Sensorless Control of a PMSM at Low Speeds using High Frequency Voltage Injection

This paper describes the two control techniques to perform the sensorless vector control of a PMSM by injecting the high frequency voltage to the stator terminal. The first technique is the estimation algorithm of the initial rotor position. A PMSM possesses the saliency which produces the ellipse of the stator current when the high frequency voltage is injected into the motor terminal. The major axis angle of the current ellipse gives the rotor position information at a standstill. The second control technique is a sensorless control algorithm that injects the high frequency voltage to the stator terminal in order to estimate the rotor position and speed. The rotor position and speed for sensorless vector control is calculated by appropriate signal processing to extract the position information from the stator current at low speeds or standstill. The proposed sensorless algorithm using the double-band hysteresis controller exhibits excellent reference tracking and increased robustness. Experimental results are presented to verify the feasibility of the proposed control schemes. Speed, position estimation and vector control were carried out on the floating point processor TMS320VC33.