Research on auxiliary resonant commutated pole inverter for driving brushless DC motor

Abstract

The brushless DC motor is generally used in small satellite flywheel systems due to its good control performance and structure robustness. However, its driving inverter still suffers from hard-switching that leads to higher loss and larger heatsink requirement. The resulting low power density and EMI problems have been a great challenge for the space satellite applications. This paper describes a novel auxiliary resonant commutated pole inverter (ARCPI) for driving the brushless DC motor. An inserted inductor is controlled to resonant with the buffer capacitor of the inverter’s lower arm switches; a resonant capacitor is paralleled with the inductor branch as well. Zero-current switching and zero-voltage switching conditions are therefore realized for the switches of the entire circuit. The reverse recovery problem of diodes are also avoided by zero current turning-off. The working states of the proposed novel ARCPI inverter are analyzed and the mathematical model for every state is established. Furthermore, the parameter design is discussed to provide soft-switching conditions. Finally, the proposed ARCPI inverter is applied for driving a brushless DC motor. A voltage/current double closed control loop is designed for the motor controller and the system simulation setup is built. The simulation results prove that soft-switching operation is realized for all of the switches; the proposed inverter is effective for driving brushless DC motors. Besides, the motor current fluctuation decreases by 45.7%. The motor torque and the motor speed present with good control performance as well.