Implementation of the method of SVPWM and sinusoidal PWM

José Castillo Hernández, Ricardo Damián Zamacona, Sergio Quintana Thierry, Miguel Angel
Bañuelos Saucedo.

Laboratorio de Electrónica CCADET, UNAM

jose.castillo@ccadet.unam.mx

ABSTRACT

The use of sinusoidal PWM is one of the most widely techniques used in the design and
implementation of power inverters and power rectifiers. A particular example of these topologies is
related to the H-bridge for both single phase and three phase systems. In these configurations
PWM is used to produce a sinusoidal signal at the output (single phase). In the case of a three-
phase circuit there are three independent signals that are shifted by 120 °. Another alternative is the
space vector modulation. This modulation takes the inverter as one system and their signals are not
generated individually but collectively. Its implementation in a microprocessor has the disadvantage
of requiring both a sine function and a multiplication operation. Also, the computation time limits the
speed of the total process. This paper shows how to implement both types of modulation solving the
problems mentioned. The proposal was tested on the PIC family of microprocessors 18FXX family.

SINUSOIDAL PWM

There are two parts to controlling the AC induction motor: a) the amplitude of waveform that supply
the induction motor and b) the frequency of this signal. In the case of digital implementation of the
control of power electronics, the waveform creation is accomplished by the modulation strategy.
Pulse width modulation techniques are the standard for the control motor in the industry. It is used
by DC motors and AC motors. The difference in each case is that in the DC motors the duty cycle
is constant when the system are in permanent state of operation and in the AC motors the duty
cycle follow a periodic pattern such as sinusoid wave.

In the control of the AC motor is necessary a constant updating of the duty cycle of the PWM signal
for creating the AC weave form for each phase in the motor. There are different forms to generate a
PWM signal [1]. In the case of analog implementation one method is compared two signals, usually
triangular and sinusoid signal, where the triangular waveform is of more frequency than the sinusoid
waveform (a ten factor) [2]. For digital implementation another method is using FPGA where the
registers are programmed to produce a digital signal with a constant frequency and variable duty
cycle; another technique is using microcontroller or digital signal processor devices where a similar
waveform is produced. The digitals implementations are preferred about the analog strategies
because the advantages that offers as repeatability, stability and noise immunity [3].

Control of the PWM signal for AC motor control requires constant updating of the PWM duty cycle
for creating the AC waveforms of each phase. The method by which the PWMs are updated is
termed the modulation technique. A popular technique is the Sinusoidal PWM

Sinusoidal pulse width modulation is the easiest modulations scheme to understand. The sinusoidal
AC waveforms are created by changing the PWM duty cycles to the shape of a sine wave. In the
fig. 1 is shows this modulation; in this two signal are compared to generated a digital signal with
constant frequency and variable duty cycle.

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Figure 1. Sinusoid PWM Method.

The duty cycle is modulated by the sinusoidal wave form. The PWM duty cycle calculations are
based on a point in the sine wave. At full modulation, which is at the maximum voltage, 100 percent
duty cycle corresponds to the positive peak of the sine wave, and 0 percent duty cycle is equivalent
to the negative peak. The zero crossover point is represented by 50 percent duty cycle as can
observe in fig. 1. In the case of three phases the signals for the sinusoidal modulation are
expressed as:

(1)

where m is the demodulation index with a continuous range [0, 1] (0 for zero voltage and 1 for full
voltage). These signals correspond with the duty cycle of the top device in each half bridge. Of
course in the practice, the PWM at the phase winding will be slightly different because at deadtime.

SPACE VECTOR MODULATION

Another technique is the SVM [3], [4]. This technique is quite different from the PWM methods. In
the PWM, the inverter created each phase waveform independently. In contrast SVM threats the
inverter as a single unit. In the SVM method the inverter can be driven to eight unique states as
shown in the fig 2. Modulation is accomplished by switching the state of the inverter.

State ABC
V0 000
V1 100
V2 110
V3 010
V4 011
V5 001
V6 101
V7 111

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Figure 2. Table of space vector an it’s relation with a three phase bridge.

If these state are mapped a two coordinate axis (d-q axis), they created a state map, as illustrated
in the fig. 3. Each state creates a voltage vector. There are two vector in particular, V0 y V7, they
result in zero voltage across the phase winding and are considered null o zero vectors. Modulation
is accomplished by rotating a reference vector around the state diagram. A circle can be drawn
inside the state map to represent this and correspond to sinusoidal operation; thus, the resulting
voltages across the motor windings are sinusoidal.

Figure 3. Space vector modulation state map

The direction that rotates the motor is determinate by the direction that rotated the reference vector.
The frequency of the AC waveform motor depends of the rate at which the reference vector rotated.
The radius of the circle inside the state diagram, defined the amplitude of the waveform.

Any instance of the reference vector can be created by combination of the two adjacent vectors and
a null vector. The state time-modulating of the three vectors are shown in the fig. 4.

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Figure 4. Space vector modulation state switching.

A shown in the fig. 4, the reference vector is expressed by the state time of each adjacent vector,
that is:

(2)

The state times that the vectors are present to accomplished the modulation are defined by

(3)

(4)

(5)

where T= time period, m=modulation index and ∆θ = angle between Vref and Vn. The space vector
generated signal that can be seen has PWM patterns [3], [5]. In the fig. 4 is shown the PWM
patterns obtained of the space vector modulation method. In the figure there are four vector
associates: V0, V1, V2 and V7; is important to mention that the vectors V0 y V7 are nulls vector and
can be interchange in the modulation to obtained different variant of SVM [3], . The variant shown in
the figure is named Null = V7, V0.

In particular we are interesting in another variant: Alternating-reversing method. The waveforms

generated by this are shown in the fig. 5 where each signal corresponds to one of the three phases.
If you compared these with the generated by the Sinusoidal PWM you can observed that the signal
are very different; but if take the voltage between phase in each case for both methods, the same
waveform line-to-line voltage is obtained; that is, the waveforms line-to-line voltage are sinusoid.

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Figure 5. Complete 360 degrees sequence with the SVM implemented.

IMPLEMENTATION METHODS

For the two method mentioned above, we observe that both depend of the sine wave, the frequency
and the amplitude (modulation index m). In one case is necessary, in principle, three sines and in
other case only one. In microprocessor implementation the use of trigonometrically functions limit
the performance of the application because is necessary more time for computing the process.
Other problem is the PWM function because this sometimes is necessary programming and
obviously take time of the process. The different arithmetic operations are others elements that
consuming time.

Resolve the previous limits, facility the implementation of each method. In the case of the PWM
signals generation, exists different microprocessor and DSP in the market. In particular the
PIC18F4431 is a good selection [6]. This circuits offer a module of PWM with 8 channels that can
be programming in complementary mode or independent mode. The module is autonomous and
programmed in hardware. The refresh of the signal period is automatic and can be change during
the program running; the same occurs with duty cycle. The PIC18F4431 count with deadtime,
interrupt to analog to digital converter, timer interrupt, etc. The circuit can be programming with
assembler or using any C compiler that we considered the best form of programming the device.

In the control of motor is usually necessary to change the frequency of the signal. For example in
the start operation of the motor, sometimes is necessary an acceleration ramp. In this, an algorithm
of Volt-Frequency is used to limit the current in the motor [7]. To reduce the process time that
required any trigonometric function in a microcontroller, is possible before, calculate any points (or
sample) of the function covering one period and use this data in the memory of the microcontroller
on one table. Is possible only use half cycle of the function, because is symmetric. If we observe the
equations (1), we note that a free variable is the frequency. The objective of the data table is
generate a function with different frequency; see the fig. 6. In the graph, the functions use some
points of the table. Observe that the points of each signal occur in fixed periods

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Figure 6. Two sine waveforms generated by a table of data.

The frequency of the sine wave is determinate by the update rate (sample period) and the number
of the sample point in a cycle (the points are take of the table). The relationship is given by

(6)

For example, a system which has a 250µs sample rate and 64 sample would produce an output
frequency equal to 1/(250 µs·64)=62.5 Hz. To vary the frequency, either the number of sample must
change or the time between updates must change. Since the update rate is normally determinate by
the PWM period and therefore is kept constant, generally, the number of sample is changed. That is
by skipping table points one can achieve a high frequency output at expense of fewer sample. The
index of data are affect by an increment value as:

(7)

And the output frequency can also calculate as shown by (8).

(8)

For example if the increment is 1, all samples are used and the signal has the lower frequency. But
if the increment were doubled, only the half of the data is uses and the frequency is double of the
original. The last is showed in the fig. 6.

The amplitude of the signal is affect by the PWM duty cycle. With the modulation index m is
possible to change the value of the PWM duty cycle has shown by the equation (1). A modulation
index of one (m=1) is equal to full amplitude and the PWM duty cycle swing from 0 to 100 percent.
Half-voltage is achieved with m=5 and the duty cycle swing from 25 to 75 percent. The zero
crossover remains at 50 percent duty cycle. This means that the duty cycles are always centered
about 50 percent. In the modulation index implementation, m can be treat as a register of 8 bits, for
example; where an value of 255 correspond to m=1, an value of 128 to m=0.5 and 0 to m=0. The
values of VA, VB y VC in the equation (1) correspond to the duty cycle. These values affect duty

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cycle registers of the microcontroller. A similar strategy can be employ in the SVM. Finally the duty
cycle of the signal depend of the equation (2) to (5). In both case only one data table is necessary.
We shown the result obtained in both case.

RESULTS

In the fig. 7 is shown the sine PWM implementation. The circuit was probed with a mono-phase
motor. In the oscilloscope is shown voltage and current phase; the voltage shown the PWM pattern.
An acceleration ramp was used for the figure 8, where the current in the motor is observed. The
microprocessor was programmed with and algorithm V/F for the start. The fig. 9 showed the current
of the motor in steady state.

Figure 7. Implementation of the sine PWM in the PIC18F4431. The circuit was probed with a mono-
phase motor.

Figure 8. Current in the motor during the start operation.

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Figure 9. Current in the motor during the steady state operation.

The SVM method was programmed too in the system of the fig.7 and it is test with a three phase
induction motor. Fig. 10 shows the pattern of a phase voltage of the induction motor, when it is filter
(upper) to verify the modulation type. In the lower is shows the PWM pattern. The current of one
phase is shows in the fig. 11.

Figure 10. The SVM pulses output and the same signal filtered with a passive low pass network.

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Figure 11. Current phase (top) and SVM voltage (bottom) at 60 Hz in the phase A of the motor

REFERENCE

[1] M. A. Boost, Phoivos D. Ziogas. “State-of-the-Art Carrier PWM Techniques: A Critical

Evaluation”. IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, Vol. 24, No. 2, March/April 1988, pp 271-
280.

[2] Ned Mohan, Tore M. Undeland, William P. Robbins: “Power Electronics, Converts, Applications
and Desing”, Jhon Wiley & Sons. Inc. 2003.

[3] Richard Valentine. Motor Control Electronics Handbook. (Ed. McGraw Hill, New York), 1998.

[4] Muhammad H. Rashid. “Power Electronics: Circuits, Devices, and Applications” Third Edition,
Ed. Prentice Hall

[5] Sidney R. Bowes and Yen-Shin Lai, “The Relationship Between Space-Vector Modulation and
Regular-Sampled PWM”. IEEE transactions on industrial electronics, vol. 44, no. 5, October 1997.

[6] P. Yedamale, AN843, “Speed Control of 3-Phase Induction Motor Using PIC18 Microcontrollers”
DS00843). Microchip Technology Inc., 2002.

[7] Rakesh Parekh,AN955, VF Control of 3-Phase Induction Motor Using Space Vector Modulation.
Microchip Technology Inc., 2005

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