Engineering Science and Technology, an International Journal 20 (2017) 1439–1449

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Engineering Science and Technology,

an International Journal
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jestch

Full Length Article

An improved algorithm for direct computation of optimal voltage and

frequency for induction motors
M.P. Sruthi, C. Nagamani, G. Saravana Ilango ⇑
National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu 620015 India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Owing to the constant v/f operation of induction motors which are commonly employed in conveyor belt
Received 19 May 2017 drives, the core and copper losses are generally high. The load cycles of the drives are mostly limited to
Revised 17 October 2017 light and medium load conditions with full speed range. Hence any effort to minimize the losses can
Accepted 20 November 2017
bring significant savings in energy and therefore in running costs. In this paper a unique loss minimiza-
Available online 27 November 2017
tion algorithm is proposed for an Induction Motor Drive (IMD) whereby the input voltage and frequency
of the motor are optimized to minimize the total losses. The proposed algorithm is based on the steady
Keywords:
state model of induction machine. Hence the analysis and the applications are restricted to steady state
Loss minimization control
Optimal slip
operating conditions. A comprehensive analysis of the drive performance under different operating con-
Scalar control ditions and a Loss Minimization Control (LMC) algorithm for the determination of the optimal input volt-
Low power operation age and frequency are presented. Further, a comparison of steady state performance of the proposed LMC
and that with the Field Oriented Control (FOC) is carried out. Results of MATLAB simulations and labora-
tory tests on the drive under study reveal that the drive efficiency is increased, especially at light load
condition.
Ó 2017 Karabuk University. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC
BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction stator v/f ratio. Rated flux operation of induction motor irrespec-
tive of load and speed also contributes to significant power loss
Conveyor belt drives employing multiple motors play an impor- in the drive.
tant role in bulk material transportation in industrial applications, A number of techniques have been suggested for efficiency opti-
power plants etc. Induction motors of megawatt rating with high mization through flux regulation of induction motors at light loads.
slip characteristics are commonly used for driving the conveyor They are broadly categorized into Search Controller (SC) and Loss
belts. The drive needs to run continuously with all the motors irre- Model Controller techniques. Search Control [1–7] methods con-
spective of the load conditions. A major challenge in induction tinuously measure the input power to the motor, by varying the
motor drives is to make it energy efficient. The copper loss and core flux level in small steps until the input power is minimum for
loss constitute the primary losses in an induction motor. While the the given operating speed and load. The advantage of SC is that it
copper losses vary with load, core losses are predominant at light does not require speed and torque estimation. A fast converging
loads due to the rated flux operation. The high slip characteristics SC using golden section technique combining indirect FOC [2] is
and long hours of low power operation of conveyor motors lead to proposed to eliminate the torque pulsations by incorporating a
low efficiencies. Most commonly used speed control methods of low pass filter. Another study [3] put forward two efficiency opti-
IMs are v/f scalar control, vector control and direct torque control. mization controls for vector controlled IMD - one is a ramp search
The scalar v/f speed control method is dominantly used in most of method and the other is a hybrid method combining benefits of
the industrial applications where the flux is kept constant for both SC & model control. A scalar controlled loss minimization
speeds below the base speed, as the stator flux is a function of scheme with stator current as controlled variable for SC is
discussed in [4]. The paper [8] discusses an algorithm for speed
estimation by spectral power search for wound rotor induction
⇑ Corresponding author at: Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, motor by monitoring supply frequency. A speed sensor-less vector
National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli 620 015, India. controlled flux optimizing scheme, incorporating iron losses and
E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected] (M.P. Sruthi), magnetic saturation is proposed in [9]. Loss Model based control
[email protected] (C. Nagamani), [email protected] (G. Saravana Ilango). method utilizes the model of the system losses to compute the
Peer review under responsibility of Karabuk University.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jestch.2017.11.007
2215-0986/Ó 2017 Karabuk University. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
1440 M.P. Sruthi et al. / Engineering Science and Technology, an International Journal 20 (2017) 1439–1449

Nomenclature

is ; ir stator and rotor currents per phase, A s slip, p.u.

Lls ; Llr stator and rotor winding inductances per phase, H xr angular speed (electrical) of rotor, rad/s
Lm magnetizing branch inductance per phase, H xs angular speed (electrical) of stator supply, rad/s
Pm motor mechanical power output, Watt J moment of inertia, kg.m2
Pem electromagnetic power developed, Watt Fm total motional resistances in top run/return run in a
RS s;Rr per phase resistance of stator and rotor windings, ohm steady state operation, N
Rm equivalent iron loss resistance per phase, ohm v belt speed (m/s)
Vs stator voltage per phase, V

optimum flux for a given load and speed. The main advantage of 2. System description
the Model control based algorithm over SC is that it converges fast
and does not cause torque pulsations. Model control entails use of During low power operation, the iron loss and total copper loss
accurate machine parameters for the computation of losses and to are reduced significantly by reducing the flux, as iron loss is pro-
select optimum flux level that minimizes the total copper losses portional to the magnitude of flux. In this context, a simple LMC
[10]. In [11], the model controller and Adaptive-Back stepping- algorithm is proposed in which the total loss of a squirrel cage
based Nonlinear Controller (ABNC) are combined together for vec- induction motor is minimized. The stator supply frequency and
tor controlled induction motor drive for a high dynamic perfor- voltage magnitude for inverter fed SCIM is computed with the sca-
mance and high efficiency. Online parameter estimation for lar LMC based algorithm which does not entail rotor flux angle
Model control is carried out with ABNC so that the effect of param- information.
eter deviations can be overcome. Another Model control based
study [12] proposed a strategy for maximum efficiency per torque 2.1. Steady state analysis of induction motor considering core losses
(MEPT) in which the optimal stator flux is computed offline and
implemented as look up table. A vector controlled on-line effi- Fig. 1 shows the diagram of per phase equivalent circuit of a
ciency optimization scheme [13] involves the regulation of the caged rotor induction motor referred to the stator.
magnetizing current by measuring the input power alone. Refer- This section discusses a new scheme for predetermining the
ence [14] suggests the regenerative power control for extended induction motor performance.
ride through capability of vector controlled drive via electrical loss For a known load power and speed the rotor current can be
minimization. In [7] the author proposed a flux weakening tech- expressed as,
nique known as Perturbing Rotor Frequency (PRF) without the sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
need of the machine parameters. In [15], a flux weakening scheme sPm
ir ¼ ð1Þ
for induction motor drive using adaptive PI controller for speed 3Rr ð1  sÞ
loop is described. In [16], a state space model of IM combining
model controller, hybrid FOC-DTC and an extended Kalman filter where, slip ‘s’ is given by,
observer for speed estimation for efficiency enhancement is put xs  xr
s¼ ð2Þ
forth. xs
A boost converter with diode bridge rectifier of VFD resulted in
The expression for voltage across magnetizing branch is,
controlled dc bus voltage, improved line current waveform, power  
factor and efficiency [17]. An online loss minimization based on Rr
E¼ þ jxs Llr  ir ð3Þ
predictive control considering the torque transient power losses s
is discussed in [18]. A comparison of efficiency of induction machi-
Magnetizing and core loss component currents are respectively
nes (IMs) and interior permanent-magnet synchronous machines
are
(IPMSMs) is presented in [19]. With loss minimization control,
the efficiency of IM is comparable to that of IPMSM. E
im ¼ ð4Þ
In this paper a Loss Minimization Control (LMC) algorithm is jxs Lm
developed considering the total losses of the induction machine
And
which is a function of the winding currents and the flux which in
turn depends on the applied voltage and frequency. In the pro- if ¼ E=Rm ð5Þ
posed LMC algorithm, the optimal values of slip and applied volt-
age at a given mechanical power and speed are determined
analytically by measuring speed. Further, certain maximum limits Lls Llr
Rs is ir
on the applied voltage magnitude and frequency are imposed so
that the machine is not subjected to abnormal voltage, frequency
or flux. The study presents a comprehensive analysis along with
if im
the results of simulations of the test set up in MATLAB. Also tests
are conducted on a laboratory machine to verify the proposed algo- E
Vs
rithm. The close agreement between the simulations and the Rm Lm
experimental results confirms the effectiveness of the proposed
algorithm. Section 2 describes the loss minimization control algo-
rithm. Closed loop implementation of the algorithm is discussed in
Section 3 whereas Sections 4 and 5 presents the results of simula-
tions and the experiments. Fig. 1. Induction machine per phase equivalent circuit.
 M.P. Sruthi et al. / Engineering Science and Technology, an International Journal 20 (2017) 1439–1449 1441

Stator current and voltage are given by And

is ¼ ir þ im þ if ð6Þ 2
Pf ¼ 3if Rm ð10Þ

Vs ¼ E þ ðRs þ jxs Lls Þ  is ð7Þ Stator active and reactive powers are expressed as,

Rs, and Rr represent copper losses of stator and rotor windings Ps ¼ 3RefVs is g ð11Þ
and Rm is the resistance which symbolizes the power loss in the 
core. Losses in stator, rotor and core are given by Q s ¼ 3ImfVs is g ð12Þ
2
Pcus ¼ 3is Rs ð8Þ The power factor can be calculated as,
Ps
2 pf ¼ qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ð13Þ
Pcur ¼ 3ir Rr ð9Þ
Ps þ Q 2s
2

Fig. 2. flow chart of loss minimization control algorithm.

1442 M.P. Sruthi et al. / Engineering Science and Technology, an International Journal 20 (2017) 1439–1449

Fig. 3. Closed loop control of belt conveyor system.

Efficiency of induction machine is, dfðsÞ Pm  

¼ a11 s4 þ a12 s3 þ a13 s2 þ a14 s þ a15 ð17Þ
ds Rr
P
g¼ m ð14Þ The coefficients of the polynomial depend on the machine
Ps
parameters and are constant at a given speed, xr . The coefficients
where Ps is the real power input to the motor. are defined in
The angular speed of stator supply is, appendix. The value of optimum slip at which the losses are
xr minimum for an induction motor can be obtained by equating
xs ¼ ð15Þ the right hand side of (17) to zero. i.e.,
1s
The controllable electrical losses include both copper losses and a11 s4 þ a12 s3 þ a13 s2 þ a14 s þ a15 ¼ 0 ð18Þ
core losses. The possible roots of the 4th order Eq. (18) can be expressed as
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Ploss ¼ fðsÞ ¼
2
3is Rs þ
2
3ir Rr þ
2
3if Rm ð16Þ a12 2
s1;2 ¼  b13  0:5 4b13  b11 þ b12 =b13
4a11
It is evident from (1), (5) & (6) that at each mechanical power
output and speed the winding losses and core losses are functions qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
a12 2
of slip alone. Slip is the single unknown parameter in the above s3;4 ¼ þ b13  0:5 4b13  b11  b12 =b13
4a11
equations. Substitute for is, ir, if and in loss function (16). Differen-
tiating f(s) with respect to slip results in a fourth order equation of where, b11 ¼ 8a11 a13  3a312
slip.
a312  4a11 a12 a13 þ 8a311 a14
b12 ¼
8a311
Table 1
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
 
Squirrel cage IM parameters.
1 D b11
Rated power 2.3 kW 750 W
b13 ¼ 0:5 b14 þ 
3A b14 3
Rated voltage (V) 415 380
vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Stator current (A) 4.7 3.8 u
u 2 3
Pole pairs 2 2
t D1 þ D1  4 D
3
Stator resistance, Rs (ohm) 3.45 5.38 b14 ¼
Rotor resistance, Rr 5.26 9.77 2
Stator leakage inductance, Lls 0.02487 0.0445

Rotor leakage inductance, Llr 0.02487 0.0445 With D ¼ a213  3a12 a14 þ 12a11 a15
Magnetizing inductance, Lm 0.28 0.521
Iron loss resistance 270 1190.5 D1 ¼ 2a213  9a12 a13 a14 þ 27a212 a15 þ 27a11 a214  72a11 a13 a15
 M.P. Sruthi et al. / Engineering Science and Technology, an International Journal 20 (2017) 1439–1449 1443

The solution of (18) will have four roots- a positive real (s3 ), a ing the rotor speed and computing the optimum slip value, the syn-
negative real and two complex conjugate roots. For the motoring chronous angular speed ðxs Þ can be computed using (15). Further,
mode of operation, only the single positive real root is valid. Know- the corresponding stator frequency can be computed as follows:

Fig. 4. Comparison of proposed LMC and FOC operation on 2.23 KW induction machine at 0.93 p.u. speed. (a) stator voltage, (b) Slip, (c) flux, (d) Stator current, (e) input real
power, (f) reactive power, (g) power factor, (h) efficiency.
1444 M.P. Sruthi et al. / Engineering Science and Technology, an International Journal 20 (2017) 1439–1449

f s ¼ xs p=4p ð19Þ Using the valid slip value, the solution of (20) gives the magni-
tude of stator voltage. Further, since the stator is fed from a power
where, p is the number of poles. Substituting for is andxs in (7), the
converter which can produce a variable frequency output, it is
stator voltage magnitude is derived as a function of slip, machine
anticipated that there is only one set of stator voltage and fre-
parameters, power output and rotor speed.
quency that correspond to the optimal flux with which the total
Pm 2 electrical loss is lowest. Thus the optimal slip and the correspond-
jVs j2 ¼ fðc11 s3 þ ðc12  2c11 Þs2 þ ðc11 þ c13 Þs þ c12 Þ
3Rr sð1  sÞ5 ing set of stator voltage and frequency are computed. If the calcu-
2 lated stator voltage exceeds the rated voltage, then the maximum
þ ðc16 s2 þ ðc14  2c16 Þs þ ðc15 þ c16 ÞÞ ð1  2s þ s2 Þg ð20Þ

Fig. 5. Performance comparison of proposed LMC and FOC scheme at 0.67 p.u. speed. (a) Stator voltage, (b) slip, (c) flux, (d) stator current, (e) input real power, (f) reactive
power, (g) power factor, (h) efficiency.
 M.P. Sruthi et al. / Engineering Science and Technology, an International Journal 20 (2017) 1439–1449 1445

limit of rated voltage prevails and the slip is recalculated using 4. Simulation results
(20). A similar check is also carried out for the corresponding flux
magnitude to be restrained to a ceiling of rated flux. Simulation studies are carried out for examining the
Figure 2 shows the flow chart for minimizing the total electrical performance of IM with proposed LMC algorithm using MATLAB/
losses of IM using LMC algorithm. The conventional v/f control Simulink. The parameters of the motors used are given in the
method is used to start the drive motor and switch to LMC based Table 1. The results show notable improvement in the efficiency
supply once the motor reach steady operating states. of the system.
For open loop operation, the mechanical power (Pm) required by
the belt conveyor system can be estimated by the simple relation, 4.1. Comparison of performance with LMC, FOC and conventional loss
minimization scheme
Pm ¼ Fm :v ð21Þ
The motional resistive force (Fm) when the belt moves in steady The steady state performance of a 2.23 kW SCIM with three
operating state is calculated from friction, weight of the material schemes, viz., the proposed LMC, indirect field oriented control
transported and other mass forces. Industries use advanced elec- [20] and a conventional loss minimization technique are studied.
tronic load cells for measuring the material weight on the belt. FOC is known for high dynamic performance, however, the present
Knowing the belt speed ðv Þ the load demand on the drive can be context is focused on the steady state performance wherein the
determined. loss minimization at all loads and speeds is the objective. The loss
minimization technique [21] considered for comparison works on
the principle of optimizing the flux. The optimum flux reference
3. Closed loop implementation
is calculated based on differentiating the total loss of the motor
with respect to the d-axis current. Both the proposed LMC and
The block diagram of closed loop implementation of the pro-
the conventional loss minimization scheme render similar perfor-
posed LMC algorithm based drive is shown in Fig. 3. A speed sensor
mance at light load. But as compared to the conventional loss min-
is used for measuring the speed of belt drive. Magnitude of voltage
imization scheme the implementation of the proposed scheme to
and frequency of the supply are determined by the loss minimiza-
obtain loss minimization is much simpler since it is only a scalar
tion control algorithm.
control whereas the previous scheme [21] needs a closed loop vec-
The mechanical system of a belt drive consists of an electrical
tor control.
motor, coupled mechanically to the conveyor belt through pulley
The Fig. 4 shows the trends in various motor parameters at a
and gear shafts. For the design of speed controller, all the mechan-
rotor speed of 0.93 p.u. as the load power increases. With LMC
ical subsystems such as the motor, gear, connecting shafts, and
and conventional schemes, flux is increased with output power
pulley are represented by the total moment of inertia as,
whereas with the indirect rotor field oriented control, flux is con-
stant. The stator current and input reactive power are notably
Jtotal ¼ Jmotor þ Jshaft1 þ Jgear þ n2 Jshaft2 þ n2 Jpulley ð22Þ
reduced with LMC at light loads though they approach the same
The electromagnetic torque developed in the motor is levels as those with field oriented control as load increases. The
winding losses are significantly reduced by optimizing the flux
dxr through variable ‘v’ and ‘f’ rather than constant ‘v/f’ as in vector
Tem ¼ Jtotal þ Bxr þ Tload ð23Þ
dt control.
where, n and Tload are the gear ratio and torque due to weight of belt
along with material being conveyed respectively. The electromag-
netic power (Pem) generated can be written as,

Pem ¼ Tem xr ð24Þ

dxr
At steady operating state, the term dt
becomes zero. The load
power (Pm) can be obtained as,

Pem  Bx2r ð25Þ

The transfer function between motor speed xr and electromag-

netic torque Tem is given by

xr ðsÞ 1
¼ ð26Þ
Tem Js þ B
Using Eq. (26), the PI controller gains can be designed. When-
ever the load torque changes, the speed also changes which is
sensed by the speed sensor. The speed is compared with the refer-
ence speed and the error is processed in a PI controller. The PI con-
troller output is the electromagnetic torque developed in the
motor. The electromagnetic power developed in the motor can
be computed by multiplying the Tem and speed. The Eq. (25) is used
to estimate the load power (Pm) for each load conditions. This Pm
and speed are fed to the algorithm based controller which determi-
nes the optimal voltage and frequency in terms of the modulating
signal. The SPWM block then generates pulses for the inverter
switches. Fig. 6. % variation in efficiency versus output power.
1446 M.P. Sruthi et al. / Engineering Science and Technology, an International Journal 20 (2017) 1439–1449

50
% Reduction in current

40

30

20

10

0
0 1 2 3 4
Load torque (Nm)
(h)
Fig. 7. Performance of SCIM. M1: predicted results of LMC algorithm, M2: experimental results using LMC, M3: the experimental results for rated voltage and frequency
supply (a) stator voltage, (b) slip, (c) stator current, (d) real power, (e) reactive power, (f) power factor, (g) Efficiency, (h) % reduction in current versus torque.
 M.P. Sruthi et al. / Engineering Science and Technology, an International Journal 20 (2017) 1439–1449 1447

The performance of the IMD running at 0.67 p.u. speed with the changes due to temperature variations such that the controller
three schemes is depicted in Fig. 5. At lower speeds, the operating finds out the optimum efficiency condition corresponding to the
power range of the motor is limited by the flux and current rating variations in motor parameters.
of the motor. However, with LMC scheme the motor is able to
maintain high efficiency and improved power factor at low power, 5. Experimental results
low speed operation as shown in 5(h) & 5(g). The stator voltage
profile of the three schemes is shown in Fig. 5(a). As power demand A 750 W, 4-pole squirrel cage induction motor is used in the
increases LMC algorithm based scheme suggests more voltage than laboratory experiments for validation of performance of proposed
FOC scheme, but at the same time the motor slip is more with FOC scheme. The parameters of the machine are given in Table 1. A
scheme compared to LMC and conventional schemes as in 5(b). power converter (MD B6CI 800/415–30 F of Semikron make) is
With LMC and conventional scheme based supply the motor take used for variable frequency supply to the motor. The control algo-
less current at light loads compared to FOC scheme is illustrated rithm is implemented using Cyclone FPGA board with a clock fre-
in Fig. 5(d). quency of 20 MHz. the rotor speed is measured using a speed
sensor and Fluke 345 power quality analyzer is used for power
4.2. Effect of parameter variation measurement.

Sensitivity of performance of induction motor with the pro- 5.1. Steady state results
posed LMC algorithm under parameter variation is studied. Aging
of induction motor may cause variation in some motor parameters. Fig. 7(a–g) demonstrate the performance characteristics of pro-
The stator and rotor winding resistances largely vary with the tem- posed LMC scheme based SCIM drive. Also the performance of LMC
perature increase and the increase in temperature in turn depends is compared when the motor is supplied by rated motor supply
on the type of winding, material and insulation. To study the effect (constant volt/hertz) at steady state. The frictional loss of the
of parameter variation, a 50% variation in resistances from the motor shaft is also considered for the loss calculation. The points
nominal values are considered. The Fig. 6(a) and (b) show the effi- x and y in Fig. 7(a–g) are the corresponding experimental points
ciency versus power output and% deviation in efficiency versus at light load (200 W) with LMC supply and the conventional rated
power output for 50% variation in resistances respectively. motor supply having a constant v/f ratio respectively.
In these cases, the efficiency deviation is found to be less than Both simulation and experimental results of proposed method
10%. To eliminate this deviation problem, a temperature sensor are taken at a rotor speed of 1480 rpm (0.986 p.u.). Fig. 7(a) shows
can be incorporated with the controller to update the resistance the applied stator line voltage for different load conditions. While

Fig. 8. (A): Stator current, (2A/div) when IM is fed by rated supply (380 V, 50 Hz) (B): stator current when IM is fed with LMC supply (187 V, 52.4 Hz), Voltage (150 V/div), dc
current (load) (0.5A/div), speed (3000 rpm/div), time 5.0 s/div.
1448 M.P. Sruthi et al. / Engineering Science and Technology, an International Journal 20 (2017) 1439–1449

conventional supply works at rated voltage, LMC algorithm sug- shown in Fig. 7(h). A significant percentage reduction in current
gests reduced voltage for motor at light loads and still able to meet is obtained for low torque (or power) demands using LMC.
the load speed and torque. The trend of slip and stator current for
applied stator voltage and frequency input are shown in Fig. 7 5.2. Dynamic behavior
(b) & (c) respectively.
The operating slip for LMC based supply is slightly higher than Fig. 8 shows a sudden reduction in stator current when the
constant v/f supply as in Fig. 7(b). The current requirement of the motor is switched from nominal supply to the LMC regulated sup-
drive at x3 (M2) is 0.48A less than y3 (M3) and thus significant ply while driving a constant load. The load to induction motor is a
energy is saved for low power motor. The close agreement of pre- separately excited dc generator connected to a resistive load. Load
dicted and experimental results of input real power and reactive power is measured by measuring the load voltage and current. The
power for LMC is plotted in Figs. 7(d, e) respectively. A reduction experiment (Fig. 8) is carried out for a time span of 50 s. At starting,
of 93 W in input real power and 634VAr in input reactive is the motor is working on nominal supply. After 11 s, the supply is
achieved with M2 (x4 & x5) in comparison with conventional con- switched from grid to the LMC based inverter supply. Again, after
stant volt/hertz supply, M3 (y4 & y5) for 200 W load power. The 37 s the supply is switched back to nominal supply. Thus it is
LMC scheme yields a reduction in the real and reactive power con- demonstrated (Fig. 8) that the operating power and speed of the
sumption at light loads. The constant flux supply fed drives operate load considered remains unaltered even after applying the optimal
on low power factor which lead to increased burden on electricity supply calculated with the proposed LMC algorithm. But a clear
tariff for the industry. decrement in stator current is achieved using LMC supply (B). So
Reduced reactive power consumption leads to the improvement the proposed method (B) is proved to be the preferred method
in power factor with LMC scheme, as shown in Fig. 7(f). For exam- for steady state loss minimization.
ple, point x6 to y6, the power factor is improved from 0.423 to 0.78 Fig. 9 shows the line voltage variation when the supply is
for the same load condition. The Fig. 7(g) shows 26.4% increment in switched from nominal supply (380 V, 50 Hz) to LMC regulated
efficiency with M2 (x7) compared to M3 (y7) at 200 W load power. supply (187 V, 52.4 Hz). The peak of rated line voltage is scaled
The percentage reduction in current with LMC based supply at down approximately to 5 V. The Fig. 9(b) shows the zoomed image
the same operating load power and a fixed operating speed are of nominal supply. Fig. 9(c) shows the zoomed image of algorithm

Fig. 9(b) Stator voltage Fig. 9(c)

Load current

Load voltage

Speed

(a) (b)

(c) (d)
Fig. 9. (a) Switching of supply voltage from nominal to LMC supply. Load current (1A/div) load voltage (150 V/div) speed (3000 rpm/div) (b) nominal (grid) voltage (107.48
V/div) (c) inverter supply (LMC) (107.48 V/div) (d) fundamental voltage of inverter supply (107.48 V/div).
 M.P. Sruthi et al. / Engineering Science and Technology, an International Journal 20 (2017) 1439–1449 1449

based regulated supply. Here the line voltage applied to the induc- Rr Lls xr
c15 ¼
tion machine is a switched waveform with peak equals to dc link Rm
voltage. The magnitude of voltage is varied by varying the modula-
tion index. Rr Rs
c16 ¼ 
L m xr
6. Conclusion
References
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