Proceedings of the 2009 IEEE

International Conference on Mechatronics and Automation

August 9 - 12, Changchun, China
A MRAS based Speed Identification Scheme for a PM
Synchronous Motor Drive Using the Sliding Mode Technique
Weisheng Yan, Hai Lin, Hong Li, Huiping Li and Jian Lu
Department of Mechanical Engineering and Automatic Control,
College of Marine Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University,
Xi'an 710072, China
Abstract- The paper focuses on a model reference adaptive
system (MRAS) speed identification of permanent magnet
synchronous motor (PMSM) using the sliding mode approach.
The new MRAS algorithm is based on the error between the
outputs of flux linkage-current model and flux linkage-voltage
model. Then, the error is used to estimate rotor speed by
a suitable adaptation mechanism. Moreover, the sliding mode
technique is used to MRAS based control of PMSM, which is
more robust to motor parameter uncertainly, model inaccuracy
and external disturbance. Compared to the conventional MRAS
method, the new method has a much better dynamic, steady
state performance and robustness. Simulation results show the
validity of the proposed method.
Index Terms-Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor
(PMSM), Model Reference Adaptive System, Sliding Mode
Control, Speed Identification
I. INTRODUCTION
Permanent magnet synchronous motors (PMSM) has ap-
plied to the many fields of numerical control machines,
industrial robotics and flying vehicles etc. since its merits of
high power factor, high power density, high torque to current
ratio, large power to weight ratio, and high efficiency etc..
However, its drawbacks still exist in the practical application,
for example, the current cannot be decoupled easily and
the control of the PMSM need the precise signal of the
rotor position and speed. Then, the research to solve these
problems have attract more and more attentions. To decouple
the current of the motor, field oriented control (FOC [1]) was
introduced to control method of the PMSM, which achieve
fast dynamic response and the flexibility normally obtained
in the control of separately excited de motors. In order to
obtain precise signals of the rotor position and speed, many
detection devices were developed in recent years, such as
Hall effect sensor, photoelectric encoder and resolver etc.
However, in some application field, such as pit gear, speed
and position sensors cannot be used. In addition, speed
and position sensors require the additional mounting space
and increase the cost of a motor. Although signals of the
rotor position are easily obtained by the developed detection
*This work is supported National Natural Science Foundation of China
(60875071) and program for New Century Excellent Talents in University
(Ministry of Education of PRC[2005]290)
978-1-4244-2693-5/09/$25.00 2009 IEEE 3656
devices, they also lead to new problems, which effect the
practical application of the PMSM in some fields.
Consequently, for the purpose of obtaining signals of the
rotor position and speed effectively and accurately, several
sensorless control methods for PMSM have been developed
and proposed in the last years. Extended Kalman filters (EKF)
have found wide application in the estimation of rotor posi-
tion and speed in PMSM drives [1]-[2]. The EKF approach
does not require either the knowledge of the mechanical
parameters or the initial rotor position, and is robust to
parameter variations of the motor. Although it has led to
both reduction of computational time and extreme reduction
of sensors, limited to the current and de-link voltage trans-
ducers, complex algorithm of EKF increase implementation
difficulty. More recently, the sliding mode technique for
estimating or controlling nonlinear systems have been inves-
tigated for a long time [3]-[5]. With the proposed a sliding
mode observer, the back EMF components were estimated,
which contain the information of rotor position and much
useless disturbance. Then, the rotor position was extracted
from the back EMF estimation via an extended Kalman
filter. Nevertheless, this estimation method using the sliding
mode with switched controls exists chattering phenomena
and torque perturbations. Specially, it has lower performance
at low speeds. In [6]-[8], estimation algorithms based on
saliency of the rotor structure have developed, which is
effective at zero and at low motor speed. To amplify the effect
of saturation saliency of the stator core, high-frequency stator
voltage pulses were injected to the fundamental voltage.
Then, the rotor position can be obtained by the amplitude
difference of three phase current responses.
Recently, Model Reference Adaptive System (MRAS)
technique has been extensively applied to the control of
electrical machines [9]-[12]. A MRAS using the state ob-
server model with the current error feedback and the magnet
flux model as two models was proposed to estimated the
back-EMF [9]. According the errors between outputs of
two models, the speed is generated by a speed adaptation
mechanism. However, the precision of speed estimation is
heavily depended on the exact parameter of the motor. When
parameter uncertainties is taken into account, this method
may not be applicable because it is based on the electrical
{
OJA
q
+Rl/J/L+Ud (5)
Aq - -RlqlL - roAd +uq
Then, the electromagnetic torque is
Where TL is the load torque, B is the friction coefficient of
the motor, J is the moment of inertia of the motor.
For a uniform airgap surface-mounted PMSM motor, Ld ==
L
q
== L. According to (1) and (2), the state flux linkage of
a uniform airgap surface-mounted PMSM motor can also be
rewritten by
equations with the exact parameters of the motor. In this
paper, a new MRAS with flux-current model and flux-voltage
model is investigated, which is robust to the parameter
variation of the motor using the sliding mode technique. The
simulation demonstrate that the proposed scheme has a good
speed estimation performance and robustness compared with
the traditional MRAS.
II. MOTOR MODEL
The stator voltage equations of a PMSM can be described
in the synchronously rotating reference frame (d-q) by the
following equations [7]:
{
Ud == Rid+pAd- ProAq
(1)
uq == Ri.. +pAq+ProAd
(7)
(9)
(11)
x == f(x) + g(x)u
x==Ax+Bu
_ [Ad] _ [Kl/J +Ud]
x- A ,u- U '
q q
A == [- K ro] B == [1 0]
-ro -K' 0 1 '
. ds ds
s== dXf(x)x+ dXg(x)u
Then, the equivalent control is derived by
where
When the system state trajectories are forced toward the
sliding surface and stay on it, the dynamic performance of the
system satisfy s(x) == 0 and s(x) == O. To describe the sliding
surface, the equivalent control approach is used to make the
the system state trajectories stay on the sliding surface, which
can be obtained by s(x) == O. The dynamic of the sliding
surface is
and K == RIL.
ds _Ids
ueq==-(dxg(x)) dxf(x)x (10)
and the sliding mode dynamics can be obtained by substitut-
ing u
eq
in (7).
B. Design of Sliding Mode MRAS Speed Identifier
The regulating model in (5) can be expressed in a compact
matrix form as
output error of two models and appropriate adaptive control
law for adjusting the unknown parameters of the regulating
model. Considering that the speed is regarded as the unknown
parameter, the reference model employs the equations in (2)
and the regulating model is chosen to be (5).
A. Theory Of Sliding Mode
Sliding-mode control is an effective nonlinear robust con-
trol approaches for its fast system dynamic responses and the
robustness of the parametric uncertainties and disturbance.
The construction of the system is continuously changed by
switching the controlled variable once the system dynamics
are controlled in the sliding mode. The design procedure
of sliding-mode control is first to select a sliding surface
that models the desired closed-loop performance in the state
variable space and then to design the control such that the
system state trajectories are forced toward the sliding surface
and stay on it [1].
For the affine system
where x E IR
n,
f(x), g(x) E IRnxm, u E IRm, the control variable
(u) is varied logically on sliding surface (s(x) == 0) by
u == {u+,S(X) > 0 (8)
u-,s(x) < 0
(2)
(6)
(3)
(4)
T; == 1.5P(l/Jiq- (Ld- Lq)idiq)
The mechanical dynamic equation is given by
Jpro == -Bto +T; - TL
where
{
Ad= '": +l/J
Aq == Lqlq
and Ad, Aq, Ud, uq, id, iq, Ld, Lq are the stator flux linkage,
stator voltages, stator currents, stator inductances in the frame
of dq-axes respectively, co is the rotor speed in angular
frequency, l/J is the magnetic flux linkage, R is the stator
per-phase resistance, P is the number of poles of the motor,
and p is the is the differential operator (p == dIdt).
The electromagnetic torque (T
e
) expressed in terms of rotor
flux linkage and d-q axis current is
t: == 1.5Pl/Jiq
III. SLIDING MODE MRAS BASED SPEED
IDENTIFICATION
MRAS is a traditional method to estimate the rotor speed
and position of the motor for its effective and physically clear
construction. In the theory of MRAS, The reference model
with the constant parameter and the regulating model with the
unknown parameters to be estimated operate simultaneously
and have the uniform outputs. Then, the output of the regu-
lating model follow that of the reference model by using the
3657
where
(20)
(22)
(]o] ::; s)
(]o] > -c)
ro == kosat(a)
coeq == co == (kosat(a) )eq
{
a1
sat (a) == . ( )
sign a
and the equivalent control is given by
Using (2), (12) and (20), a sliding mode MRAS represen-
tation of the system is shown in Fig. 1, which has a robust
performance through combining the reference model and the
regulating model.
If the system state trajectories are forced toward the sliding
surface, a== 0 and a == O. Considering (20), the actual rotor
speed is expressed as
co == kosat(a) + (x
T
x)-l (2Ke
Tpx
- eTPBu), (21)
is satisfied, the positive constant ko exist in all the domain of
sliding surface a. Thus, o! a < 0, V< 0 and the system state
trajectories are forced toward the sliding surface and stay on
it in the finite time.
Theorem 2: The designed speed identification law in (20)
is robust to the parametric uncertainties and disturbance.
Proof 2: Considering that the error existing in the speed
identification system affect the size of the designed sliding
Where i == 1,2, and is a positive constant.
To reject the parametric uncertainties and disturbance
of the system, the speed identification law is designed as
constant switching control defined as
where k
o
ia a positive constant and sat() is the switching
function.
For avoiding the undesirable chatting in the sliding mode
techniques, a improved switching function sat (.) is defined
as
Remark: In practice, the signal of the estimated speed
contain much noise signal, which degrade the speed estima-
tion performance in the system. To obtain the perfect speed
estimation value, the estimated speed signal must be filtered
by the low pass filter.
Theorem 1: With the designed speed identification law in
(20), the estimated speed converge to the actual value quickly
and accurately. The reaching condition (ira < 0) is satisfied
and the control system will be stabilized.
Proof 1: Define the following Lyapunov function
aTa
V== - (23)
2
Using (19) and (20), the derivative of the Lyapunov
function (28) can be derived as
V== aT (cox
T
X- kosat(a)x
T
X- 2KeTpx + eTPBu) (24)
Considering that x
T
x > 0, and the inequality
ko >I co - (x
T
x)-l (2Ke
Tpx
- eTPBu) I (25)
(16)
(15)
(14)
(13)
(18)
(12)
(17) a == M
e==x-x
lime(t) == o.
t----*O
e== Ax-Ax ==
Thus, the general law of MRAS speed identification using
the error between the estimated flux linkage obtained by the
two models is derived by
where
Then, the dynamics of the sliding surface is expressed as
Using (12) and (14), the dynamics of the sliding surface
is given by
where M == eTpx, k
p
and k, are positive constants.
To improve the robustness of the general MRAS speed
identification, the sliding mode technique is introduced to
the system. According to the error dynamic (14), we design
the sliding surface as
According to (11) and (12), the dynamic of the defined
state error in (13) is expressed as
Mo = w- ro,P =
According to the theorem of Popov hyperstability, if the
following condition
1) the forward path transfer matrix H(s) == D(sI - A)-l is
strictly positive real.
2) 11 (O,to) == wdt 2:: -r6, where to 2:: 0, w ==
v == e, and yJ is a finite positive constant, which is
independent of to.
are satisfied, the system of the MRAS speed identification is
asymptotically stable in the large and
X= ,A=
where and are the estimated stator flux linkage in the
frame of dq-axes, and ro is the estimated rotor speed.
The error vector between the state variable (x) and the
estimated state variable (x) is
Then, define the estimation model with the tunable param-
eter as
3658
(28)
Fig. 2. Block diagram of nonlinear control system
Value
3000 rpm
2.875 Q
8.5 mlf
8.5 mll
0.175 Wb
4
0.089 kg m2
0.005 N i m -s
Parameters
Base speed COb
Armature resistance R,
d-axi s inductance Ld
q-axis inductance L
q
Magnet flux linkage t/J
Number of poles I'
Motor inertia J
Friction coefficient B
TABLE I
PMSM MOTOR PARAMETERS
I) The speed command (or") change from 300rpm to
- 300r pm at t=0.7s.
2) The load torque (Td is increased to 5N m at t=0.8s
and decreased to - 5N . m at t=lAs.
3) The motor is started with the nominal stator resistance
(RN), motor inertia (iN) and viscous coefficient (BN).
Then, they are suddenly set to 3RN, 3JN and 3BN at
t=1.0s respectively.
Fig. 3-5 show the responses of the system under the con-
dition of the speed command variation, load torque variation
and motor parameter variation. It is easily seen in Fig. 3
that the estimated speed is closed to the actual value and
the error between the estimated speed and the actual speed
is nearly zero except for a bigger error in the stage of the
motor starting. The current and torque responses have a good
dynamic performance, even if the speed command is abruptly
varied from the positive value to the negative value. In Fig. 4,
the transient speed, the speed error, the phase A current and
the torque responses also have a good dynamic performance
when the load torque change. Especially, the estimated speed
quickly approach to the actual value in case of two suddenly
load variation. The speed error is always kept at zero during
the steady state. Fig. 5 shows that the proposed method works
very well, and all the response (the speed, the speed error, the
phase A current and the torque) appear the perfect robustness
to the parameter (the nominal stator resistance, motor inertia
and viscous coefficient) variation with the proposed speed
identifier. During the parameter variation, the estimated speed
is kept at its actual value of 300rpm with an error of 3%.
surface, such as measure error, load disturbance and motor
parameter variation etc., the dynamics of the sliding surface
is rewritten as
Fig. 1. Sliding mode MRAS representati on for identifying the speed
cY = t.WX
T
X- 2ICe
TPx
+e
TPBu
+ S (26)
where Sdenote the sum of various noise.
Substituting (20) and (26) in (28), the derivative of the
Lyapunov function is
V= crT(wxTx- kosat (cr)x
T
x - 2ICe
TPx
+e
TPBu
+ s) (27)
Then, the inequality is given by
ko >1w-(x
T
x)- 1(2ICe
T
Px - e
T
PBu) + S 1
It is easily known that with the positive constant ko,
V< 0, and the system state trajectories are still forced toward
the sliding surface and stay on it in the finite time. The
designed speed identification system have the robustness to
the parameter variation and external disturbance .
IV. SIMULATION RESULTS
The block diagram of the vector control system for a
PMSM with the proposed scheme shown in Fig. 2. Based
on the traditional magnetic orientation control (FOe [I]),
the based control method with two closed loop (the speed
loop and current loop) is the control of the reference d axis
current equal to zero (id= 0). However, a robust sliding mode
MRAS speed estimator is designed to obtain the rotor speed
and position in the new system. The parameters of a PMSM
used in Fig. 2 is shown in Tab. 1.
The parameter of the news system is chosen as: the speed
PI regulator (K
p
= 6, K, = 24), the d axis current PI regulator
(K
p
= 3, K, = 10), the q axis current PI regulator (K
p
= 12,
K, = 50), and the sliding mode MRAS identifier (ko = 14000,
e = 0.01 and the bandwidth of low pass filter is chosen to be
0.22Hz) . The simulation time of the system with the sampling
period T, = 20J1s is set to 2s. The speed command change
from ato 300rpm at t=Os. The system is started at no load.
Then, the proposed scheme is verified by the test of three
operating conditions defined by
3659
400..-------.-----,..----,..-------,
1.5
Time (sec.)
05 o
Ii

# -:
(tj
, ,
;" :
0
,
50
350
150
'[ 200
300
t 150
e.- 100
1.5
(t)
Time (sec.)
05
o
o
o
o
o
o
0
,/ (t) : : '

of i L------f--------
-100
-400
0
(a) The speed (a) The speed
: i : ; I
: -_00 05 1 1.5 1
ti mers)
: i i ; I
: -_00 05 1 1.5 1
t une rs)
(b) Speed error (b) Speed error
o 05 1
t uners)
1.5

o 05 1 1.5 1
t uners)
(c) Phase A current (c) Phase A current
o 0.5 1
ti me ts)
1.5
':t31T, 1 1.
,
" \..1 ]
-10
0
05 1 1.5 1
n mets)
(d) The torque (d) The torque
Fig. 3. Dynamic response of the proposed system when the reference speed
change
Fig. 4. Dynamic response of the proposed system when the load torque
change
Fig. 6 illustrate the responses of the defined variable (M)
using the conventional adaptation mechanism (16) and the
propose adaptation mechanism (20) under three conditions
mentioned on the above sector. The response of the de-
fined variable (M) describe the performance of the speed
estimation. The response of the defined variable (M) with
the proposed adaptation mechanism is controlled to be a
little range compared with that of the conventional adaptation
mechanism. According to analysis of the simulation results,
we can see that the proposed scheme is super to the traditional
scheme in the estimated accuracy, response speed and the
robustness obviously, which achieve better dynamic and
steady performance.
is derived by the adaptation mechanism using the error of
the estimated flux linkage estimated by the two models. The
proposed algorithm shows perfect dynamic speed response
under the conditions of the speed command variation and
the load torque variation. Especially, it is robust under the
variation of the stator resistance, motor inertia and viscous
coefficient simultaneously. It is shown from the simulation
results that the proposed algorithm demonstrated very good
performance on the estimated accuracy, stabilization and
robustness, which keep the performance of the conventional
MRAS method. To verify the proposed method effectively,
the experimental research will be further proceed in the
future.
V. CONCLUSION
This paper has the investigation of a novel speed identifica-
tion method of a permanent magnet synchronous motor. The
sliding mode technique is used in the general MRAS, which
combined with the reference model and the regulating model
as two models for the flux linkage estimation. The rotor speed
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3660
1.5


! I
! I
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1
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I
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