Fault-tolerant cruise control of electric vehicles with induction motors

Abstract

A fault-tolerant control scheme is proposed for the cruise control of electric vehicles (trains, cars) that make use of induction motors. It relies on a rotor speed reference generator and on a flux observer which is adaptive with respect to the uncertain rotor and stator resistances and to the load torque as well. The closed loop on-line identification of those three critical uncertain parameters allows for: (i) on-line estimating and imposing the motor flux modulus reference value which minimizes power losses at steady-state and improves power efficiency; (ii) the on-line detection of speed sensor faults as well as the fast switching on redundant motor speed sensors. CarSim simulations illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.