Numerical Simulation and Experimental Verification of Fractional-Order PIλ Controller for Solar PV Fed Sensorless Brushless DC Motor using Whale Optimization Algorithm

Abstract

This article presents a novel Whale Optimization Algorithm (WOA) approach for optimal tuning of Fractional-Order Proportional Integral and integral-order Controller (FOPIλ) is used to solar Photo-Voltaic (PV) fed sensorless speed control of Permanent Magnet Brushless DC (PMBLDC) motor under the various operating condition such as (i) speed change by set speed command signal, (ii) solar PV output voltage variations, (iii) varying load conditions, (iv) integrated conditions, and (v) controller parameters uncertainty. The PMBLDC motor is remarkably robust speed control against the uncertainties, Solar PV output power fluctuation, external load disturbances, the nonlinearity characteristics, and poor controllability. To overcome this above limitation, optimization algorithms are proposed namely Bat Algorithm (BA), Grey Wolf Optimization (GWO), and WOA optimized FOPIλ controllers. To develop a MATLAB 2019a/Simulink model of FOPIλ controller for Solar PV-fed sensorless speed control of PMBLDC motor using BA, GWO, and WOA and corresponding numerical simulation results are carried out under various working conditions. It shows the effectiveness of the proposed controllers is completely verified by comparing the above three intelligent optimization techniques. It is evident that out of these three intelligent controllers, the WOA-optimized FOPIλ controller for solar PV-fed sensorless speed control of PMBLDC motor gives enhanced performance by minimizing the time domain parameters, performance indices error, convergence time, control efforts, cost function, mean, and standard deviation.