Enhancement and Performance Analysis for Modified 12 Sector-Based Direct Torque Control of AC Motors: Experimental Validation

Abstract

Direct torque control (DTC) is a promising control algorithm that is characterized by simplicity and effective performance for the AC motors drive systems. The design of the switching table is an important issue that directly affects the performance of the motor drive. The majority of the prior literature relies on the researcher’s knowledge when establishing the voltage vectors of the switching table to be applied to the inverter. Consequently, torque and flux ripples can still be large. In this paper, a modified twelve sector-based DTC is proposed to improve the AC motor drive. The proposed drive system offers several contributions, such as very low torque ripple reduction, faster dynamics, and reduced stator flux ripples compared to the classical DTC. Additionally, the proposed controller can provide high robustness at very low speed under parameter variation. The analytically developed switching table also contributes to reducing the switching frequency ratio between 40% to 50%. The aim of the aforementioned improvements is to obtain a quiet operation of the induction motor without vibration or audible noise. Simulation results of the proposed method were performed in MATLAB/Simulink environment. Furthermore, for the sake of validation and effectiveness of the method, experimental tests were conducted using dSPACE based platform. Finally, a fair comparison of both the proposed and classical methods was performed that revealed the superiority of the proposed strategy.