A new generalized high‐frequency voltage injection method and mirror‐phase estimation method for sensorless drive of salient‐pole PMSMSs

This paper proposes a new generalized high‐frequency voltage injection method for sensorless drive of salient‐pole permanent‐magnet synchronous motors. The injected high‐frequency voltage has a unique spatially‐rotating elliptical shape, with the amplitudes of both the major and minor axes varying with the motor speed, and can be designed by selecting a design parameter. The high‐frequency current caused by the injected voltage, which has information on the rotor phase to be estimated, is speed‐independent, that is, is not affected by the motor speed at all. Consequently, the rotor phase can be estimated in a wide speed range from zero to the rated speed. By selection of the design parameter, the properties of the high‐frequency current can be adjusted appropriately to the associated motor‐drive system consisting of a motor and an inverter. As a versatile phase estimation method for estimating rotor phase using the high‐frequency current, the “mirror‐phase estimation method” is reconstructed and reproposed. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 168(3): 67–82, 2009; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20803     

A new high‐frequency voltage injection method for sensorless drive of permanent‐magnet synchronous motors with pole saliency

This paper proposes a new sensorless vector control method for salient‐pole permanent‐magnet synchronous motors. In regard to rotor phase estimation, the sensorless vector control method is characterized by a new high‐frequency voltage injection method distinguished from the conventional ones by a unique ellipse shape of the spatial rotation, and by a new PLL method whose input is a high‐frequency current autocorrelated signal. The new vector control method established by two innovative technologies can have the following high‐performance and attractive features: (1) it can allow 250% rated torque at standstill; (2) it can operate from zero to the rated speed under the rated motoring or regenerating load; (3) it accepts instant injection of the rated load even for zero‐speed control; (4) it accommodates a load with huge moment of inertia; (5) phase estimation is very robust against inverter dead time; (6) the computational load for estimating rotor phase is very small, would be the smallest among the methods with comparable performance. This paper presents the new vector control method by focusing on two innovative technologies from its principles to design rules. Usefulness of the new vector control method is verified through extensive experiments. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 164(4): 62–77, 2008; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20632     

Walsh function‐based position sensorless control for interior permanent magnet motor drives using ripple‐current of high‐frequency triangular‐wave‐carrier PWM inverter

This paper proposes the Walsh function‐based position sensorless drive method of a PM motor by using high‐frequency 20‐kHz triangular‐wave‐carrier PWM inverter ripple current. The proposed method uses the Walsh harmonic of PWM inverter ripple current to estimate the motor rotor position. By using the high‐frequency switching ripple current, the period of the rotor position estimation has been decreased and improves the step response of PM motor. The Walsh function makes it possible to use a definite integrator as the Walsh harmonic detector that can separate the small ripple‐current signal from the motor drive‐current signal. The Walsh harmonic detector circuit consists of less parts than the Fourier harmonic detector circuit. The validity of the proposed method was clarified by several experimental results. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 145(3): 80–88, 2003; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.10205     

A General Analytical Method for a Three‐Phase Line‐Start Permanent‐Magnet Synchronous Motor

A line‐start permanent‐magnet synchronous motor (LSPMM) consists of a stator with symmetrical three‐phase armature windings and a salient pole rotor with a permanent magnet for excitation and a starting winding similar to the squirrel‐cage winding of an induction motor. In this paper, a general analytical method based on tensor analysis is proposed for practical performance calculation of a three‐phase LSPMM. The general equation for the currents of the three‐phase LSPMM is derived from the transient impedance tensor expressed in polyphase symmetry axes, and the general equation for vibratory and nonvibratory torques is derived from the current equation. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 185(4): 60–68, 2013; Published online in Wiley Online Library ( wileyonlinelibrary.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.21284     

Calculation of sudden three‐phase short‐circuit current of turbine generators by 3D magnetic field analysis

Sudden three‐phase short‐circuit current of a turbine generator was calculated by a three‐dimensional magnetic field analysis. That analysis takes into account the rotation, magnetic saturation, and eddy current at a rotor part. To compare test results and calculated results, a method was proposed for short‐circuit phase estimation at sudden three‐phase short‐circuit test by line voltage waveform of the test results. The calculated results of short‐circuit current waveform are in good agreement with the test results. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 153(1): 54–62, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20110     

Self‐sensing active magnetic bearings with zero‐bias‐current control

A zero‐bias‐current self‐sensing active magnetic bearing is proposed. One degree‐of‐freedom (DOF) of the rotor is controlled by a pair of electromagnets which are alternatively energized by the proposed circuit. The rotor position of the one DOF is measured by using both electromagnets: the nonenergized electromagnet also contributes to the position sensing. The proposed method gives good linearity in the position estimation. The controller of the magnetic levitation consists of a digital signal processor, DSP, which compensates the nonlinearity of the magnetic force and achieves good damping. In the experiment, the rotor can run at 45,000 min^‐1. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 165(2): 69–76, 2008; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20616     

Speed estimation of induction motor drive using d‐axis slot harmonics and parameter identification method

This paper describes a rotor speed estimation technique of an induction motor, which utlizes slot harmonics on the d‐axis caused by permeance variation across the air gap. The frequency of the slot harmonics is a multiple of the actual rotor speed, and is proportional to the number of rotor slots. In order to extract the slot harmonics, a novel adaptive bandpass filter incorporating coordinate transformation is proposed, which is effective to estimate the rotor speed from 400 to 2000 rpm. This rotor speed estimation is applied to a field‐oriented controller as well as a speed controller. In addition, performance improvement is carried out by compensating a motor parameter mismatch. Feasibility of the proposed technique is confirmed through several tests, using a prototype experimental setup. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 171(2): 50–58, 2010; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www. interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20901     

A new initial‐rotor‐position estimation method for SPM synchronous motors using spatially rotating high‐frequency voltage: A dynamic simulator approach taking flux saturation phenomena into account

First, this paper proposes a new dynamic mathematical model of surface‐mounted permanent magnet synchronous motors (SPMSMs) with flux saturation phenomena, in a stationary reference frame. Second, based on the dynamic model, this paper establishes new dynamic simulators taking flux saturation phenomena into account, which act as very powerful tools for developing initial‐rotor‐position estimation methods for SPMSMs. Third, this paper proposes a new initial‐rotor‐position estimation method for SPMSMs. The proposed method is so simple that it inputs a spatially rotating high‐frequency voltage to SPMSMs, measures current output, and can estimate directly rotor position of N‐pole through norm evaluation of the current. The method exploits flux saturation phenomena inherent to SPMSMs and is insensitive to all motor parameters. According to experiments, the maximum estimation error is about ±0.035 rad (±2^○) in terms of mechanical angle, which is comparable to sensor mounting error and is sufficiently small for initial drive of SPMSMs. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 160(3): 63–73, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience. wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20241     

“Disturbance observers in D‐module” for sensorless drive of synchronous motors—new phase estimation with zero phase lag

This paper proposes two new “disturbance observers in the D‐module” for sensorless drive of synchronous motors including permanent‐magnet synchronous motors and synchronous reluctance motors. The disturbance filter for the observers can estimate speed‐varying rotor phase (in other words, rotor position) with zero phase lag. It is constructed by means of “the filter in the D‐module,” which has the following desired characteristics for variable sensorless drive: (1) it makes distinction between positive and negative frequencies of two‐phase signals; (2) it can allow processing of the signals based on frequency polarities; (3) it can also change dynamically its center frequency of bandpass filtering according to rotor speed estimates; (4) its passband and transition can be designed independently; and (5) it can be easily realized. The new disturbance observers also have a generality such that they contain the recently proposed disturbance observer as a special case. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 167(3): 63–70, 2009; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20602     

Reduction of neutral conductor current in a three‐phase four‐wire low‐voltage distribution line

In a low‐voltage distribution line in a three‐phase four‐wire system, the neutral conductor current is increased by a current consisting mainly of the third harmonic, which has no phase rotation if the balance of the load has been removed, when harmonic generation equipment is included in the load. The increase of this neutral conductor current increases the waveform distortion of the receiving end voltage, and various kinds of waveform interference occur. To reduce the neutral conductor current, insertion of an active filter for the third harmonic wave near the load has been proposed, and a protective effect against waveform interference has also been reported. In this paper, a method for drastically reducing the neutral conductor current by using LC resonance, which is simpler than an active filter, is proposed. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 171(4): 19–27, 2010; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20897     

New sensorless vector control methods based on a new minimum‐order flux state observer in the “D‐module” for permanent magnet synchronous motors

This paper proposes new sensorless vector control methods that can be applied to both salient‐pole and non‐salient‐pole permanent magnet synchronous motors (PMSM). The proposed method estimates the phase of rotor flux by the “D‐module observer,” which is newly developed for sensorless vector controls of PMSM. The “D‐module observer” has the following attractive features. (1) It is a new state observer requiring no additional approximation to the motor mathematical model. (2) It is a minimum‐order state observer. (3) Observer gain guaranteeing proper estimation in a wide operating range except for singular zero‐speed can be a simple constant, and can be easily designed. (4) It utilizes motor parameters in the simplest manner. (5) Its structure is very simple and is realized at the minimum computing cost. (6) It can be applied to both salient‐pole and non‐salient‐pole PMSM. (7) It can be realized in both rotor and stator reference frames. Detailed designs and analyses for the “D‐module observer” and “D‐module observer”‐based sensorless vector control systems in both rotor and stator reference frames are given. Their validity and usefulness are examined and confirmed through extensive experiments. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 151(2): 46–62, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20046     

Experimental investigation of a speed‐sensor‐less IM drive system under Inverter fault‐tolerant control

This paper proposes an algorithm for fault tolerance of three‐phase, inverter‐fed, speed‐sensor‐less control of a three‐phase induction motor drive system. The fault tolerance of the inverter when one switch is open or one leg of six‐switch inverter is lost is considered. The control of the drive system is based on indirect rotor field‐oriented control theory. Also, the speed estimator is based on model reference adaptive system (using stator current and rotor flux as state variables for estimating the speed). The fault‐tolerant algorithm is able to adaptively change over from a six‐switch inverter to a four‐switch inverter topology when a fault occurs; also, it makes a smooth transition of the motor speed, torque, and current when changing over from a faulty condition to a new healthy status, which is four‐switch three‐phase inverter (FSTPI) topology; thus, the six‐switch three‐phase inverter (SSTPI) topology (pre‐fault status) is almost retained for the medium‐power range of induction motor applications. The proposed algorithm is simulated by using the MATLAB/SIMULINK package. Also, the proposed control system is tested experimentally using a digital signal processor (DSP1104). The obtained results from the simulation model and experimental system demonstrate the performance enhancement and good validity of the fault‐tolerance control for the speed‐sensor‐less induction motor drive system. © 2016 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

A damping of rotor natural vibration in three‐phase hybrid stepping motors

This paper proposes a damping method of rotor natural vibration in three‐phase hybrid stepping motors, in which optimal commutation signals are calculated from the period of the natural vibration measured by detecting the motor voltages. Moreover, an acceleration and deceleration pattern is derived from a simple model of the rotor vibration, to suppress undesirable transient oscillation in acceleration, deceleration, and positioning operations. An experimental drive system has been implemented and tested to confirm the effectiveness and versatility of the proposed method. Some experimental results show that the experimental system can damp the rotor natural vibration even if the rotor inertia varies. Compared with the conventional pattern, it is confirmed that the proposed pattern makes a great contribution to damping the undesirable transient oscillations. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 144(3): 69–77, 2003; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.10153     

Optimal current control methods of a non‐salient pole hybrid field‐synchronous motor for energy‐efficient and wide speed‐range operation

This paper proposes new practical optimal current control methods for a newly emerging class of non‐salient pole synchronous motors with hybrid rotor fields by both permanent magnet and winding. In practical situations with limited voltage, the extensively used permanent magnet synchronous motor hardly achieves an ideal performance that allows simultaneously both low‐speed high‐torque and wide speed‐range operations, due to its constant magnet field. Hybrid field synchronous motors (HFSM) have recently emerged to achieve ideal performance as practical motors with controllable hybrid rotor field. For HFSM, the same torque can be produced by a variety of currents due to nonlinearity between torque and currents. Consequently, appropriate determination of a set of stator and rotor current commands plays a key role in achieving possible energy‐efficient and wide speed‐range operation. Proposed methods determine the current commands corresponding to a given torque command such that total winding copper loss due to stator and rotor currents can be minimized if the exact solution exists; the best approximate torque can be produced if no exact solution exists. The determined current commands are optimal in the sense of energy efficiency or degree of approximation in wide speed‐range operation under voltage limit. New real‐time recursive algorithms searching the optimal current solution are also given. The proposed methods are analytical but practical, and their usefulness is verified through experiments. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 156(1): 70–83, 2006; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience. wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20156     

A new variable‐speed,constant‐frequency,stand‐alone power generating system

Variable‐speed and constant‐frequency power generating systems using rotor excitation of the wound‐rotor induction machines have been used for such applications as variable‐speed pump generators and flywheel energy storage systems. However, the stand‐alone generating system of this type has only been reported and has not yet been practically used. On the other hand, the stand‐alone generating systems using diesel engines have been widely used for emergency supplies of plants or isolated islands and so on. However, in these cases, synchronous generators are usually used. If the output frequency is to be kept constant, there is the need to control the speed of the engine using a high‐performance governor. Even then, the output frequency changes in the case of a sudden load change. This paper proposes a new stand‐alone power generating system. In this system, the constant‐frequency output voltage can be obtained even though rotor speed changes by several percent. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 146(2): 75–85, 2004; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.10191     

New generalized D‐state observers for sensorless drive of permanent‐magnet synchronous motors. Impact of rotor flux harmonics to fundamental component estimate

This paper proposes new generalized D‐state observers as new minimum‐order flux state observers for sensorless drive of permanent‐magnet synchronous motors. The proposed generalized D‐state observers, which are established by a new approach using filters in the D‐module, contain the conventional D‐state observer as a special case, and the associated observer gain also contains the conventional one for the conventional D‐state observer as a special case. Consequently, the proposed generalized D‐state observers provide designers with a higher degree of design flexibility. In addition, for generalized D‐state observers, this paper presents a new analysis of the error in estimation of the rotor flux fundamental component due to rotor flux harmonics originating from nonsinusoidal magnetization, which has hitherto been an unsolved problem. It is analytically shown and verified by numerical experiments that harmonics appear in the flux estimate in a similar manner to the original rotor flux harmonics from the viewpoint of rotor phase error. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 169(2): 37–47, 2009; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20768     

A method to determine direct‐ and quadrature‐axis inductances of permanent magnet synchronous motors

The equivalent circuit constants of permanent magnet synchronous motors are needed in the calculation of operation characteristics, construction of a control system, etc. These constants can be computed from the data on structural form and materials. However, measurements are necessary to obtain highly precise values. Methods for measurement of the d‐ and q‐axis inductances can be roughly divided into rotational and standstill methods. The standstill methods have the advantage that they are easy to carry out. However, it is difficult to consider magnetic saturation and distortion of the change in the armature winding inductance. The accuracy of the standstill method can be improved if these effects can be readily taken into account. This paper describes a standstill method for measuring accurate d‐ and q‐axis synchronous inductances of permanent magnet synchronous motors. By utilizing the fact that the EMF interference terms in the motor voltage equation considering the distortion of the inductance change are equal to zero when the rotor is in a specific position, the proposed method determines the inductances considering both magnetic saturation and inductance distortion effects from simple off‐line standstill testing. In addition, this method is capable of taking cross‐magnetic saturation into account when used with the necessary testing equipment. The proposed method was implemented on a 0.4‐kW interior permanent magnet synchronous motor with concentrated stator winding. The validity of the proposed method was demonstrated by comparing the measured and calculated results of the no‐load and on‐load characteristics. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 171(3): 41–50, 2010; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20969     

Rotor position estimation method of IPMSM using HF signal injection and sliding‐mode controller

This paper presents a simplified algorithm for the estimation of rotor position. A high‐frequency (HF) sinusoidal voltage is injected into the stator of a motor. An interior permanent magnet synchronous motor (IPMSM) has spatial saliency because the d‐ and q‐axis inductances are different from each other. The injected HF voltage is influenced by this saliency. Therefore, the rotor position is included in the stator current of the motor. The proposed method uses different synchronous reference frame transformations (SFTs) to extract the rotor position error between the estimated value and actual value. Also, a sliding‐mode controller is used for robustness against parameter variation and external disturbance. The experimental results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method by showing waveforms of the rotor speed and position with load conditions. © 2014 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

PML absorbing boundary condition for the integral‐based high‐order FV24 FDTD algorithm

An integral equations‐based perfectly matched layers (PML) implementation is presented for the highly phase‐coherent FV24 finite‐difference time‐domain (FDTD) algorithm. The implementation allows including field values off the grid axes in the split‐field PML formulation conserving in the process the continuity and phase coherency of the FV24 algorithm when modeling absorbing boundary conditions (ABCs). It also eliminates the need for cumbersome subgridded low‐order FDTD subregions that until now were required to model PML ABCs within integral‐based high‐order FDTD simulations. The developed approach was numerically tested and found to match the PML behavior of the standard FDTD method at normal wave incidence on ABC boundaries and exceeds it at highly oblique wave incidence. This development serves to improve the capability and practicality of the computationally efficient FV24 algorithm when modeling electrically large structures in 3‐D space. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A 6.6‐kV transformerless cascade PWM STATCOM. Experimental verification by a three‐phase 200‐V, 10‐kVa laboratory system

This paper deals with a 6.6‐kV transformerless STATCOM cascading multiple single‐phase H‐bridge PWM converters in each phase. The AC voltage of the STATCOM is almost sinusoidal, so that it requires no harmonic filter. Each converter is equipped with a capacitor and a voltage sensor on the DC side, which are electrically isolated from each other. The STATCOM has the capability of self‐starting and voltage‐balancing without any external power supply or equipment. Experiments using a three‐phase 200‐V, 10‐kVA laboratory system, along with computer simulations, are carried out to confirm the viability and effectiveness of the STATCOM. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 170(1): 55–64, 2010; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley. com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20822