Position Control for Hysteresis Motors: Transient-Time Model and Field-Oriented Control

Abstract

This paper studies the modeling and field-oriented control (FOC) for hysteresis motors, with the goal of achieving position control of hysteresis motors for servo applications. Hysteresis motors include a wide range of machines with solid cylindrical or ring-shaped steel rotors, which generate torque primarily via the magnetic hysteresis effect of the rotor material. Previously, hysteresis motors have been mainly used under open-loop operation. However, they are also attractive for position control in some special applications such as in-vacuum operation or when smooth running and high speed is required. In this paper, an equivalent circuit model for hysteresis motors that describes the motor's transient-time dynamics is introduced, and a state-space model for hysteresis motors is developed. This model is used to construct a rotor flux orientation observer for the FOC for hysteresis motors. Three methods for estimating the rotor field angle are introduced. The proposed FOC-based position control method was tested with three hysteresis motors, including two custom-made motors of different rotor materials and one off-the-shelf hysteresis motor. Experimental results show that position control for all three hysteresis motors can reach a bandwidth of 130 Hz with the proposed methods. To the authors’ best knowledge, this is the first experimental study on FOC and position control for hysteresis motors.