based drive [ 111
current model-based drive [ 121

1256 PROCEEDINGS OF THE IEEE. VOL. 82, NO. 8, AUGUST 1994

 where T is a sampling period and 8~ is the motor speed of
the model. Equation (16) means that the current errors of
each component of current correspond to position and speed
errors, respectively. Therefore, the following algorithm is
obtained:

Fig. 6. Analytical model of brushless motor.

Iv. ROBUSTMOTIONCONTROL BY ESTIMATION
These two are basically the model-based control and, OF DISTURBANCE
TORQUE
generally, require on-line identification of the motor pa- A. Disturbance Torque and Robustness of Motion
rameters if higher performance is required. However, it
is interesting to note that the second method has a robust As well as the electric side, high-performance controller
control characteristic against the motor parameter variation. of the mechanical system is a requisite for more skillful
In the voltage model-based sensorless drive, the voltage and dexterous motion. To attain such high performance, the
equation is given below, where P is a differential operator. mechanical system should be robust against the load change

] [i,] and parameter variation. A conventional minor control loop

I:[ = [
R+PL
Le,
-Le,
R+PL i6
.[-sinA0]
+ K E B cosAB .
structure shown in Fig. 7 has been effective in one degree-
of-freedom motion.
The improvement ratio of the performance to the speed
reference tracking and the disturbance rejection is basically
On the other hand, the voltage equation under the ideal the same in such system. The increase of forward gain leads
condition that the fictitious and actual axes are coincident to more robust performance and makes the control stiffness
with each other is as follows: higher. At the same time, high gain often excites the lowest
mechanical resonance mode and makes the total system
unstable. There is a limit of the forward gain.
On the other hand, recent dexterous motion requires wide
Taking a difference between y-axis voltages, the following range of control stiffness. For example, a robot which
relation results on the assumption that A0 is small. rotates crank shaft needs a force controller. An electronic
AV, = v, - vyhl = - K E i s i n A o 2i - K ~ t j . A f ? . (13) parts inserting machine needs some compliant motion at the
tip of the machine. These cases require low or no control
Since the voltage difference can be calculated by an actual stiffness. The conventional controller will have very low
applied voltage in (11) and the model voltage calculated forward gain, for such a purpose, and will lose robustness as
from (12), the angular difference can be converged to zero a result. To satisfy such varied requirements, the controller
by the following rule: should have variable control stiffness keeping the system
highly robust.
if AV, > 0, then 6, decreases
Ohishi et al. proposed such controller by using a distur-
if AV,< 0, then 0, increases (14) bance observer [ 131, which identifies the total mechanical
(for clockwise rotation). load torque and parameter change. Hori and Umeno also
proposed a more straightforward method [17], [21] from
The current model is given in (15). the standpoint of robust motion control. In other words, the
identification of disturbance torque is essential for motion
control robustness [ 141, [ 161 to realize various applications.
In general, the motion system is modeled as shown in
. -sin A0
[
- K E H cos AO] }- Fig. 8. The control is directly acting on the physical world
represented by the kinematics and the dynamics. The out-
Similarly to the voltage model-based approach, the current puts of the motion system are either position or force. There
difference is calculated and the result is as follows: is a certain relational function between them as in (19).

Here, f is force applied to the mechanical system and x is

deviation by f. The control stiffness is defined as in (20).

Control Stiffness = -
2I L
OHNISHI et al.: ESTIMATION, IDENTIFICATION,AND SENSORLESS CONTROL IN MOTION CONTROL SYSTEM 1257
 7.
- current minor loop

speed minor loop

position loop
Fig. 7. Conventional minor loop structure.

Force control and position control are characterized from Machine Human
the control stiffness. The ideal position (or speed) control
should not allow any stationary and transient deviation for
any force imposition on mechanical system. That means
control stiffness should be infinite. On the other hand, the
ideal force control should allow infinite deviation of posi-
tion (or speed) except the case that force error is completely
zero. That means control stiffness should be zero. Any com- Motion
Control
pliant or hybrid motion occupies the midway place between
position and force control. The robust controller should be: -
Power Electronics
insensitive to the external disturbance, and
insensitive to the parameter variation.
In the motion system, the former characteristics are equal
to the very high rejection capability against the disturbance ///////////
/ \ \
effect. As the external disturbance is the load, robust motion
controller should have an infinite control stiffness. As Fig. 8. A generalized model of motion system.
shown later, the input of the robust motion controller should
be the acceleration. To realize a versatile motion system torque is mainly the sum of Coulomb and viscosity torques.
whose control stiffness changes widely, the total motion The motor torque is the product of the torque coefficient
system has the double-cascade structure of the acceleration corresponding with the magnetic flux by the torque current.
reference generator and the acceleration controller as shown The torque current is assumed to be regulated by the
in Fig. 9. The next chapter introduces acceleration controller high-gain current controller and the output current will
at first. Then some direct applications will be shown. completely coincide with its reference

B. Estimation of Disturbance Torque T, = Kt I, = Kt Irf. (22)

by Disturbance Observer
At first, simple one-degree-of-freedom motion is ana- Here
lyzed. The dynamical equation is
Kt : torque constant [“/A]
dw I , : torque current [A]
J- +TI = T,
dt ref : reference value.
where
Combining (22) with (21), the following equation is ob-
tained:
J : inertia about motor shaft [kgm’],
TL : load torque [Nm], dw
T, : motor torque [Nm]. J -d t= K t Z - (Znt + Text + Tfrc). (23)

The load torque is the sum of inertial torque Znt, ex- In (23), the parameters are only the inertia J and the torque
ternal torque Text,and friction torque Tf,,. The inertial coefficient K t . The parameter variation from the nominal
torque derived directly from the Lagrange equation can be value is defined in (24)
classified into inertia torque, Coriolis torque, and gravity
term. The contact task gives external torque, such as rolling J = Jn+AJ
mill drive, pushing task by robot, and so on. The friction Kt = Ktn + AKt. (24)

1258 PROCEEDINGS OF THE IEEE, VOL. 82, NO. 8, AUGUST 1994

 -input
acceleration
reference
generator
-
accel.

ref.
robust motion
controller
__ mechanical
system
oulput

Bcmd 8.f

I I
acceleration
pmi tion(speed), force

Fig. 9. General structure of motion system based on robust control.

-P Tdb

Fig. 10. Calculation of disturbance torque based on acceleration.

It is convenient to represent (24) by torque dimension Fig. 11. Calculation of disturbance torque with LPF.
variables as

. . .changed inertia variation torque, and

AJsw
-AKtIef ...torque ripple due to the space harmonics.
(25)

Using (25), the parameter variation and the load are treated
in the torque dimension. The sum of both is the definition
of the disturbance torque.

Fig. 12. Calculation of disturbance torque based on angular

velocity.

The basic dynamic equation (21) is transformed into (27)

by (24) and (26)

The left side of the equation is the sum of unknown factors,

i.e., the unpredictable load and the unknown parameter
variation, however, the right side of the equation is known
or detectable. Thus the disturbance is calculated as shown
in Fig. 10.
Since Fig. 10 has a pure-differentiation process, it is
modified to be more realizable. Figure 11 is the direct
solution and can be transformed into Fig. 12, where one
low-pass filter (LPF) is inserted. Any LPF is applicable,
however, here a simple first-order LPF is taken up. In that
case, the estimated disturbance is
where g is a cutoff angular frequency of a first-order LPF.
If g is large enough, the estimated disturbance torque is
almost similar to the actual one. Figure 12 is sometimes
called a disturbance observer.
Fig. 13. Feedback of disturbance torque.
C . Feedback of Estimated Disturbance Torque
The disturbance torque is the sum of the load effect and
the parameter variations. It is impossible to decompose
it into each element. However, for the robust control
purposes, it is sufficient to know only the sum of both. Ac-
cordingly, direct feedback of identified disturbance torque
as shown in Fig. 13 will be effective for robust motion.
In fact, Fig. 13 is transformed without any physical or
mathematical change into Fig. 14. Figure 14 means that
the feedback loop of disturbance is just the same as the
feedforward effect of disturbance to cancel it. By attaching
an auxiliary gain element J n / K t n in front of the current
controller, it is clear that the physical meaning of the input
of Fig. 14 is the acceleration as shown in Fig. 15.

OHNISHI el 01.: ESTIMATION, IDENTIFICATION, AND SENSORLESS CONTROL IN MOTION CONTROL SYSTEM 1259
 - 0
B
D -5
-
Y

-10
- -15
0 -20
Fig. 14. Feedforward effect of disturbance torque.
-0‘
I
-25
-30
-40

10’ 1 oz I o3 10‘
o [rad/rccl
Fig. 18. Sensitivity and complementary sensitivity function
!..................................................... :

Fig. 15. Acceleration controller.

.......................................
+w:.................................... !
Fig. 19. MDOF position controller.

p is called the equivalent acceleration error of the distur-

Fig. 16. Feedback of estimated disturbance torque.
~ Gs(s)
....................................................
Fig. 17. Equivalent block diagram of Fig. 16.
In the same manner, the feedback of the estimated
disturbance torque results in Fig. 16, from which Fig. 17
can be derived. As shown in Fig. 17, the effect of the
disturbance torque is represented as a transfer function
G, ( s ) .The sum of an inserted LPF in Fig. 1 1 and C:, (s) is
always unity. G,(s) represents a sensitivity showing how
the disturbance torque influences the motion system and is
called a sensitivity function. On the other hand, an LPF
denoted as G T ( s ) is called a complementary sensitivity
function. A Bode diagram in the case when LPF is a
first-order lag is shown in Fig. 18. The result of Fig. 18
means the followings. As the estimated disturbance does
not include the higher frequency component more than g as
shown in Fig. 11, the feedback of the estimated disturbance
torque cannot compensate for the higher component and the
system is affected in such higher frequency range. Figure
18 shows high-frequency “leak” of the disturbance torque
in the compensated motion system.
The very small acceleration error existing in high-
frequency area is
p = pf- ij
= JLIGs(s)Tdj,.
bance torque.
In the multi-degree-of-freedom (MDOF) system, a simi-
lar result is obtained using kinematic Jacobian matrix Jacb
~41.
9
s t g
+ - 1
-
JnS
w
- -
1 ; s
S
D .Applications to Trajectory Tracking and Force Control
By feedback of the estimated disturbance torque, the mo-
tion system will have high control stiffness and the tracking
ability will be increased. In the predetermined trajectory
tracking problem, usually the tracking reference of several
preceding steps is available. If the position reference more
than two steps ahead is known, the acceleration reference
and the speed reference of its position can be calculated.
The stable position control has at least two pair-poles in
the left-side complex plane. The proportional controller
of position and speed specifies allocation of two poles
according to K1 which is gain of the speed controller
and Kz which is gain of the position controller. The
combination of such feedback and the inverse system is one
of the simple realizations of the robust position system. In
the MDOF applications, that is realized as shown in Fig.
19 whose transfer characteristics from position command
zcmd to position z is
z = zCmd
- (8’ + K l s + Kz)-lJ,,bp. (30)
The equation means that the transfer matrix from zcmdto
z is unity and output has little effect from the disturbance
torque. The second term of the right-hand side of (30)
means that the component of the disturbance is almost
canceled by the feedforward loop of the estimated one and
the rest is suppressed by the feedback effect of the speed
(29) and the position loops.

1260 PROCEEDINGS OF THE IEEE, VOL. 82, NO. 8, AUGUST 1994


Fig. 20. MDOF force controller.
n
a pulsation component by distribution of magnetic flux in
P
J
C 50 Nldiu I system is identified, it is possible to estimate the reaction
output of force senaor
Fig. 21. Correlation between calculated reaction force and sensor
output.
Applications to force control is also possible and a typical
force control is shown in Fig. 20. The stiffness K , and the
viscosity De are modeling the force environment. Thus the
reactive force is a function of the small position deviation.
K1 is a speed feedback gain for the stable force controller.
In general, these two applications are both special cases
of the compliance control of the mechanical system, where
the arbitrary compliance of motion is realized. The outer
loop in Fig. 9 has a function of adjustment of stiffness of
the motion by generating the acceleration reference. The
inner loop where the estimated disturbance torque is fed
back traces the acceleration reference for high robustness.
By cascade connection of these functions, versatile motion
control is possible.
E. Identijication of Dynamics Parameters in MDOF
Motion System and Force Sensorless Motion Control
The dynamics identification has been required for better
control of the MDOF motion system. The dynamics identi-
fication described in this section requires two independent
disturbance observers on the assumption that the effect of
disturbance torque is well suppressed in the motion. The
method itself has two kinds of tests, i.e., a constant velocity
test and an accelerated motion test. In the method, one
disturbance observer is used to realize the robust motion
controller shown in Fig. 9 and the other is used to estimate
the dynamic parameters of motion.
The dynamics of the MDOF mechanical system con-
tains an inertial component, a potential component, and
an extemal force component. Equation (26) gives the sum
OHNISHI et al.: ESTIMATION, IDENTIFICATION, AND SENSORLESS CONTROL IN MOTION CONTROL SYSTEM
m-1 m m+l
k= 0 1 2 ..... K
I 1- 1-
I of
T2 contro$priod I DSP
I I 4 t
:readout period of :
i mition information!
Fig. 22. Timing chart of the instantaneous speed observer (posi-
tion input type).
of the above elements. It is possible to detect the torque
the motor. By subtracting such torque pulsation component
from the output of the disturbance observer, the sum of
the inertial component and the potential component is
calculated. These two components are also derived from
the Lagrange equation. The constant velocity test and
the accelerated motion test in that situation give dynamic
parameters. In general, the constant speed tests estimate
gravity terms and friction and the accelerated motion tests
estimate inertial terms [15].
When the dynamic model of the MDOF mechanical
force of the system. Experimental results of force control
on the direct-drive robot manipulator without force sensor
show that the estimated force is almost similar to the
measured one. Figure 21 shows one example to show the
extent of accuracy of the estimated force in the dynamic
state [15].
v. INSTANTANEOUS SPEED ESTIMATION AND INERTIA
IDENTIFICATION FOR CONTROL OF SERVO MOTOR
WITH LOW-PRECISION POSITION ENCODER
A . Instantaneous Speed Estimation
The development of powerful robust servo systems as
mentioned above realizes a load-insensitive industrial drive
system [17]. The basis of these servo systems is the
disturbance observer developed in the continuous-time do-
main. The peformance of the disturbance observer strongly
depends on the resolution of the position encoder. It is
important to know the performance limit in relation to this
point. In general, in case of a very short sampling time,
resolution of speed is lost due to small increment pulses in
the sampling period. On the contrary, in case of longer
sampling time, resolution will be higher. However, the
total motion system tends to be unstable. The instantaneous
speed observer which is an expansion of the disturbance
observer solves this antinomy, i.e., accuracy is kept higher
even in the very short sampling time (see the timing chart
shown in Fig. 22). In this speed observer called “position
input type,” the counter is read out every TI period. TI is
a fixed period to be several tens of times longer than the
control sampling period T2 so as to maintain enough speed
resolution.
Figure 23 shows the principle of the speed observer. At
the shorter sampling points of TZ (represented by Ic =
0 , 1 , 2 , .. . ,K ) , the total acceleration torque Tmech[mr
IC]
1261
 observer
AI
Td
"ow
USe?
to __I
A@ O.ls/div average speed observer(0th)

Fig. 23. Principle of speed/disturbance estimation. Fig. 24. Experimental result showing stability improvement
(20000 [p/r],1'2 = IO [ms], pole: 2 = 0.3).

(1 < IC < K ) is given by the sum of the motor torque

and the estimated disturbance torque as

By integrating (31), the instantaneous speed at Tz points

can be estimated by
;[m, IC] = ;[m, IC - 11
T2
+ -2(
Frnech[m, k] +JnFtnech[m,
The position is also calculated by integrating (32) and the
position error As can be obtained at the next point: IC = K ,
when reading out the counter.
as = e[m,IC] - O[m].
It is important to evaluate A s in the observer design.
Suppose that ylAB(0 < y1 < 1) is caused by Awo(the error
in the initial value of the estimated speed) and y2hO(O <
7 2 < 1) by aTdo(the error in the estimated disturbance in
the section), namely
Based on (34) and ( 3 3 , the values in the next section of
+
[m 1,IC] are modified as follows before starting the speed
estimation:
The observer poles can be determined by y1 and y2
introduced in (34) and (35)[18].
The main advantage of the speed observer is the im-
provement of system stability by the equivalently reduced
sampling period. Also, the disturbance rejection based on
the feedforward (FF) compensation shown in Fig. 14 is
expected, because the speed observer inherently involves
the high-performance disturbance observer. It should be
noted that the system is one of the exactly discretized forms
of the disturbance observer compensation system at the
continuous time domain.
Figure 24 shows the command responses when TI = 10
[msl. In the conventional system using the average speed
-).
- 11
(32)
Fig. 25. Experimental result showing disturbance rejection per-
formance (20000 [p/r], TI= 1 [msl, pole: z = 0.9).
feedback, the system is almost unstable. In contrast, the
(33) system using the proposed speed observer is operated with
enough stability.
Figure 25 shows the disturbance rejection performance.
The driving-side motor is commanded to maintain the
rotor speed at 0 [rpm]. Rectangular disturbance torque
of f 1.75 [Nm] is applied by the load-side machine.
In the left trace, the disturbance rejection is quite poor.
(34) This is because the disturbance is suppressed only by
the slow effect of the speed control loop. In contrast,
(35) the FF compensation systems can reject the disturbance
effectively. Particularly, in the right trace where the first-
order disturbance model with second-order lag is used, the
most effective disturbance rejection is achieved.
Figure 27 shows the very-low-speed operation using the
"average speed input type speed observer" whose timing
chart is shown in Fig. 26. When the motor speed is under
1 [rpm], the encoder pulses arrive every several tens of
milliseconds. Even in such a case, by applying the proposed
speed observer with the disturbance compensation, a stable
operation is possible. In this case, Ti is about 300 times
T2. The actual speed responses between the encoder pulses
are observed in the figure.
B. Identijication of Inertia Moment
The instantaneous speed observer is relatively sensitive
to the variation of the inertia moment. In this section, the
adaptive identification technique is proposed to estimate
the varying inertia moment in a real-time manner. The
original aim of this study is to reduce the sensitivity of the
instantaneous speed observer to inertia moment variation;
however, it is easily extended to a general requirement of
inertia identification problem.

1262 PROCEEDINGS OF THE IEEE, VOL. 82. NO. 8, AUGUST 1994


encoder pulses
Fig. 26. Timing chart of the instantaneous speed observer (aver-
age speed input type).
50mddiv
current
(0.5Ndiv)
speed reference
(0.51pddiv)
estimated speed
(0.Srpddiv)
encoderpulse
Fig. 27. Very-low-speed operation using the average speed input
type speed observer (5000 [p/r], pole: z = 0.3).
At the sampling points of TI to read the encoder, re-
femng to Fig. 23, the mechanical system’s behavior is
approximately given by
Jlj[m]= Ktni[m]+ Td[m]
and
JG[m- 11 = Ktni[m- 11 + Td[m- 11.
Since the variation in the torque coefficient Kt is included
in the disturbance torque Td, a parameter K,, is used
in these equations. By subtracting (39) from (38), the
following is obtained:
Equation (40) is the basic equation for inertia moment
identification. It is important that ATd[m]can be assumed
random Gaussian, if the disturbance torque is assumed to
be constant in the neighboring sections of TI. By using
the difference between (38) and (39), the effect of the
disturbance is eliminated. Instead, (40) involves much noise
which can be reduced by an appropriate statistical method.
There are different approaches to identify the inertia
moment based on (38) 1191. In these, the effect of Td is
eliminated by using the disturbance observer, but the motor
must be operated under particular conditions.
The simplest way to identify the system parameters is
the least square (LS) method. By summing up the equation
error between the left and right terms of (40), the objective
function to be minimized takes the form of
M characteristics such as disturbance rejection, and adap-
f(J) (JAij[m]- K t n A i [ m ] )4
2 min.
m=l
OHNlSHl er U / . : ESTIMATION, IDENTIFICATION, AND SENSORLESS CONTROL IN MOTION CONTROL SYSTEM
By taking the partial differentiation of f(J) by J , the
estimation equation of the inertia moment is obtained by
M I M
The actual calculation is performed by (43) replacing
the oldest data by the newest data which come into the
rectangular window of (41).
m l m
The first aim of the inertia identification here was the
stabilization of the instantaneous speed observer proposed
in the previous section. The identified inertia moment is
applied to the speed controller in a STR manner as is shown
in Fig. 28.
Figure 29 shows the identification performance when the
inertia moment is changed between the nominal value and
three times of it. The varying inertia moment is estimated
exactly with enough response time.
To be robust against noise, the recursive least square
(RLS) method with the forgetting factor X is usually ap-
plied. If X is constant in the RLS method, after the motor
(38)
speed is kept constant for a certain period, the estimate
would be quite sensitive to the noise effect. To overcome
the problem, the fixed-trace method (FTM) is employed to
change the forgetting factor. This variable, the forgetting
(39) factor, is obtained by fixing the trace of the adaptive gain
matrix “P” in the RLS method. When the acceleration
change is large, X becomes small to forget the past quickly.
The actual estimation equation in a recursive form is given
by
P [O]Aw [m]
Q[m]= Q[m- 11 -
1 +P[O](ALJ[~])~
. (e[m- l]A&[m]
- Ai[m]) (44)
tr ( P [ m ]=
) tr (P[O])= y > 0. (45)
Here
J
e[m]= ~ [m].
Ktn
The forgetting factor decreases to modify the identifying
inertia moment when the motor speed changes quickly.
The systems proposed here implies the following two
points.
Sensor fusion in the lowest level of servo system:
We can obtain high precision by combining a low-
precision sensor and a torque current.
Integration of robust and adaptive techniques: Robust
control is used for very fast improvement of control
(41) tive identification helps the robust control relatively
slowly 1201.
1263
 a
meed conlroller current mnmller
._____________I_____........
adaptive identification
.-- of h e inertia moment
Usage of identified inertia moment.
Fig. 28.
j : 0.00588[kgm2/diu],w: 50.0[rpm/dru]
TdlS: 2.O[Nm/diu],time : 250[ms/diu]
Fig. 29. Identification performance of inertia moment. (Tz = I 0 0
[ p s ] , TI = 5 [ms], pole: z = 0.6, Ai‘ = 50.) (The inertia moment
changes between J , and 3 J , , . )
VI. CONCLUSION
The paper presents the state of the art of motion system
particularly emphasizing both estimation and identification
of parameters and control variables of electric-motor-driven
motion system. The ac motor system for faster and more
precise motion needs a high-performance controller. Brush-
less dc motor widely accepted as a controlled motor needs
some adaptive methods including parameter estimation for
better performance. As one of the results, torque control
without a torque sensor is introduced. It is needless to
say that a more important application is sensorless speed
control of induction motors. Not only two approaches are
introduced but general theoretical limit of sensorless drive
is also clarified. Sensorless control of a brushless motor is
also introduced where the control method differs according
to the excitation of windings.
The motion system has a mechanical load and there is a
physical interface between electrical and mechanical sides.
The robust motion system brings a kind of decoupling of
both and makes the control stiffness of the system ad-
justable. The basic idea and the applications are introduced.
As examples of application, the paper shows estimation
of dynamics parameters of a mechanical system and force
control without a force sensor.
An interesting approach to achieve high performance is
very-low-speed control with a low-precision position sensor
for the servo motor. The approach seems independent of the
1264
robust system, however, is really a direct expansion of the
robust motion system.
As a conclusion, the paper points out that the identifi-
cation of system parameters and the robustness of motion
control should be a coupled pair to attain high performance
both in the electrical and the mechanical improvement.
The base of the electrical improvement is how flux and
current are detected precisely. The base of the mechanical
improvement is how load (more correctly, disturbance
torque) is detected. There are numerous variations of high-
performance controller by combining these two aspects
according to applications.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors wish to thank Prof. B. K. Bose for his helpful
suggestions for the preparation of the paper.
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Kouhei Ohnishi (Member, IEEE) received the
B.E., M.E., and Ph.D. degrees from the Uni-
versity of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, all in electrical
engineenng in 1975, 1977, and 1980, respec-
tively.
He has been with the Department of Elec-
tncal Engineering, Keio University, Yokohama,
Japan, since 1980 and presently is an Associate
Professor. He received the Best Paper Award
from the Institute of Electncal Engineers of
Japan (IEEJ) in 1986 and IECON Paper Awards
in 1986, 1992, and 1993.
Dr. Ohnishi is a member of the IEEJ, the Society of Instrumentation
and Control Engineers (SICE), and the Robotic Society of Japan (RSJ).
OHNISHI er al.: ESTIMATION, IDENTIFICATION. AND SENSORLESS CONTROL IN MOTION CONTROL SYSTEM
Nobuyuki Matsui (Member, IEEE) was born
in Wakayama, Japan, on March 7, 1943. He
received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical
engineering from Nagoya Institute of Technol-
ogy, Nagoya, Japan, in 1966 and 1968, respec-
tively, and the Ph.D. degre from Tokyo Institute
of Technology, Tokyo, Japan, in 1976.
Since 1968, he has been with the Department
of Electrical Engineering, Nagoya Institute of
Technology, where he is currently a Professor
and is engaged in research on computer control
of electrical motors.
Dr. Matsui is a member of IEEJ, the SICE, and the RSJ.
Yoichi Hori (Member, IEEE) was bom in
Ehime, Japan, in 1955. He received the B.S.,
M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering
from the University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, in
1978, 1980, and 1983, respectively.
He joined the University of Tokyo, the
Department of Electrical Engineering, in 1983
as a Research Associate. Since 1988, he has
been an Associate Professor. During 1991-1992
he stayed at the University of California at
Berkeley (UCB) as a Visiting Researcher. His
research fields are control theory and industrial applications; in particular
to motion control, mechatronics, robotics, power electronics and power
system, etc.
Dr. Hori is a member of the IEEJ, the SICE, the RSJ, the Japan Society
of Simulation Technology (JSST), and the Japan Society of Mechanical
Engineers (JSME).
I265