Reliable speed control of a permanent magnet DC motor using fault-tolerant H-bridge

Soban Ahmed,Zaeema Wajid,Faizan Ahmad,Arslan Ahmed Amin

doi:10.1177/1687814020970311

Abstract

Reliable, smooth, and fault free speed control of a Permanent Magnet (PM) DC motor using an H-bridge is an important need for many industrial applications such as robotics, automotive, and process industry to improve the overall efficiency and productivity. The reliability of H-bridge depends on the semiconductor switches used. The faults in these components can lead to a complete failure of the system. This paper presents a dual redundancy-based fault-tolerant system with a Fault Detection and Isolation (FDI) unit that can detect, isolate, and replace the faulty switch with the standby to prevent the unwanted shut down of the system and support the process continuity thereby increasing reliability. MATLAB/Simulink environment was used for simulation experiments and the results demonstrate the stable operation of the motor in the events of faults while maintaining its speed. The presented work establishes that the dual redundancy-based fault-tolerant H-bridge with the FDI unit is a highly reliable solution for the speed control of a DC motor.

Highlights

Fault-tolerant controlFault-Tolerant Control (FTC) strategies are utilized to improve the reliability of the machines by preventing events failure due to faults
When a Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) signal is applied to SW1 and logic high to SW4, the insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) would make a full path from Vs to the GND and this makes the motor rotate in the forward direction
Likewise, when the PWM signal is applied to SW3 and logic high to SW2, the IGBTs would make a full path from Vs to the GND and this makes the motor rotate in the reverse direction

Summary

Introduction

Fault-Tolerant Control (FTC) strategies are utilized to improve the reliability of the machines by preventing events failure due to faults. The active analytical redundancy consists of fault detection, its isolation, and reconfiguration of a controller but that makes it a complex, high computational and slow in performance, it has the advantage of incorporating a wide range of faults. It does not require an FDI unit and during the design stage, all possible faults are assumed. When a PWM signal is applied to SW1 and logic high to SW4, the IGBTs would make a full path from Vs to the GND and this makes the motor rotate in the forward direction. Likewise, when the PWM signal is applied to SW3 and logic high to SW2, the IGBTs would make a full path from Vs to the GND and this makes the motor rotate in the reverse direction. The mathematical representation is given as:[3]

Literature review

Research methodology

Results and discussion