Robust current control for speed sensorless a PI (or extended) observer has been successfully applied to estimate

DC motor drive using reduced-order the disturbance [4, 5].

By constructing a reduced-order extended observer we estimate the
extended observer disturbance. Consider the nominal system of (5):
      
Young Ik Son, Dae Sik Choi, Seungchul Lim and Kab Il Kim y an bn y b
= + n u (6)
d e 0 0 de 0
A practical disturbance estimation algorithm for DC motor current
control is presented to enhance robustness against parameter uncer- where an and bn are the nominal values of ar and br , respectively. The
tainty and remove the need for a speed (or position) sensor. Analysis equivalent disturbance de is considered to cope with the parameter
using the singular perturbation theory has been performed to verify uncertainties as well as the back-EMF term.
that the additional feedforward compensation with the proposed By using a reduced-order observer for (6) we can reduce the compu-
algorithm can improve the robust transient performance under both tational burden and remove the dependence on parameter uncertainties
parameter uncertainty and slowly varying disturbance. One of the
in (2). It is noted that this approach is different from the classical
advantages of the proposed approach is that the mechanical part of
the motor equation is not necessary for the controller design. reduced-order observer design for estimating vm in (1) and (2).
Performance of the proposed algorithm has been tested through We show that the dynamic feature of the system in Fig. 1 with the esti-
computer simulations and experiments. mation d e is similar to that of the nominal system of Fig. 2 if the gain of
the proposed observer has sufciently large positive value.
Introduction: This Letter deals with the current control of a DC motor
ur bn y
represented by
s + an
dia
va = Ra ia + La + Kb vm (1)
dt Fig. 2 Nominal system (ideal)
d vm
t = Kt i a = J m + Bm vm + TL (2) Since the system (6) is observable w.r.t. the output y, the reduced-
dt order observer can be design to estimate de as follows:
where va is the input voltage; ia is the armature current; Ra and La rep-  
1
resent the armature resistance and inductance, respectively; vm is the d e = l(de d e ) = l (y an y + bn u) d e (7)
bn
rotor angular velocity; Kb is the back-EMF constant; the torque t is
related to ia by the torque constant Kt; Jm and Bm represent the rotor where the observer gain l . 0. Then, we can obtain
inertia and the friction coefcient, respectively; TL is the unknown
load torque. 1
d e = de (8)
If the velocity is available for feedback, we can consider the PI con- s+l
troller combined with a feedforward term for compensating the back- Hence, the estimation d e can be used for a feedforward compensation as
EMF voltage as follows: shown in Fig. 1. To implement the observer (7) without using the
  unmeasurable state y , a new variable j is dened to be
Ki
v a = ur + K b v m , ur = K p s + (ia ia ) (3)
s l l
j = d e + y, or, d e = j y (9)
bn bn
where s is the Laplace variable and ia is the reference input. When Kp
vcLa and Ki vcRa , the closed-loop system (1) (3) is obtained by In terms of the new state variable we can obtain the following equation:
ia (s) vc l
= (4) j = lj + (an y + l)y + lu (10)
ia (s) s + vc bn
where vc is the desired cutoff frequency. If there is no parameter uncertainty, i.e. an ar and bn br , the effect of
Though the control input (3) has a compact form and is easy to de(d ) can be successfully attenuated from (5) by using d e .
implement, it requires the velocity information and exact values of the
system parameters Kb , La and Ra. To remove the need for the speed Robust performance using proposed observer: To investigate the robust
(or position) sensor and to alleviate the performance degradation performance of the proposed observer against parameter uncertainties
owing to the parameter uncertainties, this Letter proposes a simple the system equation is transformed into the standard singular perturba-
rst-order disturbance estimator. Theoretical analysis is performed to tion form [1]. Substituting (5) and u = ur + d e into (7) yields
investigate whether the disturbance estimation can improve the robust
l
transient performance against parameter uncertainties via the singular d e = (ar y br (ur + d e d) an y + bn ur ) (11)
perturbation theory [1]. Whilst advanced control schemes, e.g. H1 bn
approach, are often restricted in practice by their complex congurations Hence, the singular perturbation form is given by
and multiple tuning parameters, the proposed method can be easily
implemented in practical applications, e.g. electric power steering y = ar y + br (ur + d e d)
system [2], due to its low dynamic order and robust property. 1 a b a (12)
d e = r y r (ur + d e d) n y + ur
l bn bn bn
d
ur u

br y
The boundary-layer system is stable when the signs of br and bn are
s + ar equal. Then, the quasi-steady-state solution of (12) satises
+ d
e
ar y + br (ur + d e d) = an y + bn ur (13)
Fig. 1 Feedforward compensation using d e
The above equation enables us to derive the quasi-steady-state system as
follows:
Main results: As shown in Fig. 1, (1) can be represented by
y = an y + bn ur (14)
y = ar y + br (u d) (5)
Since the quasi-steady-state system is the same as the nominal system
where ar 2Ra/La , br 1/La , u va , y ia , and d Kbvm. without the disturbance d and parameter uncertainties, it can be said
To devise a speed sensorless control scheme, the back-EMF (Kbvm) is that the system (5) (10) behaves like the nominal system as l  1.
assumed to be a constant disturbance because the dynamics of (2) is This veries the robust performance of the proposed approach.
slower than that of (1). A similar approach can be found in [3] where
the load torque is supposed to be an unknown constant. By using an Experiments: Performance of the proposed approach has been tested
additional integral of the estimation error to the Luenberger observer, through computer simulations and laboratory experiments. The real

ELECTRONICS LETTERS 30th August 2012 Vol. 48 No. 18

system parameters for the simulations are listed in Table 1. To verify the Conclusions: A practical robust controller using feedforward compen-
robust performance against parameter uncertainties the nominal value of sation based on disturbance estimation has been proposed for a speed
Ra 0.1 has been used for the controller design. sensorless current control of electric motor drives. An analysis on the
robust performance of the proposed controller has been presented by
Table 1: Parameters of DC motor (Maxon RE35) using the singular perturbation theory. The theoretical analysis and
experimental results prove the robust performance against parameter
Ra 1.8 (V) La 0.191 (mH) uncertainty. With the rst-order simple structure and the robustness
Jm 94.44 (g-cm2) Bm 0.00527 (mNm/(rad/s)) property it can be easily implemented in practical applications. As
Kb 0.0252 (V/(rad/s)) Kt 2.0252 (Nm/A) another alternative one can consider the classical reduced-order observer
that estimates vm. However, it can be seen that the performance of the
classical reduced-order observer is directly involved with the unknown
To test the transient response of the system the reference input is a load torque TL and the parameter uncertainties on Jm and Bm.
square wave (+1A). Based on the parameters of Table 1 (except Ra), Moreover, the back-EMF constant Kb should be exactly known for the
the gains of the PI controller have been designed with vc 1000. feedforward compensation term (Kbvm). The proposed approach does
The gain of the observer is chosen as l 10000. Fig. 3 shows the not require information on the back-EMF and the mechanical part of
improved performance of the proposed method compared to the conven- the motor equation. By using a simple disturbance estimator the main
tional PI controller. The proposed method results in signicantly fast rise feature of the proposed approach is that it can cope with parameter
times for both positive and negative step demands. Both results ensure uncertainties as well as the back-EMF compensation.
that the proposed algorithm achieves the control objective preserving
the transient response without steady-state errors. Acknowledgment: This work was supported by the 2nd Brain Korea 21
Project.
2.0
conventional
proposed
1.5 # The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2012
26 April 2012
1.0
doi: 10.1049/el.2012.1380
0.5
One or more of the Figures in this Letter are available in colour online.
A

Young Ik Son, Dae Sik Choi and Kab Il Kim (Department of Electrical
0
Engineering, Myongji University, Yong In, Kyeonggi-do 449-728,
0.5 Republic of Korea)
1.0
E-mail: dearyson@gmail.com
Seungchul Lim (Department of Mechanical Engineering, Myongji
1.5
0 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20 University, Yong In, Kyeonggi-do 449-728, Republic of Korea)
s
a
References
2.0
conventional 1 Khalil, H.K.: Nonlinear systems (Prentice-Hall, 2002, 3rd edn)
proposed
1.5 2 Chen, X., Yang, T., Chen, X., and Zhou, K.: A generic model-based
advanced control of electric power-assisted steering systems, IEEE
1.0 Trans. Control Syst. Technol., 2008, 16, pp. 1289 1300
3 Ko, J.S., Lee, T.-H., Kim, K.-G., and Kim, I.-D.: Precision speed control
0.5
of PMSM for stimulation of the vestibular system using rotatory chair,
A

0
Mechatronics, 2003, 13, pp. 465 475
4 Soffker, S., Yu, T.-J., and Muller, P.C.: State estimation of dynamical
0.5 systems with nonlinearities by using proportional-integral observer,
Int. J. Syst. Sci., 1995, 9, pp. 15711582
1.0 5 Jiang, G.-P., Wang, S.-P., and Song, W.-Z.: Design of observer with
integrators for linear systems with unknown input disturbances,
1.5
0 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20 Electron. Lett., 2000, 36, pp. 1168 1169
s
b

Fig. 3 Performance tests for proposed controller

a Simulation results
b Experimental results

ELECTRONICS LETTERS 30th August 2012 Vol. 48 No. 18