Development of Brushless DC Motor Drive

System for Teaching Purposes Using Various

PWM Control Techniques for speed control

N. Tadrist H.Zeroug
Department of Electrical Engineering Department of Electrical Engineering
University of Science and Technology Houari Boumedien University of Science and Technology Houari Boumedien
Algiers, Algeria Algiers, Algeria

Abstract— In this paper, a test bench was developed for practical aspects, relying on a dedicated DSP. In this paper, we
teaching purposes to enhance power electronics and real time describe a teaching tool that present a major part in the control
control of Brushless DC motor comprehensively particularly with system of brushless dc motor (BDCM) course to enhance its
regard to PWM techniques signal generation and speed control understanding using new generation of programming tools,
theoretically and experimentally using Matlab /Simulink and enable the student to experiment this real time control
environment, assisted with DSP programming kit in practice. from theoretical and experimental aspects. The course is
First a model was developed under Matlab Simulink. The control divided into 2 sessions: Model simulation, description of the
strategies implemented involves two PWM techniques, namely experimental kit and implementation.
soft and hard switching. The system is built in a way that the
students are able to carry out modeling and confirm their results
through the testing bench using these techniques. The approach I. DESCRIPTION OF THE SYSTEM AND MODEL SIMULATION
used has been effective in the way it has led to the student System under study comprises an industrial BDCM
satisfaction. It has shown their learning has been improved with Drive which is fed from a three phase inverter composed of 6
regard to the drive control applications either as a variable speed
transistor switches fed from a DC supply (T1 to T6).
drive or in embedded systems.
The controller circuit is designed to provide adequate signals
according the control strategy considered. The system is
Keywords—DSP, motor control, Brushless DC motor, PWM described in Fig.1. We assume that the BDCM motor is three
techniques, speed control, education in Electrical engineering phase symmetrical and Y connected, where R, L are
resistance, Lm = L-M; with M the mutual inductance of the
Introduction stator windings r. ea, eb, ec : are back EMF of the
There has been tremendous growth in the use of modem corresponding phase winding, and ia, ib, ic are the
digital signal processors (DSP) in control and other corresponding phase current respectively and Va, V b, V c : are
applications in the past few years. While courses offered in the phase voltage of the corresponding phase winding
electrical and computer engineering disciplines cover such respectively, their equations in the three a, b, c armature frame
topics as mobile and digital communications [1,2,3,4,5], few are:
courses focus on the use of DSP in real-time control of
electrical machinery. On the other hand, there is a growing ªVa º ª R 0 0º ªia º ªLm 0 0º ªia º ªea º
«V » = «0 R d « (1)
need in industry for engineers who can perform control design
« b» «
» « »
0» .«ib » + «0 Lm 0»» .««ib »» + ««eb »»
and system integration for various applications in motor dt
control. In this respect, control strategies in term of pulse «¬Vc »¼ «¬0 0 R»¼ «¬ic »¼ «¬0 0 Lm »¼ «¬ic »¼ «¬ec »¼
width modulation generation and their implementation either The mechanical equation is:
from the theoretical and practical point of views are required dω
[6,7]. The course to teach Brushless ac-dc drive control is J. r = Te − TL − f r .ωr
dt (2)
described in various references. The course, DSP based, is
usually presented in term of an experimental kit through which EMF equation is expressed as:
experiments are conducted in open loop and closed loop using e = K ω
regulators, but less emphasis is made in the way control
m (3)
techniques are designed and implemented comprehensively
using the pulse width modulation (PWM) strategies in order to The output inverter voltages are determined for every 60
enhance real time drive control learning from the design and degrees during the conduction and commutation period. The

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 inverter model is derived for the six commutation sectors. The A. SOFT and HARD PWM in open loop
latter are determined using the Matlab blocks. In Hard PWM control mode, all the power switches in both
Bloc diagram of simulink model is presented is in Fig.2. upper and lower parts of the inverter use PWM signals over
The controller is elaborated so that various control strategies the 120° switching interval. The switches control waveforms
can be selected. are shown in Fig.3c according the sequence of the back EMF
and the phase currents (fig.3.a) and Soft PWM scheme is a
non-full-bridge modulation mode where power switches in the
upper arms use PWM mode while the others in lower arms use
constant turn-on mode over 120° interval as it is highlighted
in Fig.3d. .

B. Simulation Results
To enable a comprehensive study, the simulation was
carried out for a load torque of 0.5 N.m applied after 0.2s and
under a DC supply voltage of 45 Volts corresponding to a
speed of 1000rpm. PWM frequency in 20KHz for soft and
hard PWM.
Fig. 1 Basic configuration of the BDCM drive

Decoder phase current Back EMF

Hall
Continuous 10

phas e c urrent [A ]
Gate
PW
MLI 10

B ac k E M F [V ]
Pulse
Generator
t 5 0
Clock
To Workspace
Step 0 -10
g Tm
+ 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3
A A 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3
m Time [S] Time [S]

E lec trom ag netic torque T r[N.m ]

B B speed Electromagnetic torque
-
C C
1000 3
Permanent Magnet
s peed [rpm ]

Synchronous Machine
2
500
Fig. 2 Simulink model of motor drive in open loop control 1

0 0
0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3
Time [S] Time [S]

(a)
Fig4: phase current waveform, back EMF, speed, and electromagnetic torque
for a power supply of 45V in Soft PWM
phase current Back EMF
10
p h a s e c u rre n t [ A ]

(b)
B a c k E M F [V ]

10
5 0
T
T -10
0
(c) T -20
T
e c t ro m a g n e t ic t o rq u e T r[ N . m ]

0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25
Time [S] Time [S]
T speed Electromagnetic torque
T
1000 3
s p e e d [rp m ]

2
500
1
(d)
0
0
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3
Time [S] Time [S]

fig.3: BLDC waveforms: a: back EMF and phase current, b: Hall effect Fig5: phase current waveform, back EMF, speed, and electromagnetic torque
sensor waveforms. c:hard control switches waveform. d:soft control for a power supply of 45V in Hard PWM
switches waveform
C. SOFT and HARD PWM in closed loop control
The speed close-loop control should be used to keep speed
constant when torque load changes. As PI control is the most

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mature technique, PI controller is given as follows:

Electromagnetic torque
phase current Electromagnetic torque
2

phase current [A]

5

(4)

Tr[N.m]
1
0
0
Inverter transfer function
-5 -1
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4
(5) 0 0.1 0.2
Time [S]
0.3 0.4
speed Time [S]

Fig.6 shows the schematic of the closed-loop systems

speed [rpm]
1000

using PI control, where Ȧm(S) is the angular speed, Ȧref is the

500
reference angular speed and V(S) is the control signal, to
maintain the speed when subject to drag torque perturbation as 0
denoted by Tr(S). The objective is to find the right values of kP 0.05 0.1 0.15
Time [S]
0.2 0.25

and kI so that the closed-loop system can meet the control

specifications Fig9: phase current waveform, speed, and electromagnetic torque in Soft
PWM

Fig.6: Block diagram of speed correction with PI control.

PID Ucm PWM

PI Controller
PWM Decoder

Wref
emf _abc Hall

Gates

Fig10 : experimental system

emf _abc Step
Gates
PWM

Tm
g
+
A A

m
B B
30 /pi

-
rad 2rpm
C
C

Permanent Magnet
Synchronous Machine w
N

Fig7. Simulink block diagram for closed loop

phase current
Fig11 : PWM control signals for upper and lower side of the inverter phase and
Electromagnetic torque
Electromagnetic torque
phase current [A]

4 2
Tr[N.m]

2
1
0
-2 0
0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3
Time [S] speed Time [S]
1000
current for the PWM soft
speed [rpm]

800
600
400 Fig12 : PWM control signals for upper and lower side of the inverter phase and current
200 for the PWM HARD
0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3
Time [S]
Fig8: phase current waveform, speed, and electromagnetic torque for in Soft
PWM II. DESCRIPTION OF TESTING BED SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION
AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
The system is composed of an industrial BDCM fed through a
voltage inverter. The power circuit consists of 6 IGBT
transistors (MG50Q2YS40). The circuit driver was built with

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IR2130 circuit which delivers 6 driving signals to the
transistors. A current protection inherent to this circuit was
used. The core of the driving system is the TMS320F2812. An
interface circuit was designed to alleviate any voltage and
current incompatibility between the controller output and
driving circuit. Further, Hall Effect based sensors were built
and used for current and voltage measurements. A tachometric Fig.15 (a) speed control for soft PWM (b) speed control for hard PWM
generator is also coupled to the PMSM generator to have
speed measurement. Fig.10 highlights the parts of the Conclusion
experimental system In this paper, a testing bench for teaching purposes was
A. Digital implementation described and exploited to carry out teaching of some aspects
of power electronics and motor control in real time, in order to
Implementation of an open and closed loop speed control of enhance understanding of the students in this field, particularly
BDCM. The students have to experiment the effects of with regard to real time control of brushless dc Motor. The
modifying PWM scheme, duty cycle, and interpret its effects system was built in way it presents flexibility and versatility
on current, voltage, and motor speed. Speed reference so that two PWM techniques are implemented easily in term
modifications have to show the student that brushless motors of speed variation, under various load conditions through
need rotor position measurement in order not to lose programming. The experimental lab system developed,
combined with the simulation of the drive dynamics under
synchronization. The PWM frequency of 20kHz is selected
Matlab-Simulink environment appears to be a quite effective
through Timer1
teaching aid for the study of this type of drives
B. Experimental results References
Simulation results in open loop control, in this scheme, the
frequency of the PWM was set to 20 kHz. The experiment was [1]. Paul S. Hong, David V. Anderson, Douglas B. Williams, Roel R. Jakson,
performed for an input dc voltage Vdc of 45 Volts. (fig 11 and Thomas P. Barnwell, H.Hayes, Ronald W.Schafer and John D.Echard, ‘ DSP
for Practicing Engineers: A Case Study in Internet Course Delivery’, IEEE
12 ) transactions on Education, 47 (2004), (3), pp. 302-310.
In Fig.13 a and b are experimental results for a speed of [2]. Woon-Seng Gan, ‘Teaching and Learning the Hows and Whys of Real-
1000rpm and maximum current phase of 1.25A. in fig14 Time Digital Signal Processing, IEEE Transactions on Education, 45 (2002),
speed profile is shown on b and a is the experimental speed (4), pp. 336-343.
[3]. Michail D. Galanis, Athanassios Papazacharias and Evangelos Zigouris,
obtained.Fig13. Shows variation of speed reference from 800 ‘A DSP Course For Real Time Systems Design and Implementation Based on
to 1000rpm Fig 15 speed and DC current for load variation The TMS320C6211 DSK’, in Proc 14th Int Conf on Digital Signal Processing,
and speed reference of 1000 rpm For speed 1000rpm 2002. pp. 853-856.
correspond to 40V, gain of current sensor is 2.5A/V
[4]. H.Zeroug, N.Tadrist, B.Boukais and H.Sahraoui, ‘Investigation into
Commutation Torque Ripple Reduction in a BDCM Drive Using Various
Combined PWM-Square-PWM Control’, Proc. on 14Int Conf. on European
Conference on Power Electronics and Applications, 30 August to 1st
September 2011, Birmingham,UK.
[5]. D-H. Lee and J-W. Ahn, ‘A current ripple reduction of a high-speed
miniature brushless direct current motor using instantaneous voltage control’,
IET Electric Power Application Journal, (3)2, (2009), 85-92.
[6]. Jawad Faiz and al, ' Simulation and analysis of brushless DC Motor drives
using hysteresis, ramp control and predictive current control technique',
Journal Simulation Practice and Theory 3, Elsevier Science, (1996), pp. 347-
363.
Fig.13 (a) phase current and speed (b) zoom of phase current and [7]. M. Moallem. A laboratory test bed for embedded computer control, IEEE
Speed Transaction on Education, 47 (2004), (1) 340-347

Fig.14 (a) experimental speed and (b) speed profile

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