Electric Power Systems Research 122 (2015) 218223

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Electric Power Systems Research

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/epsr

An asymptotic differentiation approach of signals in velocity tracking

control of DC motors
F. Beltran-Carbajal a , A. Valderrabano-Gonzalez b, , J.C. Rosas-Caro b , A. Favela-Contreras c
a
b
c

Universidad Autnoma Metropolitana, Unidad Azcapotzalco, Departamento de Energa, C.P. 02200 Mexico, D.F., Mexico
Universidad Panamericana Campus Guadalajara, Prol. Calzada Circunvalacin Pte. No. 49, Col. Ciudad Granja, Zapopan, Jalisco 45010, Mexico
Department of Mechatronics and Automation, ITESM Campus Monterrey, C.P. 64849 Monterrey, N.L., Mexico

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 4 October 2014
Received in revised form 8 January 2015
Accepted 14 January 2015
Available online 5 February 2015
Keywords:
DC electric motor control
Output feedback tracking control
Differentiation of signals
Disturbance rejection
Lorenz system
Chaotic signals

a b s t r a c t
An output feedback dynamic control scheme is proposed for efcient velocity trajectory tracking tasks for
direct current (DC) electric motors. An asymptotic differentiation approach of signals is also introduced
and applied for real-time angular acceleration estimation. The novel feature of this differentiator of signals
is that it does not require any system mathematical model. Hence the presented differentiation approach
admits a wide variety of practical applications in diverse electric power systems that require signal differentiation for their control and identication. The synthesis of the differentiation scheme considers the
possible practical scenario of contaminated output signals with reasonably small noise. Some computer
simulations results are included to show controller robustness to reject completely unknown chaotic load
torque disturbances and parametric uncertainty, as well as effectiveness of the differentiation scheme of
signals.
2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Control of electric machines is a quite active research subject
because these electric actuators are employed in many practical
engineering systems, such as water pumping systems, electric vehicles, robots and tool machines. Furthermore, these devices are the
main supply of electric energy consumption in industrial plants.
Some control schemes for DC electric motors have been reported
in the literature (see, e.g., [1,2] and references therein). However,
velocity trajectory tracking controllers for motors based on efcient motion planning could demand measurements of several
state variables, increasing control implementation costs. Moreover,
additive noise in measurements and control inputs as well as ineludible exogenous and endogenous disturbances affecting practical
engineering systems are some challenging issues that should be
taken into account in the synthesis of control schemes. Commonly,
energy-efcient control drives for electric motors face load torque
perturbations due to unmodeled dynamics of equipment connected
to them. Hence the efcient and robust control of electric motors
using a minimum number of sensors is a challenging, relevant and

Corresponding author. Tel.: +52 3313682200.

E-mail addresses: fbeltran@azc.uam.mx (F. Beltran-Carbajal),
avalder@up.edu.mx (A. Valderrabano-Gonzalez), crosas@up.edu.mx
(J.C. Rosas-Caro), antonio.favela@itesm.mx (A. Favela-Contreras).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.epsr.2015.01.013
0378-7796/ 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

pertinent research topic and its solutions admit a wide variety of

real applications in the development of engineering products and
systems.
On the other hand, recent pioneering contributions dealing with
active disturbance rejection control (ADRC) have been introduced
in [3,4]. In the ADRC approach unknown dynamics and disturbances are estimated and compensated by the controller in real
time. The central idea is to avoid dependence on detailed mathematical models of the system and external disturbances for the
synthesis of robust feedback and feedforward controllers (see also
[57]). Similarity, in [8] this open problem has been also addressed
from a model-free control perspective and introducing recently the
algebraic design methodology of intelligent Proportional-IntegralDerivative controllers (iPIDs), where an unknown mathematical
model is replaced by an ultra-local model.
This paper introduces a novel output feedback dynamic control scheme for efcient velocity trajectory tracking tasks for DC
electric motors. The structural property of differential atness is
used in the synthesis of the proposed velocity control scheme [9].
Our design approach exploits the central idea of the ADRC but
without the real-time disturbance estimation. Disturbances in DC
motors could include time-varying load torque, parametric uncertainties, unmodeled dynamics and high frequency noises. Integral
compensation of the tracking error is used to improve the robustness property of the control law with respect to a large class of
disturbances. In [10], an error compensator has also been handled

F. Beltran-Carbajal et al. / Electric Power Systems Research 122 (2015) 218223

219

inductance and resistance of the armature circuit, respectively. ke

is the back electromotive force constant, km is the motor torque
constant, n is the speed reduction ratio of the gearhead, J0 and
J1 are inertia moments of the rotors of the motor and gearhead,
respectively. b0 and b1 are viscous damping coefcients of the
motor and gearhead, respectively. The mathematical model of this
system is described by

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of a DC permanent magnet motor with gearhead.

in active tracking control for uncertain multiple-inputmultipleoutput vibrating systems using integral reconstruction of the
velocity signals, leading to outstanding performance in reasonably noisy operation environment. Since the controller requires
information of the angular acceleration, an asymptotic real-time
differentiation approach of signals is also proposed for this equally
challenging and complex problem. The synthesis of the proposed
differentiation scheme considers the possible practical scenario of
output signals contaminated with reasonably small external noise.
In the present study, noise is considered as fast external uctuations
around zero (see [8,11] and references therein) contaminating the
actual output signal of a system. Thus a low pass lter constituted by
a pure integration chain of certain nite length is proposed to get an
extended mathematical model of the signal to improve the signalto-noise ratio. Therefore, some knowledge about probabilistic and
statistical properties of the corrupting noises is avoided.
The novel feature of this differentiator of signals is that it does
not require any system mathematical model. Hence the presented
differentiation approach admits a wide variety of applications in
diverse practical engineering systems that require differentiation
of signals for their control and identication. In this regard, there
are many efcient control applications that require some error
signal derivative action for their implementation and synthesis.
For instance, a fuzzy Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) smooth
output power controller has been proposed for variable speed wind
farms using doubly fed induction generators in [12]. An adaptive fuzzy-PID DCDC boost converter controller has been used for
voltage regulation in photovoltaic systems [13]. Control of electric machines could invoke some time derivative of the error signal
[1,2]. Numerical differentiation has been applied in the synthesis
of a novel single phase angle tracking method for power switches
gating synchronization [14]. In [15], an algebraic derivative method
of the line current signal is proposed to detect the presence of
series arcs in an AC or DC electrical installation. Other application
examples demanding signal differentiation can also be found in
controlled electromagnetic suspension systems [16], active vibration absorbers [17] and balancing of rotating machinery [18].
Some computer simulation results are included to show efcient performance of the control scheme and effectiveness of the
differentiation approach of signals proposed in this work. A challenging simulation case study was purposely selected to evaluate
the dynamic performance of the proposed control and differentiation approaches. Robustness is considered with respect to noisy
time-varying load torque disturbances generated by an uncertain
chaotic nonlinear dynamical system of Lorenz [19], parametric
uncertainty, and additive noise in measurements of the output variable and control voltage, showing satisfactory results. Hence our
contribution represents a very good novel alternative solution to
the problem of robust and efcient velocity tracking control based
on asymptotic signal differentiation, differential atness and integral tracking error compensation of DC electric motors.
2. Mathematical model
Consider the schematic diagram of a DC permanent magnet
motor with gearhead shown in Fig. 1. Here L and R represent

d
i = Ri ke n1 + u
dt
(1)

(J1 + n2 J0 ) 1 = (b1 + n2 b0 )1 + nkm i L

y = 1

where y = 1 is the angular velocity of the output shaft of the

gearhead, i is the electric current, u is the control voltage applied
to the input terminals of the armature circuit, and  L denotes the
bounded load torque.
The electromechanical system (1) is differentially at, with at
output given by the angular velocity of the output shaft of the gearhead, y = 1 . Therefore all the state variables and the control input
can be expressed in terms of the at output and a nite number of
its time derivatives [9]. For this, the time derivatives up to second
order for y are obtained as
y = 1
y =
y =

beq
nkm
1
1 +
i
L
Jeq
Jeq
Jeq
beq
nkm R
1
i
Jeq
Jeq L

(2)

n2 ke km
Jeq L

1 +

nkm
1
u
 L
Jeq L
Jeq

where Jeq and beq denote the total inertia moment and the
equivalent rotational viscous damping coefcient of the system,
respectively, both reected to output shaft of the gearhead, given
by
Jeq = J1 + n2 J0 ,

beq = b1 + n2 b0

(3)

Therefore the differential parameterization results in

1 = y
i=
u=

Jeq
beq
1
y +
y+
L
nkm
nkm
nkm
LJ eq
nkm

y +

b

eq L + RJ eq

nkm


y +

n2 ke km + Rbeq
nkm

(4)


y+

L
R
L
 L +
nkm
nkm

The at output y then satises the following perturbed

inputoutput differential equation:
y + a1 y + a0 y = bu

R
1
 L
L
Jeq L
Jeq

(5)

with
a0 =

n2 km ke + Rbeq
,
Jeq L

a1 =

beq
R
+ ,
L
Jeq

b=

nkm
Jeq L

(6)

3. Output feedback velocity tracking control

Firstly, consider the transformed perturbed inputoutput system (5) written in the form:
y + a1 y + a0 y = bu + 

(7)

where  is considered as a time-varying torque disturbance signal

dened by
=

R
1
 L
L
Jeq L
Jeq

(8)

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F. Beltran-Carbajal et al. / Electric Power Systems Research 122 (2015) 218223

Fig. 3. Estimation of the acceleration signal using asymptotic differentiation.

Fig. 2. Closed-loop trajectory tracking response.

Hence, one can obtain the following output feedback controller

based on differential atness for asymptotic tracking tasks of some
desired reference velocity trajectory y* (t):
u=

(9)

v = y 1 (y y ) 0 (y y )
The use of this controller yields the closed loop dynamics for the
velocity tracking error, e = y y* ,
e + 1 e + 0 e = 0

(10)

Nevertheless, controller (9) demands measurements of the load

torque and its rst time derivative which could be a drawback in
practical control engineering applications.
In this work, we assume that the disturbance signal (t) can be
locally approximated by a family of Taylor polynomials of third
degree as (see [2] and references therein)
3


pi t i

(11)

i=0

(v + a0 y + a1 y)
b

v = y 5 (y y ) 4 (y y )

 n1

(t)

are

integrals

of

the

form

0
(n )dn d1 . Hence, the control scheme (12)
0 0
leads to the tracking error dynamics
(13)

which is independent of the constants pi of the Taylor expansion

of the disturbance signal . Thus, the design gains i should be
adjusted sufciently far from the imaginary axis in the left half of
the complex plane, faster than the load torque disturbance signal .
Since the control scheme (12) requires information of the angular
acceleration signal, in the next section an approach to differentiate
a signal with respect to time is proposed.
4. An asymptotic approach for differentiation of signals
In the synthesis of a real-time signal differentiation scheme with
respect to time, it is assumed that the output signal y can be locally
approximated by a family of Taylor polynomials of (r 1)th degree
as
y(t)

r1


qi t i

(14)

i=0

where all the coefcients pi are completely unknown. Note that,

this polynomial approximation avoids using an exact actual system
model to get an estimate of the disturbance signal . Moreover,
time-varying parametric uncertainties could be considered in the
disturbance signal  and rejected directly by integral control action.
Therefore, we propose the following output feedback velocity
tracking control scheme using additional integral compensation to
reject completely unknown load torque perturbations:
u=

 t  1

e(6) + 5 e(5) + 4 e(4) + 3 e(3) + 2 e + 1 e + 0 e = 0

1
(v + a0 y + a1 y )
b

(t)

 (n)

where


3

k

k=0

(12)

(4k)

where all the coefcients qi are completely unknown. In addition,

we have assumed that y and its time derivatives up to r-th order
are uniformly absolutely bounded, i.e.,
y(k)  = sup |y(k) (t)| = k <

(15)

t[0,)

where k are possibly unknown positive constants, k = 1, . . ., r.

Indeed, in [8,20] it has been proved that a real-valued analytic
time function can be approximated by its n-th order truncated Taylor expansion in a small time interval, being the residual terms
negligible if t 0 or n . Certainly, this assumption has already
been taken advantage of in many real engineering systems to
numerically differentiate a signal in real time when noise is negligible.

F. Beltran-Carbajal et al. / Electric Power Systems Research 122 (2015) 218223

Fig. 4. Closed-loop control voltage, electric current and chaotic disturbance load
torque.

Fig. 5. Velocity, control voltage and load torque signals contaminated with noise.

Now, consider the scenario when the output signal y is possibly

contaminated with small additive noise . Hence the noisy output
variable y can be locally reconstructed by the perturbed dynamical
system

y f,n = y1

y(r) = f

y r = f

(16)

where f represents an unknown bounded perturbation signal

including the inuence of high frequency noise  and small residual
terms of the truncated Taylor polynomial expansion (11). Thus, let
G(s) denote the transfer function of a low pass lter; we then have
that
Yf (s) = G(s)Y (s)

(17)

where yf is the low pass ltered output signal in time domain.

In this study, additive noise is considered a high frequency time
function around zero contaminating the output signal. Therefore,
this external disturbance signal  can be attenuated
by successive

integrations with respect to time. Moreover,  goes to 0 when its
frequency [8]. We have therefore chosen a pure integration
chain of nite length n for G(s), avoiding also the knowledge about
probabilistic and statistical properties of the corrupting noises. We
then obtain the extended mathematical model:

221

y f,j = yf,j+1 ,

y k = yk+1 ,

j = 1, 2, . . ., n 1

k = 1, 2, . . ., r 1

(18)

(n1)

. . ., yr = y(r1) , yf,1 = yf , yf,2 = yf , . . ., yf,n = yf

where y1 = y, y2 = y,
.
Hence, from (18) we propose the following state observer for
asymptotic estimation of the rst time derivative of the output
signal y:

y f,j = yf,j+1 + r+nj (yf,1 yf,1 ), j = 1, 2, . . ., n 1

y f,n = y1 + r (yf,1 yf,1 )
y k =

yk+1 + rk (yf,1 yf,1 ), k = 1, 2, . . ., r 1

y r =

0 (yf,1 
yf,1 )

(19)

which only uses information of the ltered output signal yf = yf,1 .

Here, we use the notation  for the estimated signals.

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F. Beltran-Carbajal et al. / Electric Power Systems Research 122 (2015) 218223

Fig. 6. Tracking and differentiation under noise and parametric uncertainty.

Table 1
Parameters of the DC motor with planetary gearhead.

Then, the estimation error dynamics is governed by

e f,1

r+n1 ef,1 + ef,2

e f,2

r+n2 ef,1 + ef,3

R = 2.5
L = 0.612 H
km = 82.2 mN m/A

..
.
e f,n1

r+1 ef,1 + ef,n

e f,n

r ef,1 + e1

e 1

r1 ef,1 + e2

e 2

r2 ef,1 + e3

5. Simulation results

(20)

..
.
e r1

1 ef,1 + er

e r

0 ef,1 + f

where ei = yi 
yi , i = 1, 2, . . ., r, ef,k = yf,k 
yf,k , k = 1, 2, . . ., n.
The characteristic polynomial of the observation error dynamics
is then given by

Some computer simulations were performed to verify the

robustness of the velocity tracking controller (12) using the differentiator of signals (19) for a DC motor with planetary gearhead
characterized by the set of parameters described in Table 1.
The performance of the proposed output feedback controller
was assessed to efciently transfer the DC motor from the rest state
to the desired operation velocity of 1 rad/s in approximately 2 s. The
controller was also tested when the DC motor is subjected to completely unknown chaotic load torque disturbances generated by an
uncertain Lorenz system described by

1 = a(
2
1 )

2 = b
1
1
3
2

3 =
1
2 c
3

(22)

L = 0.3
1 + 5

PO (s) = sr+n + r+n1 sr+n1 + + r+1 sr+1 + r sr

+ r1 sr1 + + 1 s + 0

ke = 82.3215 mV/rad/s
Je = 2.4 kg m2
n = 81

(21)

which is completely independent of any coefcients qi of the Taylor

polynomial expansion of the output signal y. This means that, the
high-gain observer continuously self-updates. Therefore, as time
goes on, the output signal y is locally approximated in the form of a
(r 1)-th degree time polynomial. Thus, the design parameters, j ,
i = 0, 1, 2, . . . , r + n 1, are selected so that the characteristic polynomial (21) be a Hurwitz polynomial, i.e., all its roots are located in
the open left half complex plane. Therefore, the observation error
is bounded for any f bounded [4].

with a = 10, b = 30, c = 1, and initial conditions

1 (0) = 10,

2 (0) = 10,
3 (0) = 20.
Fig. 2 depicts the efcient performance of the controller (12)
using the estimate of the acceleration signal provided by the
implementation of the differentiator of signals (19). The estimated
y was gradually injected in the controller to
acceleration signal 
evade the possible peak of the estimation error at the beginning of
the high-gain observer implementation. The satisfactory tracking
of the reference velocity trajectory can be distinctly observed.
The reasonable estimation of the acceleration signal is presented
in Fig. 3. One can see that the estimated and actual responses

F. Beltran-Carbajal et al. / Electric Power Systems Research 122 (2015) 218223

are practically above each other. Therefore, the proposed Taylor

polynomial family allows to locally reconstruct the unavailable
acceleration signal.
Fig. 4 depicts the chaotic disturbance load torque applied to the
DC motor generated by the chaotic system of Lorenz (22). Here, the
closed-loop signals of the electric current and control voltage are
also described.
The design parameters of the controller were selected to have
the sixth order characteristic polynomial for the closed-loop tracking error dynamics:
Pc (s) = (s2 + 2c c s + c2 )

(23)

with c = 200 rad/s and  c = 10.

The output signal y was modeled as a third order time polynomial. Therefore, the characteristic polynomial for the sixth order
resulting observation error dynamics using a low pass lter of rst
order was set to be of the form
po (s) = (s2 + 2o o s + o2 )

(24)

with o = 1000 rad/s and  o = 0.7071.

Furthermore, the efcient performance of the controller (12)
and differentiation scheme of signals (19) have been assessed for
the scenario when the measurement velocity signal, control voltage input, and chaotic load torque disturbance are all contaminated
with white noise of zero mean and standard deviations: 0.01, 0.5
and 1, respectively (see Fig. 5). Moreover, we have also simultaneously considered endogenous disturbances due to parametric
uncertainty in this robustness assessment. Thus, coefcients a0
and a1 were set to be zero in the controller implementation. Fig. 6
describes the robust performance of the controller using noisy signal differentiation under those additional perturbing conditions.
The adequate tracking of the reference trajectory is clearly notorious. One can also see the acceptable estimation of the acceleration
signal. Here, we have collocated a second order low pass lter of
the form:
yf =

2
nf
2
s2 + 2f nf s + nf

yinput

(25)

with nf = 100 rad/s and  f = 0.7071. Thus, yf denotes the low pass
ltered output signal.
6. Conclusions
In this paper, an asymptotic differentiation approach of signals
has been proposed and applied for efcient velocity tracking control tasks for DC electric motors. The main feature of the proposed
differentiation approach is that a mathematical model describing
the system dynamics is not required. Therefore the real-time signal
differentiation algorithm can be easily implemented to other applications of practical engineering systems where time derivatives
of some available signals are requested. Taylor polynomial expansion was used to locally reconstruct the output signal and some
of its time derivatives. Signal differentiation can also be applied
to estimate time-varying disturbances and consequently in active
disturbance rejection control. Small contamination of the output
signal with white noise was considered in the synthesis of the
differentiation scheme as well. A low pass lter constituted by a
pure integration chain of certain nite length was integrated in

223

the extended mathematical model of the signal to improve the

signal-to-noise ratio. A novel output feedback velocity tracking
controller based on differential atness was also introduced to
actively reject load torque disturbances and parametric uncertainty
using velocity measurements only. Integral compensation of the
tracking error was used in the controller to enhance its robustness
property against exogenous and endogenous perturbations. The
robust performance of the differentiator and controller was veried for noisy time-varying load torque disturbances generated by
an uncertain chaotic nonlinear dynamical system of Lorenz, including additive noise in measurements and control voltage, showing
satisfactory results. Therefore, our contribution represents a very
good novel simple alternative choice for reference velocity tracking
control tasks planned for DC motors. Further studies consist of the
experimental real-time implementation of the control scheme and
differentiation approach to conrm their effectiveness and robustness. Subsequent studies will also deal with the application of the
signal differentiation to the problems of control and estimation of
parameters and signals in diverse electric power systems.
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