A Low Torque Ripple PMSM Drive for EPS Applications

Guang Liu, Alex Kurnia, Ronan De Larminat, Phil Desmond and Tony O’Gorman
Automotive Communications & Electronics Systems Group
Motorola Inc.
21440 West Lake Cook Road, Deer Park, IL 60010, USA

Abstract - This paper describes the practical design
considerations of a low torque ripple Permanent
Magnet Synchronous Motor (PMSM) drive for
Electric Power Steering (EPS) application. The
impact of various controller elements on torque
ripple performance is discussed in detail. The
experimental results show that the low cost dc-link
current sensing scheme used in the design can
achieve excellent and consistent torque ripple
performance ( less than 2% peak-to-peak at 1 N.m. ),
and is well suited for EPS application.
driver of the vehicle moves the steering wheel, a torque
sensor in the steering mechanism sends a torque signal
to the EPS controller. The DSP inside the EPS
controller receives the torque input and sends it to a
torque command algorithm. The torque command
algorithm processes the torque input, along with other
inputs, such as vehicle speed, motor speed, and
generates a torque command to the PMSM drive
subsystem. The PMSM drive controls the PMSM motor
to generate an output torque that tracks the desired
torque demand.

1. Introduction This paper presents some practical design

Electric Power Steering (EPS) is a relatively new
technology in the Automotive Industry. Compared to
traditional Hydraulic Power Steering, EPS reduces fuel
consumption, simplifies assembly process and provides
some intelligent steering features.
considerations and trade-offs for the PMSM drive
system for EPS application. Section 2 describes design
considerations. Section 3 presents some experimental
results. Section 4 is the conclusion.
2. PMSM Drive Design Considerations

A Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor (PMSM) drive The following aspects of the system design are
system is the core of an EPS system. Consumer described in this section: PMSM drive architecture,
requirements that the steering system have a smooth feel current measurement scheme, rotor position sensing
means that the motor and controller must yield a low scheme, Space Vector Modulation scheme and software
torque ripple. High torque ripple causes rough steering functional blocks and timing.
feel and also may excite mechanical resonance resulting
in acoustic noise. Depending on specific system, a peak-
to-peak torque ripple of less than 2% to 5% is typically
required. This paper describes the factors that affect
torque ripple and some practical design considerations to
achieve low torque ripple cost effectively. Some design
considerations for other EPS requirements, such as fast
and robust dynamic response and wide operating speed
Rsense
range, are also discussed in this paper.
MC56F
8345
Based on the EPS requirements and available
technology, a Motorola DSP controller (MC56F8345) A1
was selected as the processing engine of the PMSM
motor drive. The DSP controller is designed for motor
control applications and is equipped with all the
peripherals that are necessary for different types of
motor drives. These peripherals aid in the design of low
cost systems by facilitating motor current measurement
through dc-link current sampling. Figure 1: System Block Diagram of the PMSM Drive

The PMSM drive in an EPS system can be considered as A) PMSM Drive Architecture
a torque amplifying and tracking system. When the Figure 1 is the system block diagram of the PMSM
drive. The inverter power stage consists of 6 low Rds(on)

0-7803-8269-2/04/$17.00 (C) 2004 IEEE 1130

power MOSFETs. The power stage is driven by a gate
drive which level-shifts the 6 PWM signals from the
DSP. A low inductance sense resistor with Kelvin
connections is used to measure dc link current.

An op-amp A1 is connected as a differential amplifier

across the resistor Kelvin connections. The bandwidth of
the amplifier at the necessary gain should be about
1MHz to avoid distortion of the dc link current signal.
The reference voltage for the ADC is 3.3V and the input
of the op-amp is biased to 1.65V. Consequently, at zero I_b I_dc_link,
I_c
dc link current, the output of the differential amplifier I_a represents –I_a
at this point
should be near 1.65V.

B) Current Measurement Scheme

Current measurement accuracy has a major impact on
torque ripple performance. Closed loop Hall-effect
current sensors can provide accurate motor phase current Figure 2 (a) Simulated dc link and phase currents: I_a,
measurements [1] but the sensor cost is too high for EPS I_b and I_c are the simulatied phase currents, I_dc_link
application. A lower cost method is to measure the is the simulated dc link current.
motor phase current through 3 resistors at the bottom of
each leg of the 3-phase inverter, requiring 3 sets of sense
resistor, amplifier and filter. More importantly, it is
difficult to maintain the same current measurement gain Represents i_c
at this point.
for the three phases as a result of variations among sense
resistors and op-amp parameter variations. This accuracy
variation can result in torque ripple.

In the PMSM drive described in this paper, the motor v_a

current is measured through sampling of the dc link
current with a single sense resistor and op-amp.
Consequently, the problem of uneven measurement gain
for different phases is eliminated. Furthermore, this
method is the lowest cost of all the methods reported in
the literature. The dc link current sensing method was
first reported by T.C. Green [2] in 1989. Since then,
numerous publications have documented progress on the
dc link current sense method [3, 4]. Although the theory
of dc link current sensing is well understood, the
implementation plays a major role in the accuracy and
robustness of the present solution. With the advent of
modern DSP controllers, this need for robustness and
accuracy can be achieved cost effectively in an
electrically noisy automotive environment.
Figure 2(a) shows the PSPICE simulation of the dc link
current waveform and motor phase current waveforms.
From the waveforms in Figure 2(a), it can be seen that if
the dc link current waveform is sampled at the right
instant, phase A and C current can be obtained from dc
link current. Figure 2(b) shows the oscilloscope plot of
the dc link current signal at differential op-amp output
(V_i_dc_link), motor phase A current (i_a) and phase A
voltage (v_a). It is seen that there are spikes on the dc
link current signal but with the precise timing function
of the DSP, we can sample the dc link current signal
when the undesired transient has decayed to zero.
V_i_dc_link,
Represents
i_a – i_a at this point.
Figure 2 (b): Measured dc link current signal (ch1,
13.3A/div), Phase A current (ch4, 20A/div.) and Phase
A voltage (ch3, 2.5V/div.)
During the product development process,
Matlab/Simulink has been used to study the impact of
dc link current sampling error on the torque ripple
signature. The simulation helps to identify the effect of
specific current measurement errors on torque ripple
harmonic components, including specific errors of the
dc-link current sense mechanism. Figure 3 shows the
Simulink model of the dc-link current sensing
subsystem.
In Figure 3, the current sense outputs are selected by the
sector number generated by Space Vector Modulation
(SVM) software function. In each of the 6 sectors, two
of the three phase currents are simulated accurately in
addition to a sector dependent error. The third phase
current is derived by using the relation that the sum of
the three phase currents equals zero. A quantization

1131
block is used to simulate the limited resolution of the
A/D converter.

Vb
(1)
(3)
Figure 4(b): Measured torque ripple before sampling
(5)
error is corrected. Channel M2 is torque ripple (0.02
Va
(4) (2) N.m./div), average torque is about 0.45 N.m. Ch4 is ia at
(6)
5A/div.
Vc

Figure 3: Motor current measurement model

Figure 4(a) shows the simulation result of a 0.15A

measurement error on all sectors. The motor peak
current is about 10A. As can be seen, the torque has a
distinctive character of 3 pulses per electrical period, or
3-per-period torque ripple. Figure 4(b) is the measured
torque ripple before the measurement error was
corrected. The measured torque ripple signature matches
that of the simulation. Modification to the current
sensing channel was made to reduce the measurement
error. Figure4(c) is the measured torque ripple after the
measurement error is corrected. One can see the 3-per-
period torque ripple is completely eliminated.
Figure 4(c): Measured torque ripple after the sampling
error is corrected. Channel M2 is torque ripple (0.02
Current sense error = 0.15 (A)

0.465
N.m./div), average torque is about 0.45 N.m. Ch4 is ia at
0.46 5A/div.
T orque (N.m .)

0.455

0.45 C) Position Sensing Scheme

0.445 There are many motor position sensors available in the
0.44
market. Some of them are very accurate but expensive
0.435
while others are lower cost but less accurate. For a cost
0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4
Time (Sec.) effective PSMS drive, the position sensor should have
sufficient accuracy to satisfy torque ripple requirements
15
and must not be overly expensive. Matlab/Simulink can
10
be used to simulate the impact of position measurement
M otor c urrent (A )

5
error on torque ripple performance. The position sensor
0
error can be approximated as a periodical function of
-5
the motor mechanical angle as shown in the following
-10
equation:
-15
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4

θ es = K A ⋅ cos(θ m )
Time (Sec.)
… Eq. (1)
Figure 4(a): Simulation result with 0.15A dc link
sampling error. Top trace: torque (N.m.); Bottom trace: Where, θes is the motor electrical angle with the
ia (A) measurement error, KA is the amplitude of the
measurement error, and θm is the true mechanical angle.

1132

The actual measurement error depends on the specific
sensor type used in the system. The reason to choose
periodical error in the simulation is that it represents the
worst case error pattern in terms of torque ripple.
The quantization error due to limited resolution is
simulated with a quantization block in Simulink.
During simulation, the amplitude of the error KA is
varied in 0.5 degree steps in the simulation model. The
torque ripple for each error amplitude is recorded. The
simulations are conducted for low motor speed and high
motor speed (in deep flux weakening region). The
results are shown in Figure 5(a) and 5(b).
Torque ripple at 4.1 N.m. average (low speed)
0.016
0.014
Torque rippe (N.m.)
0.012
0.01
0.008
0.006
0.004
0.002
0 The display is obtained with PC Master, a software
0 1 2 3
Position error (elec. degrees)
Figure 5 (a): Simulated torque ripple at 1 Hz, 4.1 N.m.
average.
Torque ripple at 1.0 N.m. average (high speed)
1.2
Torque rippe (N.m.)
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0 1 2 3
Position error (elec. degrees)
Figure 5 (b): Simulated torque ripple at 160Hz, 1.0 N.m.
average.
Figure 5 (a) shows the position measurement error
contribution to motor torque ripple at low speed. The
torque ripple with a position error of 4 degrees is only
0.015 N.m., with an average output torque of 4 N.m., or
0.38% of the average motor torque. It is clear that at low
speed, the position measurement error has very little
impact on torque ripple. However, if we look at Figure 5
(b), the position error contribution to torque ripple at
high speed, the torque ripple is 1.1 N.m. when the
position error is 4 degrees. The average motor torque in
this case is 1.0 N.m. The peak to peak torque ripple is
therefore 110% of the average torque. Depending on the
system moment of inertia, this torque ripple may or may
not be acceptable. In our PMSM drive design, we
included interfaces for both high accuracy sensors, such
as resolvers [7] and low accuracy sensors [8] so that
different system requirement can be covered. It should
be noted that the position errors given in the horizontal
axes of Figure 5 (a) and (b) can be due to many
different factors, such as resolution of the sensor,
tolerance of the sensor and effective error due to
transport delay.
D) Space Vector Modulation (SVM) Scheme
Many SVM schemes have been reported in the literature
[9]. Although Minimum Loss SVM and Bus Clamping
SVM are good for reducing loss, it is difficult to use
these methods for measuring motor current through dc
link current when the output voltage vector is very
small. In an EPS motor controller, it is very important to
maintain current control near zero torque command. As
a result, a center aligned (or double edge) SVM scheme
is used. With this method, the inverter outputs a
maximum line to line voltage equal to the dc bus
Torque ripple
voltage. Figure 6 is the display of the DSP internal
(N.m.) variables for PWM command and motor position angle.
4 5 development tool provided by Motorola.
Torque ripple
(N.m.)
4 5
Figure 6: DSP variables plot by PC Master - Top trace -
phase A PWM command; Bottom trace – motor
position angle. Motor rotates in forward direction.
E) Software Functional Blocks and Timing
Figure 7 is the Simulink block diagram for the PMSM
control system. The DSP software is implemented with
the same functional blocks as shown in Figure 7. The
motor control system has two loops: one is the D and Q
axes current control loop updated every 300us, and the
other is the flux control loop updated every 1.2ms.
Because of the current loops, non-linearity of the
inverter stage is compensated and has little effect on
torque ripple. The current loops also compensate the
parameter drift of the motor and inverter. The complete
motor control algorithm takes about 15 MIPS with
majority of the code written in “C” language, which is
1133
one quarter of the total DSP processing power available.
The remainder of the DSP MIPS is reserved for other
EPS controller functions, such as torque command
algorithm, CAN communication, system diagnosis and
computational integrity checks. The program memory
used is about 45 kilobytes, including motor control,
diagnosis, computational integrity check functions, fault
management and system operating state machine.
torque ripple at above 1 N.m. average is about 1.5%
peak-to-peak, which is well within the EPS application
requirement (usually 2% to 5%). This torque ripple
performance is insensitive to the mismatch of the
inverter MOSFET switching characteristics, therefore
can be maintained at high volume production.

Figure 9: Torque ripple at 1.05 N.m. average is 0.015

N.m., or 1.5% (channel M2 at 0.02 N.m./div.), channel
4 is motor current at 10A/div.
Figure 7: Simulink Diagram Represents Software
Functional Blocks

The flux control loop generates the D and Q axes current

reference based on torque command and motor speed.
When the motor speed is below the base speed, D axis
current reference is set to zero. When the speed is above
base speed, a current advance angle is obtained from a
look up table. Based on the advance angle, a negative D
axis current reference will be generated for flux
weakening operation.

3. Experimental Results

The DSP based PMSM drive system has been built and Figure 10: Torque ripple at 0.12 N.m. average is 0.012
experimental results are presented in this section. N.m. (channel M2 at 0.02 N.m./div.), channel 4 is motor
current at 2A/div.

Figure 8: Torque ripple at 2.39 N.m. average is 0.034

N.m., or 1.4% (channel M2 at 0.02 N.m./div.), channel 4
is motor current at 20A/div. Figure 11: Motor current when steering wheel is
Figure 8 through 10 show the torque ripple suddenly stopped. Current is limited to 100A (ch3,
measurement at various average torque levels. The 50A/div.)

1134
 Figure 13 (a) shows the motor torque and speed
measurement. The motor base speed is about 90 Hz. It
can be seen that the motor speed operates above 90Hz
with reduced torque. From Figure 13 (b) it can be seen
that at flux weakening region, the motor output power is
close to constant.

4. Conclusion

A low torque ripple PMSM drive system for EPS

Figure 12: D axis current step response (1.8ms rise
time), no overshoot (50A/div.)
Figure 11 shows the motor current and torque sensor
signals. With the 300us current loop, the motor current is
controlled with a pre-set limit. In transient condition,
such as sudden stop of the motor (end of rack travel), the
motor current is still under control. Fast current control
is important in preventing unwanted shutdown due to
transient over current. Figure 12 shows the Q-axis
current step response. The rise time is about 1.8ms and
there is no overshoot.
Torque vs. Frequency
6 website www.LEM.com.
5 [2] T.C. Green and B.W. Williams, “Derivation of
Torque (N.m.)
application has been presented in this paper. With the
modern DSP controller and careful design of motor
current and position sensing schemes, excellent torque
ripple performance can be achieved without using
expensive current sensors. Current measurement
accuracy has the highest impact on torque ripple
performance. The single sense resistor sampling method
used in this design is accurate enough to obtain low
torque ripple for volume production. Some other design
considerations, such as SVM scheme selection, control
software functional blocks, loop timing and MIPS
requirement, etc are also presented. Fast and robust
dynamic response and flux weakening operation are
demonstrated. The experimental results prove that the
PMSM drive presented in this paper is very suitable for
EPS controllers.
References
[1] LEM Group, “Current Transducer LT 100-S/SP30”,
motor line-current waveforms from the dc-link current

4
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the DC-Link of Three-Phase PWM-VS Inverters: A
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Figure 13 (a): Measured motor torque-speed curve Volume: 2 , pp. 1192 -1202, 6-10 Oct. 1996.
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400 [5] Ion Boldea and S. A. Nasar, “Electric Drives”,
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1135
[8] Allegro MicroSystems, Inc. , “Ring Magnet Speed
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