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International Journal of Electrical, Electronics

ISSN No. (Online) : 2277-2626
and Computer Engineering 2(2): 88-94(2013)
Special Edition for Best Papers of Michael Faraday IET India Summit-2013, MFIIS-13

Microcontroller Based Constant Speed Low Cost Energy Efficient BLDC

Motor Drive Using Proteus VSM Software
Alok Mukherjee, Susanta Ray and Arabinda Das
Department of Electrical Engineering, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, (WB) India
(Received 15 October, 2013 Accepted 01 December, 2013)
ABSTRACT: This paper presents a microcontroller based 120-degree six-step control algorithm for designing a low cost
3-phase trapezoidal back-emf permanent magnet BLDC motor drive for its variable torque constant speed applications.
This has been done by controlling the voltage by using simple buck-converter topology. In buck converter, the inbuilt
Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) feature of the PIC16F877A microcontroller has been adopted. The drive design is
incorporated with feature for storing the dissipative energy during freewheeling period. This paper also introduces the
application of Proteus VSM (Virtual System Modeling) software as a real-time simulation tool for modeling the BLDC
motor drive for direct implementation of the compiled program following hardware implementation. Experimental
verification has been carried out to validate the simulated circuit and close loop performance.
Index Terms: BLDC Motor, PWM, PIC16F877A microcontroller, energy recovery, Proteus VSM Software.
BLDC motor in close loop at any desired speed [3]-[7]. The
I. INTRODUCTION
drive scheme has been simulated in Proteus VSM simulation
Brushless Direct Current (BLDC) motor is gaining rapid platform.
The motor drive design has been incorporated with an
popularity due to its ease of control, faster dynamic response
additional
feature of storing the freewheeling energy during
due to its lower inertia, less maintenance and higher efficiency
the
Off
period
of the PWM switching, hence conserving
due to the lesser mechanical loss for the absence of brushenergy
to
some
extent in each cycle which is of primary
commutator arrangement; and finally, high power density
importance
for
an
energy efficient drive. A prototype has been
especially due to the employment of high energy density
fabricated
and
implemented
in laboratory to validate the
permanent magnets used in the rotor and hence higher torque
scheme.
to weight ratio. The only drawback is the most imperative high
cost controller in order to perform electronic commutation [3][7]. Microcontroller based drive systems are nowadays gaining
immense popularity for designing cost effective and robust
controllers due to its integrated peripherals like PWM
generators, Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) etc., thus
counting for lesser requirement of components, increased
reliability, very high speed operation, more adaptability to
modern control technique, much higher accuracy and more
flexibility of design [8], [9]. In order to design the BLDC
drive, Proteus VSM simulation software has been used as the
primary simulation platform [2]. This simulation platform
allows microcontroller programs to be implemented directly to
the simulation block, i.e. the program logic can be built using
any PIC microcontroller program assembler and the hex file
generated after building the logic can be uploaded directly to
the microcontroller model available in Proteus. Run time
modification of any input data is also allowed in this software.
All these demand for lesser product development cost and
time. In this paper, a microcontroller based simple On-Off
voltage control scheme has been implemented to drive the

II. OPERATING PRINCIPLES OF BLDC MOTOR

DRIVE
BLDC motor consists of stator, rotor and position sensor as
shown in fig. 1. Rotation of BLDC motor requires position
feedback of relative rotor position [11]. Mostly used BLDC
motor uses Hall sensors as the position feedback carrying 0V
(low) or +5V (high) signal depending on the rotor position.

Fig. 1. Construction of BLDC motor.

Mukherjee, Ray and Das

The speed-torque characteristic of an ideal BLDC motor is
linear and drooping in nature; hence speed can be controlled
only by controlling the terminal voltage. In buck-converter
topology using PWM voltage control scheme the output
voltage control is done as per the following equation:
Output Voltage (Vo) = Duty Ratio (D) Input Voltage (Vin)
where Vin is constant source voltage of the inverter and duty
ratio is the ratio of (On Time) to (On Time + Off Time) as
shown in fig. 2 [13]. This shows in turn that when Vo is fed to
the input terminal of the motor, the speed becomes directly
proportional to the duty ratio. Hence, speed can be controlled
conveniently and almost linearly only by adjusting the duty
ratio by assigning proper values.

89

Here the digital pulses with a specific pattern from Hall

sensors are fed to the microcontroller. Interrupt on bit change
(of PORTB) is a useful feature of PIC16F877A
microcontroller in designing the motor control algorithm.
PWM channel controls the output voltage by adjusting the
duty ratio through the switching of the main MOSFET QM
depending on the instantaneous speed for close loop control
scheme. The proper commutation sequence (Clock Wise or
Counter Clock Wise) for the respective Hall bit pattern is
stored in look up table form in the controller itself after
carrying out proper experiments. This sequence allows for
proper phase energisation for one directional rotation
performing electronic commutation.
III. CLOSE LOOP CONTROL

Fig. 2. PWM switching pattern.

The speed-torque characteristic of an ideal BLDC motor is

linear [8], [9], [11] and has been shown in fig. 4. For load
torque TL and applied voltage V1, the motor operates with the
open loop operating point C on speed-torque characteristic and
runs with the speed OG. This is the open loop speed for the
motor.

Fig. 3 describes the operation of a BLDC motor drive circuit

implemented in the proposed scheme. Depending on the hall
digital signals, the controller turns on/off the six switches Q1 to
Q6 (usually MOSFET or IGBT) of the three phase full bridge
inverter to energise respective stator phases (2 phases on at a
time for 120 degree commutation scheme employed here) in
proper sequence to perform electronic commutation, thus
produce a rotating field (driving torque).

Fig. 4. Speed-Torque characteristics of an ideal BLDC motor.

Fig. 3. The proposed BLDC motor drive scheme.

Here, Buck converter topology using PWM control technique
has been adopted to obtain the voltage controller segment i.e.,
to obtain a variable dc voltage from the fixed dc source [1],
followed by a three phase full bridge inverter where electronic
commutation i.e. the switching of phases occur in order to
guide current through the required phases [13]. The PWM
switching frequency is kept high in order to reduce the
switching losses, the only limitation being the hardware
constraints. PIC16F877A low cost microcontroller has been
used to incorporate primarily features like PWM, ADC and
interrupt on bit change module [8], [9].

On application of voltage, the motor starts from point A and

reaches point C following the curve AB due to its inherent
characteristics. For a fixed load torque, BLDC motor can be
operated in close loop at any desired speed less than the speed
corresponding to the applied load torque. Suppose the motor is
to be operated with the load torque T L and with the set speed
indicated by OS. Here after starting, when the motor traverses
the curve AB and reaches the point E, the controller judges
that this speed OS is very close to the set speed OS. At this
point TE is still greater than TL. Hence TE must be reduced to
make it equal to TL to achieve the desired speed at that load.
One simple way to reduce TE is to reduce voltage level. This
can be done by designing a controller for reducing voltage
level. For the reduction of voltage from V1 to V2 at point E,
motor traverses the path ED and reaches the desired operating
point D and runs with the set speed maintaining same load
torque.

Mukherjee, Ray and Das

IV. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE BLDC MOTOR
DRIVE IN PROTEUS VSM
Before hardware implementation, it is necessary to simulate
the drive circuit. For the ease of understanding, the developed
scheme has been sectionalized into the following blocks and
presented in fig. 5.

90

V. BASIC ON-OFF CONTROL ALGORITHM

PIC16F877A microcontroller embedded PWM voltage
control scheme has been used here to control the motor input
terminal voltage by simple adjustment of the duty ratio as per
the requirement for close loop control to reach the desired
speed at any load (within rated value). A simplified On-Off
control strategy has been applied to obtain the step response of
speed. The controller simply switches between two voltage
levels DH and DL (fig. 6). These two duty ratios are selected
primarily depending on the instantaneous speed of the motor
and in addition, on the load applied and the motor inertia.

Fig. 5. Block Diagram of close loop control of BLDC motor

drive.
A. BLDC Motor
Proteus contains BLDC motor models out of which BLDCSTAR type of model has been chosen with embedded three
Hall position signals and speed feedback.
B. Controller
The controller is the brain of the drive. PIC16F877A
microcontroller has been used here as the basic control block.
The two most basic duties of the control logic must be:
1) Maintaining the switching sequence of the six PWM
channels to allow proper commutation in synchronism with the
Hall position signals.
2) Adjust the PWM duty ratio to change the output voltage
(as per the control algorithm requirement) from the speed
feedback signal for close speed loop control.
Apart from these tow tasks; the microcontroller also
performs A/D conversion of the analog speed signal generated
by tacho-generator, maximum current limit and fault
protection.
C. MOSFET Driver
It is necessary to apply 12 to 20V at the Gate with respect
to the Source of the MOSFET to turn on the MOSFETs
successfully. Since the microcontroller generates a logic
High signal of +5V and logic Low at 0, MOSFET driver
ICs are employed to pull the +5V level to +12V level and fed
to the gate of the MOSFETs of the inverter. These ICs also
provide electrical isolation of control circuit from power
circuit. Here IC IR2101 has been used to design the motor
drive.

Fig. 6. Flowchart for basic On-Off control scheme.

After the full voltage forced starting, when the motor
accelerates and just crosses the reference speed, the controller
applies a retarding torque by applying a lower input voltage
(by lowering the duty ratio) in order to bring down the speed
towards reference speed and vice versa. Hence the steady state
speed is regulated within a particular speed band (fig. 7).

D. Inverter
IRFZ44n n-channel MOSFETs have been used for
developing three phase full bridge inverter to drive the BLDC
motor directly.
Fig. 7. Predicted step response of speed by the proposed
controller.

Mukherjee, Ray and Das

VI. SCOPE FOR ENERGY RECOVERY
An inspection shows that a considerable amount of energy is
lost during the freewheeling of current in the buck converter
type drive topology developed as discussed, thus dissipating
the stored electrical energy of the inductive circuit of the
motor and the stored kinetic energy during the rotation of the
motor. In order to recover this energy, the drive topology has
been extended with additional features for storing the
freewheeling energy. Fig. 8 describes the BLDC motor drive
scheme for such implementation.

91

For example, for the commutation interval 6 of fig. 9,

MOSFET Q1 and MOSFET Q2 are active. During On Time of
the PWM, current conduction takes place through the path BPQM-Q1-motor-Q2-BP as shown in fig. 10. No current
conduction occurs through the secondary battery source during
this On Time; hence no charging of Bs occurs.
During Off Time of the PWM, QM is switched off, but
MOSFETs Q1 and Q2 are still in On state since this
commutation interval (commutation interval 6 of fig. 9) still
continues.

Fig. 10. Direction of current during On-Time of PWM.

Fig. 8. Drive scheme for storing the freewheeling energy.
Here BP is the primary battery source (may be
developed/charged by the IC engines in case of HEVs) and B S
is the secondary battery source intended to drive the additional
loads. These auxiliary loads can be supplied by BS which is
fully or partially charged during the PWM off period of the
proposed algorithm. The PWM switching pattern employed at
the QM is shown in fig. 2 and the commutation sequence
applied to the inverter MOSFETs [8], [9] is as also shown in
fig. 9. It can be easily understood that any two commutating
MOSFETs, (one from the upper limb and one from the lower)
are active at a time for the 120o commutation pattern (each
MOSFET being active for 120o duration), thus energizing only
two phases at a time.

Since the motor current is partially inductive in nature,

current continues to freewheel in the same direction as before
through the motor phases (here entering through phase A and
leaving phase B) and the freewheeling diode and the secondary
battery (BS), thus charging it.

Fig. 11. Direction of current during Off-Time of PWM:

Freewheeling.
Thus the circuit current gradually falls transferring charge
(energy) from inductive phases of the motor to BS causing
regeneration (fig. 11). This can be used for driving auxiliary
low power lesser priority loads.
VII. SIMULATION RESULTS

Fig. 9. Commutation sequence of the inverter MOSFETs.

The primary source (BP) drives the motor through QM and any
one MOSFET from the upper limb and one from the lower
limb.

The program algorithm was developed in MikroC PRO

compiler and debugger, and embedded directly in the
microcontroller of the motor drive circuit implemented in
Proteus VSM software as shown in fig. 12. Fig. 13 shows the
three phase back emf of the BLDC motor model monitored by
using the inbuilt digital oscilloscope.

Mukherjee, Ray and Das

92

VIII. EXPERIMENTAL VERIFICATION

Experimental verification is very important to validate the
simulation. The driver circuit consists mainly of BLDC motorload assembly, MOSFET driver, three-phase inverter, and the
microcontroller unit. The hardware design is implemented in
consistency with the simulated circuit. Digital Storage
Oscilloscope is used to observe and record speed response,
PWM signals, Hall sensor signals and back emf.
TABLE I SUMMARY OF EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
(HIGHER SPEED REFERENCE AT 1130 RPM)

Fig. 12. Simulated BLDC motor drive in Proteus VSM.

% of Rated
Load

Steady State
Speed (rpm)

Maximum Speed
Ripple (rpm)

Speed
Regulation (%)

100

1120

17

1.52

30

1127

20

1.77

1128

22

1.95

TABLE II. SUMMARY OF EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

(LOWER SPEED REFERENCE AT 785 RPM)
% of Rated
Load

Fig. 13. Three phase back emf for the trapezoidal

BLDC motor.

Steady State
Speed (rpm)

Maximum Speed
Ripple (rpm)

Speed
Regulation (%)

100

778

14

1.79

30

783

23

2.93

784

26

3.31

Table I and Table II show the experimental results

corresponding to different loading conditions at two different
speed levels. Fig. 16 and fig. 17 show respectively the results
of phase back emf and close loop speed response. Fig. 18 is a
merely magnified view of fig. 17.

Fig. 14. Phase current waveform of the three phase BLDC

motor.
Fig. 16. Experimentally obtained back emf waveform
oscillogram.

Fig. 15. Magnified view of phase current waveform (fig. 14).

Fig. 17. Experimentally obtained step response of speed (1130
rpm).

Mukherjee, Ray and Das

Fig. 18. Magnified view of experimentally obtained step

response of speed.
IX. CONCLUSION
In this paper, an attempt has been made for designing a low
cost microcontroller based 3-phase trapezoidal back-emf
permanent magnet BLDC motor drive. The entire drive circuit
has been developed first in simulation and a hardware
realization has been carried later for low-power applications.
Proteus VSM simulation software has been chosen as the basic
design and simulation tool for developing the drive circuit
including the motor model. The introduction of Proteus VSM
simulation software shows its capability and usefulness in
designing virtual model, selection of appropriate ICs and other
equipments and the troubleshooting before actual hardware
circuit construction.
This work investigates the motor drive performance for
120-degree commutation switching technique by an adaptive
On-Off control algorithm for variable load constant speed
applications. The motor model in Proteus has been calibrated
with load to obtain the experimental motor characteristics
followed by the implementation of a close loop control
scheme. The controlling method is a sensored type in which
PIC16F877A microcontroller acts as the main controlling unit.
This low cost microcontroller has been chosen here primarily
to use its inbuilt features like PWM, A/D converter and
interrupts module to built the program logic and design a cost
effective controller [8], [9], [14]. Buck converter type
arrangement has been selected here for easy voltage control of
the output of the inverter [13]. This scheme enables only the
dc-link MOSFET to perform the PWM operation (at a high
switching frequency of the order of 10s of kHz) and the
remaining six MOSFETs of the three phase bridge inverter
performs only phase commutation at a low switching
frequency of the order of 10s of Hz only depending on the
motor speed. Hence this scheme allows switching loss to take
place primarily at one MOSFET instead of six MOSFETs in
schemes where the six MOSFETs are driven directly by 6
PWM channels, thus producing much lesser switching loss
(about 1/6th), thus improving efficiency.

93

Due to the lower switching frequency requirement of the

commutating MOSFETs of the inverter, the six MOSFETs (Q1
to Q6) may also be replaced by Bipolar Junction Transistors
(BJT) in order to improve efficiency further since the current
controlled BJTs account for lesser conduction loss at lower
switching frequency compared to MOSFETs. So, an optimized
scheme may be such that QM is being a MOSFET (to reduce
switching loss at higher switching frequency) and Q1 to Q6 all
being BJTs.
The proposed energy recovery scheme discussed in this
paper yields better utilization of the motor freewheeling
energy. This feature may be included especially in HEVs
where energy conservation is a primary criterion. The
secondary battery source may be utilized for some lesser
important and light loads like the interior lightings, wipers, etc.
This accounts for better efficiency of the drive and higher
utilization of energy.
Thus, the simple control scheme and the drive design can be
implemented for constant speed variable torque applications
and the most flourishing HEV technology with a view to
develop energy efficient drives. Apart from these, the cost
effectiveness of this low cost drive deserves good commercial
appeal for low power application.
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