IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 69, NO.

9, SEPTEMBER 2022 9279

Error Sign Detection-Based Compensation of

Commutation Error for Use in Sensorless
Position Control of BLDCM
Hao Jin , Gang Liu , Haifeng Zhang , and Baodong Chen

Abstract—This article presents a novel commutation er- is employed in magnetically suspended CMG (MSCMG), which
ror closed-loop compensation method for the position sen- has the properties of zero friction and enhanced damping of rotor
sorless brushless dc motor. A key challenge is addressed vibration [1]–[3]. Thus, the MSCMG becomes an ideal solution
that the conventional closed-loop compensation method
fails in the case of no available analog-to-digital converter for spacecraft attitude control.
(ADC). The proposed method consists of a commutation Because of the reliability and efficiency demands in space
error sign detection circuit and a compensation algorithm. application, brushless dc motors (BLDCMs) with ironless and
First, the voltage of the virtual neutral point with respect slotless stator are introduced to drive the high-speed rotor in
to dc-link midpoint is transformed to obtain a logic level.
MSCMG [4]. It is well known that six discrete rotor positions are
The logic level can indicate whether the commutation is
advanced or delayed. Then, the logic level is mapped to required for BLDCM commutation, and position sensors, e.g.,
a commutation error sign flag variable, based on which a Hall-effect sensors, encoders, etc., are commonly used [5], [6].
novel iterative compensation algorithm is designed. Com- The position sensors are usually installed in the motor stator, and
pared with the conventional method, the proposed method extra wires ought to be added for position signals transformation.
achieves a high-precision closed-loop compensation using
Thus, they are easily affected by electromagnetic interference
only one general-purpose input/output of the digital proces-
sor instead of ADC. Finally, the experiments on a magnet- and high temperature, and the reliability of MSCMG can be
ically suspended control moment gyro prototype validate reduced, especially in the harsh space environment. Besides,
the effectiveness of the proposed method. the special mechanical arrangements for sensor installation can
Index Terms—Brushless dc motor (BLDCM), commuta- easily introduce commutation error. Consequently, various sen-
tion error compensation, sensorless commutation. sorless commutation techniques have been developed. Because
the commutation point detection circuit is constructed outside
of the BLDCM, the environment for sensorless commutation
I. INTRODUCTION points detection is much better, which improves the reliability
WING to the advantages of large torque amplification and of the MSCMG. The common sensorless commutation method
O momentum storage, control moment gyros (CMGs) are
the effective actuators for spacecraft attitude control, in which
includes back-electromotive force (back-EMF) method [7], [8],
line-to-line back-EMF method [9] [10], G function method [11]
the output gyroscopic torque is generated through spinning [12], etc. However, in order to avoid the influences of modulation
high-speed rotor providing angular momentum. Instead of tradi- noise and commutation freewheeling current, low-pass filters
tional mechanical bearing, the active magnetic bearing (AMB) (LPFs) are inevitability used. As a result, the LPF phase shift,
hardware transport delay, and software processing time lead to
Manuscript received April 23, 2021; revised July 13, 2021 and August the commutation error, which deteriorates the BLDCM effec-
22, 2021; accepted September 16, 2021. Date of publication October
5, 2021; date of current version April 1, 2022. This work was sup- tiveness. However, traditional compensation methods, including
ported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under table look-up compensation method, LPF phase-frequency cal-
Grant 61822302 and Grant 51925501. (Corresponding authors: Haifeng culation method, etc., have poor accuracy, and the commutation
Zhang; Baodong Chen.)
Hao Jin and Gang Liu are with the School of Instrumentation Sci- error cannot be corrected when there is interference or parameter
ence and Optoelectronics Engineering, Beihang University (BUAA), variation [13]–[15]. In contrast, benefiting from the properties
Beijing 100191, China and also with the Ningbo Institute of Technol- of real-time compensation and anti-interference, the closed-loop
ogy, Beihang University (BUAA), Ningbo 315800, China (e-mail: jin-
[email protected]; [email protected]). compensation method has become a research focus in recent
Haifeng Zhang is with the Research Institute for Frontier Sci- years.
ence, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China (e-mail: zhang- The conventional closed-loop compensation methods are
[email protected]).
Baodong Chen is with the School of Automation Science and Elec- commonly implemented according to the motor signal (e.g.,
trical Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China (e-mail: phase voltage) asymmetry caused by commutation error. With
[email protected]). the asymmetrical motor signal quantified as feedback quantity to
Color versions of one or more figures in this article are available at
https://doi.org/10.1109/TIE.2021.3116566. feed a controller, the motor signal returns to be symmetrical due
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIE.2021.3116566 to the commutation error compensated by the controller output.

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9280 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 69, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2022

Fig. 2. Drive typology of BLDCM used in MSCMG. A, B, and C

denote three motor terminals and also represent the three phases. eA ,
eB , and eC denote the back-EMFs, and iA , iB , and iC denote the
phase currents. L is the phase inductance, and M is the dc-link voltage
(uDC ) midpoint. S and S  are neutral point and virtual neutral point,
respectively.

Fig. 1. Comparison between the existing closed-loop compensation

method and the proposed compensation method. (a) Existing closed-
loop compensation method using the ADC. (b) Proposed compensation
method using a GPIO.

Fig. 3. Circuit for obtaining the back-EMF ZCPs.

In [16]–[18], considering that the phase voltage will be no longer
symmetrical due to the commutation error, and the voltage
deviation of phase voltage before and after the energized period
input/output (GPIO) of the digital processor and mapped to a flag
is chosen as the feedback quantity. When the voltage deviation
variable indicating whether the commutation error is advanced
is controlled to zero, the phase voltage returns to a symmetrical
or delayed. Finally, a compensation algorithm is proposed based
state, and the commutation error is simultaneously eliminated.
on the flag variable to achieve a high-precision commutation
Similarly, the commutation error leads the line-to-line voltage to
error compensation.
be asymmetrical as well. Thus, in [19], the integral of line-to-line
voltage is utilized as the feedback quantity, and the commutation
error is corrected as the line-to-line voltage becoming symmet- II. ANALYSIS OF COMMUTATION ERROR
rical. In [20], the integral difference of the virtual neutral point A. BLDCM Mathematical Model and Commutation
voltage between the adjacent commutation periods is used as the Error Analysis
feedback quantity for commutation error compensation. Apart
As mentioned in Section I, the low-inductance BLDCM with
from the abovementioned motor voltages, the dc-link current
ironless and slotless stator is adopted in the MSCMG. Therefore,
difference before and after the commutation point can also be
as shown in Fig. 2, in order to eliminate the current ripple, a buck
employed for commutation compensation [21], [22]. Moreover,
converter is employed to regulate the dc-link voltage [26].
the phase current and its integral become asymmetrical for the
Owing to the adoption of ironless stator, the mutual induc-
existence of commutation error; hence, the phase current and its
tance between the armature windings can be ignored. Thus, the
integral are quantified as digital feedback quantities and applied
BLDCM mathematical model is expressed as
for sensorless commutation error correction in [23]–[25].
⎧
⎨ uAG = RiA + L dtA + eA + uSG
As shown in Fig. 1(a), the analog-to-digital converter (ADC) di

is commonly used to obtain the digital feedback quantity in the u = RiB + L didtB + eB + uSG . (1)
abovementioned existing closed-loop compensation methods. ⎩ BG
uCG = RiC + L didtC + eC + uSG
Thereby, the compensation angle can be calculated from the
algorithm in the digital processor. However, for the highly Because only two stator windings are energized each time for
integrated MSCMG, the AMB and BLDCM control algorithms BLDCM, phase A is floating with iA = 0 given that phase B
share one digital processor using the total ADC channels. There- and phase C are energized. Thus, the phase voltage of phase A
fore, there is no remaining ADC channel to obtain the digital can be written as
feedback quantity for the commutation error compensation. uAS = eA . (2)
In order to address the issue, as shown in Fig. 1(b), this article
proposes a novel closed-loop compensation method based on According to the back-EMF method, the commutation signals
error type detection without using ADC. First, the relationship (SA , SB , and SC ) can be obtained from back-EMF zero crossing
between commutation error and the voltage of the virtual neutral point (ZCP) signals with 30◦ delayed shift [3]. Thus, from (2), the
point with respect to the dc-link midpoint is analyzed. Then, a ZCP can be detected by using phase voltage comparison circuit
novel commutation error sign detection circuit is designed to in Fig. 3. However, as shown in Fig. 4, the adopted LPF phase
obtain a logic level. The logic level is read by a general-purpose shift along with the hardware delay and software processing time

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JIN et al.: ERROR SIGN DETECTION BASED COMPENSATION OF COMMUTATION ERROR 9281

TABLE I
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN uS  M AND MOTOR COMMUTATION

Fig. 4. Schematic diagram of commutation points detection. Combining (9) and (7), uSG can be derived as
1
uSG = (uDC − eA − eC ). (10)
2
cause the commutation error ϕ, which will reduce the BLDCM
efficiency. Therefore, after substituting (10) into (9), uS  G can be rewrit-
In order to compensate the commutation error by a closed- ten as
loop control, the voltage of the virtual neutral point with respect uDC 2eB − eA − eC
uS  G = + . (11)
to dc-link midpoint (uS  M , Fig. 2) is analyzed. Then, a novel 2 6
circuit is designed to detect whether the commutation is delayed Finally, uS  M can be obtained as
or advanced, which is illustrated in the following sections.  
1 eA + eC
uS M = uS G − uM G =
  eB − (12)
B. Correlation Between the Commutation Error and uS  M 3 2

As shown in Fig. 2, according to Kirchhoff’s law, the voltage where uM G (uM G = uDC 2 ) is the dc-link midpoint voltage.
from motor terminals to the virtual neutral point satisfies During the commutation from phase C and phase A conduction
to phases C and phase B conduction, the freewheeling current
uAS  uBS  uCS  floats through D1 into the dc-link. Thus, there are

+ 
+ =0 (3)
R R R ⎧
⎨ uAG = uDC
where R is the resistor for constructing the virtual neutral point.
uBG = 0 . (13)
If G is taken as the reference ground, (3) can be transformed into ⎩
uCG = uDC
uAG + uGS  + uBG + uGS  + uCG + uGS  = 0. (4) Combining (5), (12), and (13), we get uS  M = −uDC /6.
From (4), we get Therefore, uS  M with different commutation situation can be
represented by Table I. Considering that the freewheeling cur-
uAG + uBG + uCG
uS  G = −uGS  = . (5) rent decaying time is very short for the ironless and slotless
3 stator BLDCM, the freewheeling current duration is ignored
Given that phase C and phase A are energized, the three-phase in this article [17]. As shown in Fig. 5, with the definition of
terminal voltages can be described as Sinv = SA + SB + SC , a new signal uinv can be created from
⎧ the transformation as
⎨ uAG = 0 
uBG = eB + uSG . (6) −uS  M Sinv = 1
⎩ uinv = . (14)
uCG = uDC uS  M Sinv = 1

Substituting (6) into (5) yields Furthermore, uinv is separated by positive and negative com-
ponents to form two different waveforms named as uP and uN ,
eB + uSG + uDC respectively. Take uP as an example; according to Fourier series
uS  G = . (7)
3 decomposition, the dc component of uP is expressed as
In addition, based on (1), the following equation can be 
1 tx +T 1
obtained: uP _dc = uP = AP (15)
⎧ T tx T
⎨ uAS  + uS  G = RiA + L dtA + eA + uSG
di

u  + uS  G = RiB + L didtB + eB + uSG . (8) where T is the commutation period, and tx is assigned to be a
⎩ BS commutation point (see Fig. 5). Similarly, the dc component of
uCS  + uS  G = RiC + L didtC + eC + uSG
uN can be obtained as uN _dc = T1 AN . AP and AN are the areas
According to Kirchhoff’s law, iA + iB + iC = 0 is satisfied. of uP and uN per commutation period, respectively.
Thus, from (3) and (8), uS  G can be deduced as Then, it can be seen in Fig. 5(a) that if |uN _dc | = uP _dc is
eA + eB + eC satisfied due to the equality of AP and AN , the commutation is
uS  G = + uSG . (9) accurate (ϕ = 0). Else if |uN _dc | > uP _dc is achieved because
3

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9282 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 69, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2022

Fig. 5. Relationship between uS  M , commutation signals, and uinv in the case of different commutation errors. (a) Accurate commutation with
ϕ = 0. (b) Delayed commutation with ϕ > 0. (c) Advanced commutation with ϕ < 0.

TABLE II
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COMMUTATION ERROR AND COMMUTATION ERROR SIGN FLAG VARIABLE

Fig. 6. Commutation error sign detection circuit and four stages of uS  M transformation.

of AN > AP , the commutation is delayed by ϕ (ϕ > 0) [see circuits, two precision half-wave rectifiers, and a comparator.
Fig. 5(b)]. When AN < AP results in |uN _dc | < uP _dc , the The circuit can output a logic level (0 or 1) indicating that the
BLDCM commutates with advanced commutation error (ϕ < 0) commutation error is advanced or delayed.
[see Fig. 5(c)]. For a better illustration, the abovementioned
relationship is presented in Table II. A. Acquisition of Commutation Error Sign Flag Variable
Based on the conclusion, if the transformation from uS  M to
|uN _dc | and uP _dc is realized, a comparator can be used to detect As shown in Fig. 6, the proposed circuit is divided into four
whether the commutation error is advanced or delayed. stages functionally.
In stage 1, a two-channel multiplexer is used. When Sinv = 1
is satisfied, uS  M is gated through an invert circuit. On the
III. NOVEL COMMUTATION ERROR SIGN DETECTION CIRCUIT
contrary, uS  M is gated directly in the case of Sinv = 0. Conse-
AND COMPENSATION ALGORITHM
quently, uS  M is transformed to uinv .
According to the analysis in the previous section, as shown In stage 2, two precision half-wave rectifiers are adopted to
in Fig. 6, a novel commutation error sign detection circuit transform uinv into uP and uN , respectively. Owing to the high
is designed to transform uS  M , which consists of two invert open-loop gain of operational amplifier, even though the input

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JIN et al.: ERROR SIGN DETECTION BASED COMPENSATION OF COMMUTATION ERROR 9283

voltage is tiny, the diodes can be switched ON to form a feedback

channel avoiding the limitation of diode forward voltage. Thus,
the circuit can operate normally at low speed with small uS  M .
Additionally, two filter capacitors are incorporated to construct
feedback channels for ac components. Take the upper rectifier
as an example; the capacitor C is charged in the case of Da and
Db switched OFF and discharged when Da and Db are switched
ON, during which processes uP and uN are filtered to generate
uP _dc and uN _dc , respectively.
In stage 3, an invert circuit is employed to transform uN _dc
Fig. 7. Block diagram of sensorless BLDCM and the proposed com-
into |uN _dc |. pensation method.
In stage 4, uP _dc and |uN _dc | are compared to output So via
using the comparator. Then, So is connected to the GPIO of the
digital processor in which k is obtained by k = (So − 0.5) ∗
2. In this way, So (0 or 1) is mapped to k (-1 or +1) as the
commutation error sign flag variable (see Table II).

B. Commutation Error Compensation Algorithm

Based on k, the commutation compensation angle sign is
determined. Then, the commutation error can be compensated by
adding tiny compensation angle iteratively in principle. There-
fore, the iterative compensation algorithm is proposed as

ϕinit ni=0 ki λi n≤N
ϕc (n) = N n
ϕinit i=0 ki λ + λ ϕinit n=N +1 kn
i N
n>N Fig. 8. Prototype of MSCMG.
(16)
where n is the compensating iteration number after the algorithm
enabled. Because the compensation operation is synchronous oscillation can be achieved using a smaller δ at the expense of
with motor commutation, n increases with motor commutating. longer converging time.
kn is the detected k at the nth compensation. ϕinit is the absolute Based on the proposed detection circuit and compensation al-
value of initial compensation angle, and ϕc (n) is the nth com- gorithm, the established closed-loop correction method structure
pensation angle. λ (0 < λ < 1) is the convergence factor. N is is shown in Fig. 7, which is further explained as follows.
obtained from 1) In the sensorless BLDCM subsystem, the commutation
δ signals are outputted from phase shift block fed by ZCPs of
λN +1 < < λN (17) floating phase voltages. Then, the BLDCM commutation is
ϕinit
implemented through the switch table and inverter.
where δ (δ > 0) is a very small threshold value, which is the 2) In the proposed compensation method subsystem, So ,
compensation angle increment for every iteration when the generated from commutation error sign detection circuit, is
algorithm converges to the steady state. mapped to k. Then, the compensation angle ϕc is generated
From (16), it can be seen that the commutation compensation from the proposed compensation algorithm fed by k. Therefore,
process covers two phases that are divided by n ≤ N and n > even though there is no available ADC channel for feedback
N , respectively. quantity construction, the high-precision closed-loop commuta-
In phase 1, when the algorithm is enabled, the initial com- tion correction can be achieved through one GPIO of the digital
pensation angle is set as ϕc (0) = k0 ϕinit , and the nth com- processor.
pensation angle increment is kn λn ϕinit , which indicates that
the compensation angle increment decreases by λ times per IV. EXPERIMENTAL VERIFICATION
iteration. In this way, the oscillation and overshoot are weakened.
Besides, kn determines the compensation angle sign. Therefore, A. Experimental Setup
the commutation error decreases as the iterative summation. As shown in Fig. 8, an MSCMG prototype is used to verify
In phase 2, in order to avoid compensation angle increment the proposed method. The high-speed rotor suspended by an
converging to zero, when the iterative number exceeds N , AMB in the gyro room is driven by a BLDCM to provide
the compensation angle increment remains to be a constant the angular momentum. The gimbal spins the gyro room to
(kn λN ϕinit ) that is a tiny value determined by δ, which allows generate gyroscopic torque for the spacecraft maneuver control.
that the method still has the ability to correct the slow-varying The BLDCM parameters are listed in Table III. The adopted
error caused by circuit temperature drift and device aging. There- digital processor is TMS320F28335 having 16 ADC channels
fore, a higher accurate commutation with weaker steady-state where 15 channels are used for AMB five degrees of freedom

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9284 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 69, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2022

TABLE III
MOTOR PARAMETERS

control (two coils’ currents and one displacement sampling

for each degree of freedom control), and the rest channel is
employed for BLDCM control (dc-link current sampling). In this
case of no available ADC channel, the closed-loop commutation
error compensation is realized by the proposed method using
only one GPIO of the digital processor.
In order to evaluate the proposed method, Hall-effect position
sensors are employed to provide accurate commutation informa-
tion as the reference. Considering that the first-order LPF cut-off
frequency for ZCPs detection is 3.18 kHz, and the motor has
two pairs of poles, the delay commutation error is approximate
to 9◦ at 15 000 r/min. Accordingly, ϕinit = 5◦ is given in the
experiments. Besides, λ = 0.7 and δ = 1e − 7 are set for the
compensation.

B. Experiment 1: Verification of Commutation Error

Compensation at Constant Speed
As shown in Fig. 9(a), when the BLDCM commutates with
15◦ delayed error at 15 000 r/min, there is a phase deviation
between the commutation signal SA and the Hall-effect sen-
sor signal HA , which leads to severe phase current distortion
with high current ripple ΔiA . It not only reduces the motor
efficiency, but also deteriorates the torque performance. In this Fig. 9. Waveforms of Hall signals, commutation signals, phase cur-
circumstance, AN is larger than AP leading to |uN _dc | > uP _dc . rent, uinv , |uN _dc |, and uP _dc with different commutation error at
Thus, k = −1 can be obtained to determine the compensation 15 000 r/min. (a) Delayed commutation error. (b) Advanced commutation
error. (c) Commutation error compensated by the proposed method.
angle increment sign. Similarly, the phase current distorts, and
AN < AP results in |uN _dc | < uP _dc when the commutation
error is advanced in Fig. 9(b). As shown in Fig. 9(c), with the components are obviously attenuated. From the prospective of
introduction of the proposed compensation method, |uN _dc | = root-mean-square (rms) value, when the BLDCM commutates
uP _dc is achieved with AP = AN . The phase current distortion with 15◦ delayed and advanced phase error at rated speed, the
is weakened, which is reflected by the significantly reduced rms values of the dc-link current are 2.52 and 2.69 A, respec-
ΔiA . Besides, SA coincides with HA , which indicates that the tively. In contrast, with the adoption of the proposed method,
commutation is precisely compensated. Therefore, the proposed the rms value is reduced to 2.25 A due to the compensation of
method can achieve high-precision commutation at a constant the commutation error. Thus, the motor efficiency and torque
speed. performance are improved.
Fig. 10 shows the dc-link current and its fast Fourier transform As shown in Fig. 11(a) and (b), when the motor operates with
(FFT) when the BLDCM commutates with different errors. It commutation error at a lower speed of 8000 r/min, the phase
can be seen that when the motor commutates with advanced error current waveform fluctuates, and the commutation error leads to
[see Fig. 10(a)] and delayed error [see Fig. 10(b)], the dc-link AP = AN causing |uN _dc | = uP _dc . As shown in the Fig. 11(c),
current distorts, and the amplitude of high-order harmonics when the proposed commutation error compensation method is
are great. After the employment of the proposed compensa- introduced, AP = AN and |uN _dc | = uP _dc are achieved, and
tion method, the dc-link current becomes smoother along with the phase current becomes smoother, which indicates that the
the commutation error corrected, and the high-order harmonic commutation error is accurately compensated.

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JIN et al.: ERROR SIGN DETECTION BASED COMPENSATION OF COMMUTATION ERROR 9285

Fig. 10. DC-link current iL and its FFT in case of different commu-
tation error. (a) Delayed commutation error. (b) Advanced commutation
error. (c) Commutation error compensated by the proposed method.

In order to compare the efficiency of the BLDCM system

before and after employing the compensator, the power con-
sumption of the motor system is measured at different speed.
As shown in Fig. 12, with the introduction of the proposed
compensator, the power consumption of the motor system is
significantly reduced, and this trend increases with the speed
raising up. Thus, the efficiency of the motor can be improved Fig. 11. Waveforms of Hall signals, commutation signals, phase cur-
with the proposed commutation error compensation method. rent, uinv , |uN _dc |, and uP _dc with different commutation error at
Moreover, the proposed method is evaluated at 8000 r/min in 8000 r/min. (a) Delayed commutation error. (b) Advanced commutation
error. (c) Commutation error compensated by the proposed method.
the regenerative mode. As shown in Fig. 13(a), when the commu-
tation is delayed, |uN _dc | > uP _dc is achieved due to AP < AN .
With regard to the advanced commutation, |uN _dc | < uP _dc is
satisfied [see Fig. 13(b)]. The experimental results are identical
to the theoretical analysis. Besides, the dc-link current fluctuates
seriously, which is indicated by the Δidc . With the introduction
of the proposed method, |uN _dc | = uP _dc is achieved owing
to AP = AN , and the dc-link current fluctuation is obviously
weakened, which reflects that the commutation error is com-
pensated [see Fig. 13(c)]. Therefore, the proposed method can
achieve an accurate commutation in the regenerative mode.

C. Experiment 2: Verification of Dynamic Performance

As shown in Fig. 14, before introducing the proposed method
at 15 000 r/min, the BLDCM operates with delayed com-
mutation error (ϕ > 0), and the phase current distorts. The Fig. 12. Comparison of the motor system power consumption before
and after using the proposed compensation method.
positive and negative component areas of uinv are not equal

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9286 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 69, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2022

Fig. 15. Advanced commutation error converging process when the

proposed method is introduced at t5 .

compensated angle ϕc (n − 1). During the converging process,

the compensation angle increment decreases by λ times per
iteration, which weakens the overshoot and oscillation. There-
fore, before So flipping at t2 , the maximum voltage deviation
between |uN _dc | and uP _dc is significantly reduced. When the
Fig. 13. Waveforms of dc-link current uinv , |uN _dc |, and uP _dc with closed-loop compensation converging into a steady state at t4 ,
different commutation error when the motor operates in the regenerative the voltage deviation between |uN _dc | and uP _dc is so small that
mode at 8000 r/min. (a) Delayed commutation error. (b) Advanced com-
mutation error. (c) Commutation error compensated by the proposed the comparator output edge is no longer steep, which indicates
method. that the commutation achieves high-precision compensation.
The converging duration covers 158 electrical periods costing
324 ms approximately. Even though the converging is a bit slow,
it is fast enough for MSCMG’s high-speed BLDCM that rotates
at a constant speed in spacecraft for years.
As shown in Fig. 15, when the proposed compensation method
is introduced to compensate an advanced commutation error
given before t5 , the convergence process is consistent with
that of delayed commutation error compensation. AP and AN
gradually converge to the same value, so do |uN _dc | and uP _dc .
The distortion of the current is also significantly attenuated,
indicating that the commutation error is eliminated.

V. CONCLUSION
In this article, a closed-loop commutation error compensation
method based on error sign detection was proposed. The main
compensation configuration consists of a proposed commutation
error sign detection circuit and a novel iterative compensation
Fig. 14. Delayed commutation error converging process when the algorithm. First, the detecting circuit was employed to obtain a
proposed method is introduced at t0 .
logic level indicating the commutation error type. Then, the logic
level was read by the GPIO of digital processor and mapped to a
flag variable for error correction. Finally, a novel commutation
(AP < AN ). |uN _dc | > uP _dc is obtained leading to So = 0; error iterative compensation method was introduced based on
thus, k0 = −1 is mapped. When the proposed method with the flag variable. Compared with the traditional method, the
initial compensation angle ϕc (0) = k0 ϕinit is introduced at t0 , proposed method used only one GPIO to feed a novel compen-
the commutation error starts to decrease in the negative direction. sation algorithm, and achieved a high-precision commutation
Then, |uN _dc | < uP _dc is achieved at t1 , and So is flipped from error closed-loop compensation under the circumstance of no
0 to 1, resulting in kn = +1. Thus, ϕc (n) starts to increase available ADC channel for commutation compensation feed-
in the positive direction from the overshoot of the negative back quantity construction.

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JIN et al.: ERROR SIGN DETECTION BASED COMPENSATION OF COMMUTATION ERROR 9287

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sorless commutation technique on BLDC motor drives exploiting zero Jinan, China, in 1992 and 1998, respectively,
sequence voltage,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 62, no. 2, pp. 877–886, and the Ph.D. degree in water conservancy and
Feb. 2015. hydropower engineering from the Dalian Univer-
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method for a nonideal back-EMF BLDC motor drive system including sion instruments and machinery from Beihang
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commutation point detection and phase deviation correction method,” Research Institute for Frontier Science, Bei-
IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 34, no. 6, pp. 5880–5892, Jun. 2019. hang University. His research interests include
[17] H. Li, S. Zheng, and H. Ren, “Self-correction of commutation point for permanent magnet motor control and power
high-speed sensorless BLDC motor with low inductance and nonideal electronics.
back EMF,” IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 32, no. 1, pp. 642–651,
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correction method for sensorless coreless BLDC motor based on termi-
Baodong Chen received the B.S. degree in
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control theory and control engineering from
pp. 9460–9472, Dec. 2017.
Shandong University, Jinan, China, in 2013,
[19] S. Chen, X. Zhou, G. Bai, K. Wang, and L. Zhu, “Adaptive commutation
and the Ph.D. degree in precision instrument
error compensation strategy based on a flux linkage function for sensorless
and machinery from Beihang University, Beijing,
brushless DC motor drives in a wide speed range,” IEEE Trans. Power
China, in 2019.
Electron., vol. 33, no. 5, pp. 3752–3764, May 2018.
He is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fel-
[20] G. Liu, C. Cui, K. Wang, B. Han, and S. Zheng, “Sensorless control for
low with the School of Automation Science
high-speed brushless DC motor based on the line-to-line back EMF,” IEEE
and Electrical Engineering, Beihang University.
Trans. Power Electron., vol. 31, no. 7, pp. 4669–4683, Jul. 2016.
His research interests include the high-speed
[21] G. Liu, X. Chen, X. Zhou, and S. Zheng, “Sensorless commutation
permanent magnet motor control and power
deviation correction of brushless DC motor with three-phase asymmetric
electronics.
back-EMF,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 67, no. 7, pp. 6158–6167,
Jul. 2020.

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