Sensorless Field Oriented Control of Synchronous Machines for Low and High Speeds with Space Vector Modulation-Based Direct Flux Control Measurement Sequence

Abstract

During the last decade, field oriented control has often been implemented with space vector modulation due to its inherent advantages over other modulation techniques. On the other hand, direct flux control is a method that estimates the rotor electrical position of synchronous machines (e.g., permanent magnet synchronous motors) using only voltage measurements. In simple terms, direct flux control replaces position sensors by measuring the voltage difference between the star point of the synchronous machine and an artificial star point at particular instants during the switching pattern. Indeed, previous work dealt with direct flux control resorting exclusively to sinusoidal pulse width modulation and mostly in open-loop speed control schemes. This paper aims to present a space vector modulation-based direct flux control measurement sequence that can be used directly with field oriented control to perform sensorless speed control of synchronous machines. In contrast with previous publications, the direct flux control measurement sequence proposed in this paper not only extracts the direct flux control flux linkage signals with the same offset level but also obtains the phase currents needed for field oriented control without current ripple. In simple terms, the proposed direct flux control measurement sequence based on space vector modulation can be used with field oriented control to perform sensorless closed-loop speed control of synchronous machines. The sensorless speed control with the space vector modulation-based direct flux control sequence is validated for high speeds (80% of the nominal speed) and low speeds (6% of the nominal speed) using a high-fidelity four-pole synchronous machine’s simulation model implemented in ANSYS Simplorer and Maxwell.