2018 International Conference on Information, Communication, Engineering and Technology (ICICET)

Zeal College of Engineering and Research, Narhe, Pune, India. Aug 29-31, 2018

Speed Control of BLDC Motor using PI & Fuzzy

Approach: A Comparative Study
Ms. Vaishali Rajendra Walekar Prof. S. V. Murkute
ME (EPS), Student, Department of Electrical Engineering Associate Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering P.E.S
P.E.S College of Engineering Aurangabad Nagesnvana, College of Engineering Aurangabad, Nagesnvana,
Near Panchakki, Aurangabad (MS) – 431002 Near Panchakki, Aurangabad (MS) - 431002
[email protected] [email protected]

Abstract — The Brushless DC (BLDC) motors are becoming technique is found to be an accurate speed estimation technique
more popular due to its furnished quality of electrical as well as for BLDC motor, this method enhances the sensor-less speed
mechanical characteristics. These motors are now replacing the estimation method of BLDC motor [4]. With improvement in
brushed DC motors & induction motors in variety of the technology, the requirement of motor drives for industrial
applications. Various speed control strategies have been applications is increasing day by day, the urge to attend
implemented by different researchers among these various stability in operation, to achieve variable speed and for better
methodologies, the speed control of BLDC motor using PI transient response have made the improvement in the
controller and Fuzzy controller have been studied and technology [5]. The DC motors can be categorized as
implemented in this paper. Most of the industrial applications
traditional DC motors which uses brushes for commutation and
uses conventional PI controller for speed control of BLDC motor
but it gives poor outcome for non-linear condition as well as
BLDC motor which used permanent magnet and electronic
varying condition. Thus, to overcome this cumbersome behaviour commutation circuit [6]. The BLDC motor has many
a Fuzzy Logic controlled approach is used and a comparative advantages over other motor drives and it is preferred for
analysis has been depicted in tabular form. higher performance operations. The abrupt change in speed or
load affects the performance of motor drive. But BLDC motor
Keywords — BLDC motor, Fuzzy Controller, fuzzy rules, PI drive, as it has non-linear behavior requires a controlled input
controller, Permanent Magnet (PM) so as to achieve the better performance. For the same,
modified/improved controller are required [7]. PI controller
I. INTRODUCTION provides easy tuning and thus is preferred in most of the
industrial applications; the error signal generated can help to
The Permanent Magnet motors are generally classified as change the input via closed loop control scheme. Later, the
x Permanent magnet Synchronous motor error is processed so as to reduce speed error and get better
x PM BLDC motors, speed response. PI controller is less effective during dynamic
This classification is done on the basis of shape of wave of condition of load [8].
the emf induced in the motor, the first category is named, if the Additionally, it has certain work condition issue. In
shape of wave (emf) is sinusoidal and later is named as PM comparison with the Fuzzy logic controller, the PI controller
Brushless DC (BLDC) motor if the shape of emf wave is takes countless overshoot that effect the system execution. A
trapezoidal. The torque/motion of the motor is the result of significant issue is related with the regular controllers that are
combination of PM and Electromagnetic field. The stator of broadly utilized as a part of the industrial applications because
BLDC motor contains winding and rotor is made of PM. The of its basic control structure and simplicity of usage. Be that as
brushes are absent and hence the motor incorporates it may, these controllers posture challenges under the states of
commutation electronically i.e. with the help of semiconductor nonlinearity [9].
switches. The rotor position defines the change in current in the
stator winding [1]. As the name infers, the BLDC motor don’t A. Advantages of BLDC motor
have brushes for commutation process to occur rather it uses The BLDC motor drive is used in variety of applications
electronic switches for commutation. The BLDC motors have including, instrumentation, automotive industries, aerospace,
numerous focal points over an induction motor or brushed DC bio-medical appliances and automation etc. besides variety of
motors such as, quit operation, wide range of speed, higher applications, it has several advantages listed below,
efficiency, quick dynamic response, effective speed-torque
characteristics etc. Because of higher torque to weight ratio, the x High reliability
BLDC motor can be used in the operations where weight and x High efficiency
space are basic factors [2]. The cogging torque is one of the
major disadvantages of permanent magnet DC motors. x Wide speed range
Cogging torque leads to cause vibrations and noise in the motor x Admissible dynamic response
and is the result of interaction between stator teeth and magnet x Lower noisy
and can be eliminated by implementing magnet edge insert
technique [3]. Back EMF zero crossing speed measurement x Better speed/torque characteristics

978-1-5386-5510-8/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE 1

x Light in weight et = reference quantity (set) – actual quantity
x Longer life etc. The typical speed controller of BLDC motor drive consist
of,
These advantages over induction motor and brushed DC
motor, differs the implementation of BLDC motor drive for x Current generator (reference)
various selective applications. x Speed controller
II. CLOSED LOOP CONTROL SCHEME OF BLDC MOTOR DRIVE x Pulse Width Modulated current controller.
. x Voltage source inverter (IGBT Current controlled) &
x Position sensor to track the position of rotor.
The working of PI controller is stated in two categories of
modes. The speed control of BLDC motor is done, by
comparing speed of the motor to the reference value, later it is
processed by PI controller and reference torque generated can
be controlled by generating switching commands & setting the
limits.

Fig. 1. Block diagram of speed controlled BLDC drive.

Figure 1 represents the basic block diagram of closed loop

speed control scheme of BLDC motor drive. Generally, LVDT
(Linear Variable Differential Transformer) and Tachogenerator
are used as the position sensors for sensing the position of
rotor. The loop control scheme is divided into three categories
of loops i.e.

x Position loop
x Speed loop
x Current control loop.
The current location/position of rotor is firstly compared
with the reference vale, later; the error in rotor position
obtained is amplified with the help of PD controller. The
current location/position of rotor is firstly compared with the
reference value, later; the error in rotor position obtained is
amplified with the help of PD controller. The output got is later
used as reference value for speed. The PI speed controller Fig. 2. MATLAB simulation model for speed control using PI controller
compiles the values obtained from tachogenerator (speed
reference & speed feedback) and generates the reference
torque. The torque reference generated helps in generating
current reference. With the help of freewheeling diode the
semiconductor switches are operated and speed control can be
done in closed loop scheme by controlling the current loop.
III. PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS
In order to carry out the performance analysis for speed
control of BLDC motor, a MATLAB/Simulink model has been
developed and firstly a PI controller scheme is used as mean to
speed control and later a Fuzzy controlled approach is
implemented and the results obtained are compared.
Fig. 3. Speed response characteristics of BLDC motor drive using PI
A. Performance analysis & results using PI controller controller.
The Proportional Integral (PI) controller works on feedback
mechanism. In any industrial application, PI controller sense At initial stage i.e. when load torque is 0.5 N-m, speed
the error between the measured quantity and desired quantity response is found to be steady and load torque oscillates
and convey the corrective action to continue the process. The between 0 to 1. When load is increased at t = 0.5s, load torque
error signal generated can be given as, disturbances are observed to be risen accordingly. Similarly,

2
the stator current can be observed to be disturbing in nature depicts typical fuzzy controller and Figure 8 represents a
when load torque increases. MATLAB model developed for proposed system. Fuzzy logic
control scheme is very much impressive compared to Boolean
or other logic methods used for control system applications. A
regulating DC voltage link is used to measure the power loss in
Active Power Filter and set reference value of voltage is then
compared with actual capacitor voltage. The error signal
obtained is later processed by Fuzzy logic controller. The
signals chosen by fuzzy controller are based on the error
obtained in dc link. The 7*7 membership function is
considered for input error and rate of change of error shown in
figure 6 & figure 7.

Fig. 4. MATLAB simulation model for speed control using PI controller

B. Performance analysis & results using Fuzzy Logic

controller
Fig. 6. Membership function for input error and change in error
With rising interest of FLC from the most recent couple of
decades, the utilization of fuzzy theory and fuzzy logic in the
control system is becoming more interesting. The working of
FL controller is mainly divided in three sets namely,

x fuzzy fraction
x fuzzy processing and
x defuzzification.

The FLC uses programmable linguistic variables which

sense good results compared to the use of a numeric variable.
The process of converting a numerical set of variables into the Fig. 7. Membership function for output regulation
fuzzy set i.e. programmable linguistic variable is called as
fuzzification [6]. The fuzzy controller mainly works on conversion of
numeric variables into linguistics variables for the same a fuzzy
control rules are developed and with the help of this rule an
input and output variables are converted into linguistics
variables. The control rules for fuzzy controller are shown in
table I.
TABLE I. FUZZY LOGIC CONTROL RULES

Fig. 5. Fuzzy controller

The control method used with an aim to provide gate pulse

to voltage source inverter. Thus a voltage source inverter draws
current containing opposite harmonics.
Later for better results a new technique is proposed which
provides a control strategy using Fuzzy controller. Figure 5

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 TABLE II. SPEED RESPONSE CHARACTERISTICS
QUANTITY PI FUZZY
CONTROLLER CONTROLLER
Rise Time (Rt)(mili seconds) 299.5835 298.2194
Settling Time Ts (Sec) 1.9794 1.2294
Overshoot 3.0116 2.4094

IV. CONCLUSION
In order to achieve better speed control response on BLDC
motor, a fuzzy logic controller has been modeled /designed and
performance analysis is done in this work. The fuzzy logic
controller improves the performance of BLDC motor drive.
The simulation results obtained from the developed model
suggests implementing fuzzy controller. When FL controllers
are used as speed control mean, they can cause a comparative
Fig. 8. MATLAB simulation model for speed control using FL controller reduction in the rise time. Similarly, the settling time decreases
and overshoot can be observed to be risen compared to PI
controller. This comparative study predicts the superiority of
FL controller.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to express deep sense of gratitude to
Dr. A. P. Wadekar, Principal P. E. S College of Engineering
Aurangabad for all the feasibility provided. Authors are also
very much thankful Dr. B. N. Chaudhari, Head & Prof. S. S.
Kamble, PG coordinator, department of Electrical Engineering,
P.E.S College of Engineering, Aurangabad. (MS)
Fig. 9. Speed response characteristics of BLDC motor using Fuzzy controller

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