1

Module - 5
Control of Electric Traction Machines

By
Dr. Jayasankar V N
Associate Professor
Department of EEE
The National Institute of Engineering Mysuru

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 Induction Motor Control 2

There are majorly three types of motor control techniques commonly used for induction
motor.
1. Variable voltage variable frequency control
2. Field Oriented Control
i. Direct FOC
ii. Indirect FOC
3. Direct torque control

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 Induction Motor Control 3

a) Variable voltage variable frequency control (VVVF control)

• For traction application, the torque–speed characteristic of an induction motor can be

varied by simultaneously controlling the voltage and frequency, which is known as the
VVVF control.
120𝑓
𝑁𝑠 =
𝑝
𝑁𝑟 = 𝑁𝑠 1 − 𝑠

• The synchronous speed of the motor can be varied by varying frequency, and thus the
rotor speed also varies.
𝐸 ∝ ∅𝑓
• When supply frequency is decreased with constant supply voltage, flux increases, which
may result in core saturation.
• To avoid this, when frequency is decreased, voltage is also decreased to keep the flux
constant.

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 Induction Motor Control - VVVF 4

• The motor speed (𝜔𝑚 ) is sensed and

the slip speed (𝜔𝑠𝑙 ) is calculated using
slip-speed controller, based on the
region of operation.
• From the slip-speed and the rotor
speed, synchronous speed (𝜔𝑠𝑦𝑛 ) is
computed.
• The supply frequency (𝜔) is computed
and the supply voltage required (𝑉𝑠 ) is
also computed using the (𝑉𝑠 −𝜔)
characteristics, based on the region of
operation.
• The voltage and frequency input to
the motor are varied by controlling
General configuration of constant V/f control
the duty cycle of inverter switches.

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 Induction Motor Control - VVVF 5

a) Speed control below base speed – Constant Torque

• From 0 to base speed operation, for a constant load

torque, the speed can be increased by increasing
frequency, keeping (v/f) constant.
𝑣 2
• As torque 𝑇𝑚𝑎𝑥 ∝ , with the constant (v/f), the
𝑓
maximum torque is constant with varying frequency.
• Therefore, from 0 to base speed, its constant torque
operation.
• At the base speed of the motor, the voltage reaches its
rated value and cannot be increased further with the
frequency.
Torque-speed characteristics
below base speed

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 Induction Motor Control - VVVF 6

b) Speed control above base speed – Constant Power

• When motor speed is beyond its base speed, the

voltage is fixed to its rated value and the frequency
increases continuously with the motor speed.
• The motor goes into the field weakening operation.
• The slip s is fixed to its rated value corresponding to
the rated frequency, and the rotor speed increases
linearly with the motor speed.
• This control approach results in constant power
operation.

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 Induction Motor Control - VVVF 7

c) Speed control above rated speed

• In traction applications, speed control

in a wide range is usually required and
control beyond constant power range
is required.
• Beyond the critical speed, the motor is
operated at the slip for the maximum
torque.
• Both the current and power of the
motor are allowed to decrease
inversely with speed, and the torque
decreases inversely as the speed
squared
Operating variables varying with motor speed

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 Induction Motor Control - VVVF 8

Drawbacks of VVVF control:

• It should be noted that both the torque and air-gap flux under the V/f control are
functions of voltage and frequency.
• This coupling effect is actually responsible for the sluggish response.
• That is, the corresponding torque control is not fast and accurate enough for application
to high-performance EVs.
• The constant volt/hertz control of the induction motor is more suitably applied to the
motors that operate with relative slow speed regulation.
• However, this approach shows poor response to frequent and fast speed varying, and
also results in poor operation efficiency due to the poor power factor.

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 Induction Motor Control - Field-Oriented Control 9

• FOC (vector control) mostly overcomes the disadvantages of the constant volt/hertz
control in AC motor drives.
• The FOC can decouple the field control from the torque control, by maintaining the
stator field perpendicular to the rotor field so as to always produce the maximum
torque as in DC motors.
• A field-oriented induction motor emulates a separately excited DC motor in two
aspects:
o Both the magnetic field and the torque developed in the motor can be controlled
independently.
o Optimal conditions for torque production, resulting in the maximum torque per
unit ampere, occur in the motor both in the steady state and in transient
conditions of operations.
• However, for induction motors, phase voltages are the only accesses for the purpose
of control.
• Accurate control of instantaneous torque produced by a motor is required in high-
performance drive systems, such as EV and HEV propulsions.

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 Induction Motor Control - Field-Oriented Control 10

• Basically there are two types of FOC:

(i) Direct FOC

o In direct field orientation systems, the magnitude and angular position (phase)
of the reference flux vector are either measured or estimated from the stator
voltage and current using flux observers.
(ii) Indirect FOC
o The indirect approach is to obtain the rotor flux position by the calculation of
the slip speed required for correct field orientation, and the imposition of this
speed on the motor.

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 Induction Motor Control – Direct FOC 11

• The rotor flux magnitude and angular position are calculated using the rotor flux observers. The
input to this flux observers are hall sensor outputs and the motor currents.
• Using the rotor flux observer outputs and motor currents, torque calculator calculates the torque.
• The field and torque are controlled independently using field controller and torque controller,
implemented using PI controllers.

Vector control system for an induction motor with direct rotor flux orientation
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 Induction Motor Control – Direct FOC 12

∗
• Field controller generate the control signal 𝑖ds in dqo
frame by comparing the target rotor flux, λ∗𝑟 and the
actual rotor flux, λr .
• Torque controller generate the control signal 𝑖qs∗ in dq0

frame by comparing the target torque 𝑇 ∗ with the actual

torque, T.
∗ ∗ in dq0 frame are transferred into phase
• Then 𝑖𝑑𝑠 and 𝑖𝑞𝑠 Vector control system for an induction motor with
current signals 𝑖𝑎𝑠∗ ∗
, 𝑖𝑏𝑠 ∗
and 𝑖𝑐𝑠 through dq0 to abc direct rotor flux orientation
transformation.
• The phase current signals are compared with the actual phase currents of motor and the pulses for
controlling the inverter switches are computed using hysteresis current controller.
• This method requires the placement of vulnerable Hall sensors in the air gap of the motor, to the
detriment of the cost and reliability of the drive system.

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 Induction Motor Control – Indirect FOC 13

• The presence of vulnerable Hall sensors in vector control with direct rotor flux orientation would
weaken the reliability and enhance the cost of the motor drive.
• The indirect approach is to obtain the rotor flux position by the calculation of the slip speed, ωr
required for correct field orientation, and the imposition of this speed on the motor
• The rotor flux and developed torque are controlled in a feedforward manner.

Vector control system for an induction motor with indirect rotor flux orientation
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 Induction Motor Control – Indirect FOC 14

• The rotor position is sensed using an external

sensor.
• The target torque and flux are calculated
using torque controller and field controller.
• From the target rotor flux and target torque,
the slip speed can be computed.
∗
𝐿𝑚 (𝑇 ∗ )
=𝜔𝑠𝑙
𝜏𝑟 𝐾𝑇 𝜆∗𝑟 Vector control system for an induction
where, 𝐿𝑚 = magnetizing inductance, 𝜏𝑟 = motor time motor with indirect rotor flux orientation
constant, 𝐾𝑇 = torque constant
• The rotor flux position (𝜃e ) can be calculated using the equation
𝑡
∗
𝜃𝑠𝑙 = න 𝜔𝑠𝑙 𝑑𝑡 + 𝜃𝑟 where, 𝜃r is the rotor position sensed
0

∗ ∗ in dq0 frame are calculated using torque and flux

• The control signals 𝑖ds and 𝑖qs
references.
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 Induction Motor Control – Indirect FOC 15

∗ ∗ in dq0 reference
• Furthermore, 𝑖𝑑𝑠 and 𝑖𝑞𝑠
frame are transferred into phase current
∗ , 𝑖 ∗ and 𝑖 ∗ through dq0 to abc
signals 𝑖𝑎𝑠 𝑏𝑠 𝑐𝑠
transformation.
• The phase current signals are compared with
the actual phase currents of motor and the
pulses for controlling the inverter switches
Vector control system for an induction
are computed using hysteresis current motor with indirect rotor flux orientation
controller.
• The performance of the system in indirect FOC strongly depends on an accurate knowledge of
motor parameters, a requirement that is difficult to satisfy in practical applications.
• On the other hand, a major advantage of such a system is that a standard motor can be used,
whose rotor position is easily measurable by an external sensor.

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 Induction Motor Control - Direct Torque Control 16

• This scheme is to directly control the stator flux

linkage and the torque by properly selecting the
switching modes of the voltage-fed PWM inverter.

• Here, we restrict the torque and flux errors within the

respective torque and flux hysteresis bands, hence to
achieve faster torque response and flexible control.

• The electromagnetic torque can be expressed in terms

of rotor flux linkage(λr), stator flux linkage(λs) and
angle(γ) between them.

𝑇𝑒 ∝ 𝜆𝑠 𝜆𝑟 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝛾 Direct torque control of IM

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 Induction Motor Control - Direct Torque Control 17

• The flux and torque estimator estimates the stator flux and electromagnetic torque from the
voltage and current inputs.
• The torque command 𝑇𝑒 * and flux command 𝜆𝑠 ∗ are compared with the respective estimated
values, and the errors (∆𝑇𝑒 and ∆𝜆𝑠 ) are processed through the respective hysteresis controllers,
which are defined as

where, HT and Hλ are the hysteresis bands for torque and flux respectively.

• The sector of SVPWM is selected based on the estimated angle.

• Based on δ𝑇𝑒 and δ𝜆𝑠 and the sector, the switching pulses can be generated to control the inverter.

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 Permanent Magnet Motor Drives – PMSM control 18

Vector control (FOC)

• In order to implement the FOC, the sensed currents are first transformed from the a–b–c frame
into the d–q frame.
• For such transformation, the flux angle 𝜃 is required which is deduced from the position sensor
such as a position encoder or resolver.

Field-oriented control of PM synchronous motor

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 Permanent Magnet Motor Drives – PMSM control 19

Vector control (FOC)

• In general, the deviation between the reference speed
and feedback speed is used to deduce the q-axis
current reference via the speed controller.
• Similarly, d-axis current reference is deduced with
flux-weakening controller.
• Since the back EMF grows with the speed, the speed
range can only be extended by reducing the air-gap
Field-oriented control of PM synchronous motor
flux, the so-called flux-weakening operation.
• Thus, the torque decreases while the speed increases, leading to keep the power constant, the so-
called constant-power operation.
• In order to realize the flux-weakening control of the PM synchronous motor, the current and
voltage vectors, should be controlled in such a way that the d-axis armature current is negative,
while the q-axis armature current is positive.
• The d and q axes currents are transformed into abc frame, compared with actual inverter currents
using a hysteresis controller to generate pulses for the inverter switches.

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 Permanent Magnet Motor Drives – BLDC control 20

• The torque is produced by the interaction of magnetic field and current.

• The magnetic field is produced in BLDC by the PM, and the current depends on the source
voltage control, and the back EMF, which is determined by the magnetic field and speed of
the machine.
• To obtain the desired torque and speed at a given load, the current needs to be controlled.

Block diagram of the torque and speed control of the BLDC motor.

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 Permanent Magnet Motor Drives – BLDC control 21

• Constant Torque Control – (Current chopping control)

• To drive the motor with maximum and constant torque per
ampere, it is desired that the line current pulses be synchronized
with the line-neutral back EMF voltages of the particular phase.
• The commutation angle associated with a brushless motor is
normally set so that the motor will commutate around the peak of
the torque angle curve.
• Using position information, the commutation sequencer causes
the inverter to “electronically commutate,” acting as the
mechanical commutator of a conventional DC machine.
• Considering a three-phase motor, connected in Delta or wye,
commutation occurs at electrical angles, which are plus or minus
30◦ (electrical) from the peaks of the torque–angle curves.
• When the motor position moves beyond the peaks by an amount
equal to 30◦ (electrical), then the commutation sensors cause the
stator phase excitation to switch to move the motor suddenly to
−30◦ relative to the peak of the next torque–angle curve.

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 Permanent Magnet Motor Drives – BLDC control 22

• Constant Torque Control (cont.) – (Current chopping control)

• The controller blocks, “speed controller” maybe any type of classical controller such as a
proportional-integral (PI) controller or a more advanced controller such as an artificial
intelligence control and generates torque reference T*.
• The reference current generator computes current reference I* from T* using the
mathematical relation between current and torque.
• The commutation sequencer receive the position information from the position sensors, and
generates the properly sequenced gating signals.
• The current controller compares the sensed currents to the reference to maintain a constant
peak current control by hysteresis (current chopping) or with a voltage source (PWM)-type
current control.
• These gating signals are sent to the three-phase inverter (power converter) to produce the
desired phase current to the BLDC machine.

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 Permanent Magnet Motor Drives – BLDC control 23

• Constant Power Control (Advance angle control)

• When the PMBLDC motor operates at speeds higher than the base speed, it runs out of time
to enable the phase current reaching the desired level because of the small difference between
the applied voltage and back EMF.
• At this speed, the phase current may just reach the desired level and then be turned off at the
end of the conduction period.
• By purposely advancing the turn-on angle of the phase current, the phase current can have
sufficient time to rise up and keep the current in phase with the back EMF under high-speed
operation.
• It can be found that the constant-power operation region can be significantly extended by
gradually increasing the phase-advance angle.

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 Permanent Magnet Motor Drives – BLDC control 24

• Constant Power Control (Advance angle control)

• When the turn on angle of phase current in advanced compared to the back emf of the corresponding
phase, at the beginning of conduction with a lower back EMF, the phase current quickly rises up and
the inductance EMF (L dij ∕dt) is positive, which indicates that electromagnetic energy is stored in the
phase winding.
• The phase current reaches the maximum value when the back EMF equals the applied voltage. After
that, the back EMF is larger than the applied voltage.
• The phase winding begins to release the electromagnetic energy and the phase current decreases
gradually.
• Since the corresponding inductance EMF becomes negative, it assists the applied voltage to counteract
the back EMF.
• By varying the phase-advance angle, the phase current waveform is shaped in such a way that the phase
current is properly regulated.
• Therefore, this phase-advance angle control can produce an equivalent flux-weakening effect to
achieve the constant-power operation of the PM BLDC motor.

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 SRM Drives - Speed Control 25

• Constant Torque – Current chopping control

• For SRM, there is a speed at which the back EMF is
equal to the DC bus voltage. This speed is defined as the
base speed. Below the base speed, the back EMF is lower
than the DC bus voltage.
• When the converter switches are turned on or off to
energize or de-energize the phase, the phase current will
rise or drop accordingly.
• The phase current amplitude can be regulated from 0 to
the rated value by turning on or off the switches.
• Maximum torque is available in this case when the phase
is turned on at an unaligned position and turned off at the
aligned position and the phase current is regulated at the
rated value by hysteresis or PWM control.

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 SRM Drives - Speed Control – CCC mode 26

• Constant Torque – Current chopping control

• In the CCC mode, the turn-on angle θon and the turn-off
angle θoff should coincide with the rotor positions θ1 and
θ2 of the positive slope region of the phase inductance,
respectively.
• Taking into account the inevitable rise time or fall time,
it is practically necessary to turn the switches on in
advance by θa = θ1−θon and turn them off in advance by
θb = θ2 − θoff .
• It should be noted that both θa and θb are dependent on
the phase current and rotor speed.

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 SRM Drives - Speed Control – AAC mode 27

• Constant Power – Advance Angle Control

• Above the base speed, the back EMF is higher than
the DC bus voltage. The phase current is limited by
the back EMF.
• At the rotor position—at which the phase has a
positive inductance slope with respect to the rotor
position—the phase current may drop even if the
switches of the power inverter are turned on.
• In order to build high current and therefore produce
high motoring torque in the SRM, the phase is
usually excited ahead of the unaligned position, and
the turn-on position is gradually advanced as the
rotor speed increases.

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 SRM Drives - Speed Control – AAC mode 28

• Constant Power – Advance Angle Control

• The back EMF increases with the rotor speed. This
leads to a decrease in the phase current and hence the
torque drops.
• If the turn-on position is advanced for building as high
as possible a current in the SRM phase, the maximum
SRM torque almost drops as a linear function of the
reciprocal of the rotor speed.
• The maximum power of the SRM drive is almost
constant

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 SRM Drives - Speed Control 29

• Natural Mode of operation

• Beyond the critical speed of the motor ωc at which both
θon and θoff reach their limit values, no phase advancing is
allowable and the torque drops significantly.
• The SR motor can no longer keep constant-power
operation and offers the natural mode of operation.
• The torque-speed capability of the SR motor covering all
operating regions, namely the constant-torque operation,
constant-power operation, and natural operation, which
are desirable for EV low-speed urban driving, medium-
speed suburban driving, and high-speed highway Torque-speed capability of SR motor
cruising, respectively.

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 SRM Drives – Torque Ripple Minimisation Control 30

• The key drawback of SR motors is the high torque ripple as compared to other conventional
AC machines.
• Their torque ripple is mainly due to the discrete excitation of phase windings for torque
production.
• It is particularly severe during commutation between two adjacent phases. In general, there
are two approaches to reduce such torque ripple:
• design methods
• control strategies
• Among various control strategies, the direct instantaneous torque control and torque-sharing
function (TSF) have gained attention for TRM control of SR motors.
• The TSF takes the definite advantage of easier implementation and higher cost-effectiveness.
• The TSF is a function with respect to rotor position to properly distribute the reference
torque among all phases in such a way that the sum of all the individual phase torques is
equal to the desired torque.

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 SRM Drives – Torque Ripple Minimisation Control 31

• The basis of this technique is that the desired torque is

shared by two phases during the commutation period.
• There are many TSFs that have been developed for TRM
control of SR motors.
• They can be basically classified as the linear and
nonlinear functions.
• In the linear TSF, the torque produced by the phases
during commutation changes linearly with the rotor
position
• In the nonlinear TSF, the torque during commutation
changes nonlinearly with the rotor position.

𝜃i, 𝜃f , and 𝜃ov denote the initial angle, final Torque transfer functions:
(a) linear and (b) nonlinear
angle, and overlap angle of the commutation
region

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 SRM Drives – Sensor-less Control 32

• The existing sensor-less control methods can be classified as follows:

1. The phase flux linkage-based method.
2. The phase inductance-based method.
3. Modulated signal injected methods.
4. The mutual-induced voltage-based method.
5. Observer-based methods

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 SRM Drives – Sensor-less Control 33

Phase Flux Linkage-Based Method

• This method uses the phase voltage and current data of the active phases to estimate the rotor
position.
• The basic principle of this method is to use the functional relation between the phase flux linkage,
phase current, and rotor position for rotor position detection.
• The problem with this sensorless control method is the inaccurate estimation of the phase flux
linkage at low speed.
Phase Inductance-Based Method
• Similar to the phase flux linkage, the phase bulk and incremental inductances are both functions of
the phase current and rotor position, hence, they can also be used for rotor position estimation.
• The estimated phase bulk inductance and measured phase current can be input to a prestored look-
up table storing the functional relation between the phase bulk inductance and phase current and
rotor position, to find the corresponding rotor position.

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 SRM Drives – Sensor-less Control 34

Modulated Signal Injection Methods

• These methods are to apply a voltage to the idle phase winding and measure the resultant phase
current to detect the phase inductance.
• This derived phase inductance will provide the rotor position information.
• Both an extra-low amplitude voltage source and the power converter can be used to apply a
voltage to the phase winding.
Mutual-Induced Voltage-Based Method
• The idea of this method is based on measuring the mutually induced voltage in an idle phase,
which is either adjacent or opposite to the energized phase of an SRM.
• The mutual voltage in the “off” phase, induced due to the current in the active phase, varies
significantly with respect to the rotor position.
• If the functional relation between the mutually induced voltage in the inactive phase and the rotor
position is known, the rotor position information can be extracted.
• This method is only suitable for low-speed operation and it is very sensitive to noise since the ratio
between induced voltage and system noise is small.

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 SRM Drives – Sensor-less Control 35

Observer-Based Methods
• In this method, state-space equations are used to describe the dynamic behavior of the SRM drive.
• An observer is then developed based on these nonlinear state-space differential equations for
estimation of the rotor position.
• The input and output of this observer are phase voltage and phase current, respectively.
• The state variables of this observer are stator flux linkage, rotor position angle, and rotor speed.
• The main disadvantages of these methods are real-time implementation of complex algorithms,
which require a high-speed DSP and a significant amount of stored data.
• This increases the cost and speed limitations by the DSP.
• However, high resolution in detecting rotor position and applicability to the whole speed range are
some merits of these methods.

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