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XIX International Conference on Electrical Machines - ICEM 2010, Rome

Observer-based Sensorless Control of


a Five-phase Brushless DC Motor
G. Fabri, C. Olivieri, M. Tursini

Abstract -- This paper presents a rotor position estimation


technique for a five-phase permanent magnet synchronous
motor with independent phases, based on a back-EMF
observer. The method involves the use of a proper linear
transformation which allows representing the five-phase motor
by an equivalent two-phase model. Due to its characteristics,
the sensorless strategy can be used in multi-phase motors
having non-sinusoidal back-EMF shape, such is the case of
brushless DC motors used in fault-tolerant applications. After
an overview of the back-EMF model for the five-phase motor,
the linear transformation and the observer-based estimation
technique are presented. Experimental results show the overall
performance during transient and steady-state operation.

Index Terms Brushless DC, estimation techniques, fivephase motor, linear transformation, permanent magnet
synchronous motor, sensorless drives, back-EMF observer.

I.

NOMENCLATURE

x
Vx , Ix

phase subscript;
phase voltage and current;

R,L
Ex

phase resistance and inductance;


magnet-induced back-EMF;

fx
Mx
m
r
r
Ke

back-EMF shape function;


magnet flux linkage;
rotor mechanical position;
rotor electrical position;
rotor electrical speed;
back-EMF constant;

p
Ce
X

rotor pole-pairs;
electromagnetic torque;

(1)

estimated value of variable X;


1st harmonic of variable X.
II.

INTRODUCTION

ermanent Magnet Synchronous Motors (PMSM) are


widely employed for their high efficiency, silent
operation, compact form, reliability, and low maintenance.
Depending on the application, different typologies of motors
are used, with different rotor structure (surface or buried
magnets), winding type (distributed or concentrated), and
back-EMF shape (sinusoidal or trapezoidal).
Recently, multi-phase PMSM with independent phases
have been proposed for safety critical applications such as
aircraft brakes, spoiler or flap actuators, [1], [2], [3]. In these
cases, the multi-phase machine is fed by a multi-phase
power converter, and the whole drive system must satisfy
severe fault-tolerant requirements, which involve the control
hardware and the drive sensors too.


Giuseppe Fabri, Carlo Olivieri and Marco Tursini are with the
Department of Electrical and Information Engineering, University of
LAquila, I-67100, LAquila, Italy (e-mail: giuseppe.fabri@univaq.it,
carlo.olivieri@univaq.it, marco.tursini@univaq.it).

978-1-4244-4175-4/10/$25.00 2010 IEEE

Brushless DC (BLDC) motors are preferred, with


magnets mounted on the rotor surface and trapezoidal
shaped back-EMF. Hall-effect bipolar sensors can be used as
primary position transducers, in a quite simple and reliable
assessment: each stator-fixed Hall sensor, one for each
phase, directly detects the polarity of the undergoing rotor
magnets with a proper angular displacement. The digital
signals are processed by the controller and the rotor position
information is computed with the resolution necessary for
the electronic commutation of the motor.
In some cases magnetic encoders are adopted, with the
role of secondary sensor, and sensor redundancy is provided
to match the fault-tolerant requirements. To this matter, in
order to extend the fault-tolerant drive capabilities,
sensorless strategies can be provided, capable to assure safe
operation also in case of fault of one or more sensor [4], [5].
In this paper, an approach to rotor position detection for a
multi-phase PMSM is presented, suitable for application
with surface mounted PM motors having unknown and
whatever shaped back-EMF waveforms, such as BLDC
motors. The estimation technique is based on the principle of
the back-EMF observer [6], [7], extended in this case to a
multi-phase machine, in particular to a five-phase motor.
The core of this approach is the use of a properly
designed transformation to bring the multi-phase description
of the motor into a two-phase description and then applying
to the transformed system the state observer. This last one is
used to reconstruct the instantaneous value of the motor
back-EMF so we can subsequently calculate the desired
angular information through a proper phase detection
algorithm. Experimental results are presented to confirm the
validity of the proposed approach for the use in multi-phase
machines.
III. FIVE-PHASE PM BLDC MOTOR
Fig. 1 shows a cross section of the five-phase PM BLDC
motor considered in this paper, [8].

Ph

e
as

Fig. 1. Five-phase PM BLDC motor.

shape functions (per units)

1
0.75
0.5
0.25
0
-0.25
-0.5
-0.75
-1

Fig. 2. Power converter for independent phase feeding.

It has 18 rotor poles and 20 stator slots (4 slots per phase).


Each phase consists of two series coils mounted on
diametrically displaced stator teeth. Due to this structure,
independent feeding of each phase is provided by
independent H-bridges modules [9] as can be seen in Fig. 2.
Hence it results that motor phases are independent from each
other, in the sense of electrical, thermal and magnetic
interactions, a suitable feature to avoid a single phase faults
to affect the remaining safe phases.
A. Five-phase model
Dealing with the description of such kind of independentphase machine, we can write down the following generalized
voltage equation:

Vx = R I x + L

dI x
dt

+ Ex (r )

(1)

where the subscript x ( x = A , B, C , D , E ) indicates a generic


phase of the motor, and r = pm the rotor (electric) angle.
The instantaneous value of the back-EMF is given by the
time derivative of the magnet flux linkage in the phase,
which in turn depends from the position of the rotor:
Ex (r ) =

d Mx (r )
dt

d Mx ( r ) dr

d r

dt

d Mx ( r )
d r

(2)

with r is the rotor speed.


In order to generalize the voltage balance in case of nonsinusoidal machines, the normalized back-EMF shape
functon is defined as follows:

E ( )
f x ( r ) = x r
Ke r

(3)

where K e the back-EMF constant.


From that, we can modify the machine equations into the
following form:

Vx = R I x + L

dI x
dt

+ K e r f x ( r )

(4)

The shape functions of the motor considered in this paper


are reported in Fig. 3, while the electrical parameters are
reported in Table I. Depending on the motor design, the
back-EMF waveforms are quasi-trapezoidal and they are
symmetrically displaced over just one-half of the electrical
period, which gives the machine an intrinsic asymmetry.
Regarding to the electromagnetic torque, it can be
expressed in the particular case of a multi-phase machine in
the following way:
E

dMx ( r )

x= A

d r

Ce = p

Ix =

p
r

120

240

360
angle (degrees)

480

600

720

Fig. 3. Back-EMF shape functions of the five-phase motor (design data).


E

C e = p K e f x (r ) I x .

(6)

x=A

B. Space-vector representation
In order to set-up the sensorless strategy with a minimum
number of equations, an equivalent space-vector
representation of the five-phase motor has been developed.
The objective is to achieve sine/cosine shapes for the
components of the equivalent shape function (i.e. backEMF) space-vector, in order to set-up a two-phase observer
similar to that employed in more standard three-phase
motors.
To this purpose, the linear transformation given by matrix
(7) can be considered, which allows to represents the fivephase motor by a couple of space-vectors with components
denoted as and and an homopolar component.
2
3
4

cos( )
cos( )
cos( )
cos( )
cos(0)
5
5
5
5

2
3
4

sin(0) sin( ) sin( ) sin( ) sin( )


5
5
5
5

T = 2 1
1
1
1
1
ABCDE
5

2
4
6
8

cos(0) cos( ) cos( ) cos( ) cos( )



5
5
5
5

2
4
6
8

sin(0) sin( 5 ) sin( 5 ) sin( 5 ) sin( 5 )

[ ]

(7)

In (7) the first two rows are achieved by the projection of


the magnetic axes of the five phase motor on the orthogonal
system displaced as shown in Fig. 4, they define a direct
sequence space-vector. The third, forth and fifth rows are
defined considering the virtual inversion of the magnetic
axis direction of phases B and D, i.e. the equivalent motor
of phases A,C,E,-B,-D, symmetrically displaced of 2/5
electrical degrees. The third row defines the homopolar (zero
sequence) component, while the forth and fifth rows define
an inverse sequence space-vector whose values would be
null in case of purely sinusoidal motor and safe operation.

Ex(r ) I x

x=A

and using the shape functions one obtains:

(5)
Fig. 4. Actual (ABCDE) and equivalent-symmetrical (ACE-B-D) axes of
the five-phase

The multiplicative factor is chosen in order to have the same


amplitude of the phase and transformed variables (for a
purely sinusoidal motor).
The application of the transformation (7) to the backEMF shape functions of the five-phase motor gives the
results reported in Fig. 5.
Alpha - Beta components
1

f (1) ( r ) = sin r ;

(1 )

d E
120

240
360
480
Zero sequence component

0.05

600

dt

720

120

240
360
480
Alpha' - Beta' components

1)
= [A22 ] E (

(11)

being:

0
-0.05

(10)

According to (6), the rotor (magnet) position information


is contained in the sine/cosine shapes of the 1st harmonic
back-EMFs. If the speed is assumed as a constant (that is the
case of speed steady-state operation), the following relations
are achieved by time derivatives of these fundamentals:

-1
0

f (1) ( r ) = cos r

600

0 1
= [A22 ( r )]
1 0

[A22 ] = r

720

0.2
0
-0.2

(12)

a speed dependent matrix.


0

120

240

360
angle (degrees)

480

600

By associating (8) and (11) the following extended model


is obtained, which represents the motor dynamics in terms of
1st harmonics back-EMFs at speed steady-state:

720

Fig. 5. Shape functions of the transformed equivalent model.

Due to the quasi-trapezoidal back-EMF nature of the


BLDC motor, both the zero sequence and the inverse
sequence components are not equal to zero, nevertheless this
aspect will not affect the proposed sensorless strategy.
In fact, in the following we will consider only the direct
sequence components for the set-up of the observer-based
sensorless strategy. In fact, the information on the rotor
position can be extracted by the first harmonic of the direct
sequence component independently on the values of the zero
and inverse sequence ones.
C. Equivalent back-EMF model
Considering the equivalent two-phase stator-fixed alphabeta model associated to the direct sequence space-vector of
the five-phase motor, the following state form (matrix)
equation is obtained:
d I
dt

= [A11 ] I + [A12 ] E + [B1 ]V

where:
V = [V , V ]T =
I = [I , I ] =

(8)

dX
dt

[T ]

[B1 ]
[B1 ]
, [B] =

[ A22 ( r )]
0
0
system matrices.

[ A11 ]

[A ] =

In the extended model (13) the currents acts as the system


outputs (measurable state-variables), the applied voltages are
the system inputs, while the back-EMF components take the
role of internal (non measurable) state-variables.
IV. OBSERVER-BASED SENSORLESS STRATEGY
A. Back-EMF observer
From the previous extended model a linear state observer
can be built as follows (Luenberger-like observer):
dt

V ABCDE ,

[T ]

E ( r ) = [E , E ] =

I ABCDE ,

[T ]

(14)

[K ]
1
[K ] =
, [K ] = k
[G][K ]
0

0
1 0
, [G] = g

1
0 1
1
gain matrices (with k1 and g constant gains), where the
parameter g stands for a generic proportionality factor that
can be used to weight more heavily the back-emfs estimates
with respect to the currents estimates.
1

E ABCDE ( r ) ,

ABCDE

and
1 0
1 1 0
, [B1 ] =
, [A12 ] = [B1 ]
L 0 1
L 0 1
are matrices of constant system parameters.
The back-EMF dependence on rotor magnet position can
be arranged in the following general form:

[A11 ] = R

E ( r ) = K e r f ( h) (h r )

h
=1

= [ A] X + [B]V + [K ]( I I )

with X = [ I , I , E , E ]T estimated state variables, and:

ABCDE
T

(13)

with X = [ I , I , E , E ]T state variables, and:

dX
ABCDE

= [ A] X + [B]V

(9)

where the periodic shape functions are expressed through the


Fourier series expansion, and for the conventions assumed in
the linear transformation one has:

The observer is used to estimate the run-time waveforms


of the 1st harmonic motor back-EMFs. From these we can
retrieve the angular position and the speed of the rotor
magnet axis by a proper phase detection algorithm as
described in the next subsection.
B. Rotor speed and position detection
The block scheme of the algorithm employed for rotor
speed and position detection is shown in Fig. 6. The basic
principle refers to a quadrature Phase Locked Loop (PLL). It
involves the generation of an error signal from the phase

difference between harmonic input signals (in our case the


estimated back-EMF components) and corresponding
quadrature feedback functions of the estimated angle.
Assuming for the estimated 1st harmonics of the backEMF the phase relation given by (9) and (10), and using the
Werners formula we can write the following expression of
the error signal:
~
~
~
(t) ( sin r cos r cos r sin r ) sin( r r )

(15)

~
where r represents the argument of the input waveforms
(assumed as known references) and r is the argument of

the feedback signals, i.e. the estimated angle. For small


deviations between them one obtains:
~
(t) ( r r )

(16)

Hence, a Proportional Integral (PI) regulator can be used


to generate the closed loop feedbacks, in order to correct the
angle deviation and bringing the estimated angle to converge
to the reference one. The estimated speed signal can be
obtained by introducing a further integration block between
the output of the PI regulator and the generation of the
feedback signals.

Fig. 8. Observer-based sensorless strategy.

C. Sensorless drive scheme


The drive scheme incorporating the observer-based
sensorless strategy is shown in Fig. 7.
Modular architecture is used in current control. Five
independent current control loops regulate the phase
currents. In each current loop a comparison between
reference and measured current is performed, error is PI
regulated and correction is applied through five independent
H-bridges in the voltage-source inverter. An external loop
regulates the speed by comparison with the respective
feedback, the speed error is regulated through a PI regulator
and torque requirement in term of current reference is
generated.

Fig. 6. Phase detector scheme.

Hence, the observer-based sensorless strategy for the


five-phase BLDC motor can be resumed by the functional
blocks shown in Fig. 8: first, the five-phase motor currents
and voltages are measured and transformed into the
equivalent components using the first two rows of the
linear transformation (7); second, using these measurements,
the time-varying alpha-beta components of the 1st harmonic
back-EMF are estimated in the back-EMF observer; third,
from these estimates, the rotor speed and magnet axis
position are computed by the phase detection algorithm.
Due to the dependence of the observer sub-matrix [A22 ]
from the rotor speed, the estimate of this signal must be used
as an additional run-time input of the observer.
n*

PI

Fig. 7. BLDC sensorless control scheme.

Fig. 9. BLDC control strategy.

The commutation logic used to compute the current


references is shown in Fig. 9. According to the BLDC
control strategy, constant torque is generated by feeding the
motor phases with constant current in constant back-EMF
wave region. To achieve this behavior the rotor electric turn
is divided into ten sectors, in each sector only four
back-EMFs are constant so that the motor is fed by four
quasi-square back-EMF synchronous currents, while the
remaining current is controlled at zero.
V. EXPERIMENTAL SET-UP AND RESULTS
The experimental set-up arranged to verify the
performance of the sensorless strategy for the five-phase
BLDC motor is shown in Fig. 10. The control unit is based
on a TMS320F2806 digital signal controller (DSC), whose
enhanced peripheral capabilities are used for interfacing the
power hardware both for control and diagnostic purposes.

Position sensors are provided, in order to set-up and


evaluate the performance of sensorless control: five Hall
sensors are used to generate the magnet field sector
information needed for the BLDC commutation logic; a
square-wave quadrature encoder with 536 (134 x 4)
pulses-per-revolution is also present, employed for speed
computation.
The experimental set-up includes a host PC, a Digital-toAnalog Converter (DAC) and a scope. The host PC runs the
DSC development and debugger tools and the user interface,
this last allows data exchange with the control firmware. The
scope is used for displaying the variables computed by the
control algorithm in real-time, through a 4 channel DAC.
Fig. 11. Alpha (black trace) and Beta (blue trace) components of the backEMFs, commutation sector (magenta) and speed (green) @ 570 rpm
(voltage is scaled to 50V/div).

Fig. 10. Drive board description and experimental system set-up.

Figures 11 to 14 report some test results of the


five-phase sensorless drive prototype. In a first development
step, tests have been carried out with the observer in openloop, i.e. the estimated speed and position are not used for
motor control.
Fig. 11 shows the estimated alpha and beta back-EMF
components versus the commutation sector evolution
(measured from the Hall sensors) during a no-load test at
about rated speed (570 rpm, equal to 85.5 Hz).
According to what expected from theory the shapes of the
estimated back-EMFs are close to pure sinusoids, the alphabeta components are in quadrature with the first one leading
on the second one. Being the zero of the actual position
located on the center of the first sector (see Fig. 9), this test
would prove an estimation error of about one-half sector, i.e.
18 electrical degrees. Investigation about this error is out of
the scope of the present paper. Nevertheless, due to intrinsic
implementation delays in the acquisition of the Hall sensor
signals, the position estimation error computed from the
scope outputs represents just an indication.
Fig. 12 shows the response of the back-EMF observer
when it operates at low speed condition (60 rpm, equal to
9 Hz). The shapes of the back-EMFs are estimated correctly
even in this situation. Also the electrical position is shown:
in this case the position reference is aligned with the alpha
axis localized in the center of the first sector, leading to
position estimation error apparently equal to zero.
Fig. 13 shows the estimated back-EMF during a ramp
speed transient from a low value to a medium one: the
amplitudes and frequencies increase correctly and smoothly
with the speed, the dynamic response of the observer appears
to be fast and well damped.

Fig. 12. Commutation sector (magenta), estimated position (black) and


estimated Alpha and Beta back-EMFs (green and blue respectively) @ 60
rpm (voltage is scaled to 20V/div).

Fig. 13. Alpha and Beta back-EMFs (black and blue respectively),
commutation sector (magenta) and speed (green) in speed transition from 60
to 390 rpm (voltage is scaled to 20V/div).

Finally, in Fig. 14 are shown the estimated electric


position and speed and the corresponding measured signals
in a more large speed transition from low to about rated
value. It can be noticed that the estimated speed is
consistent with the measured speed in a quite satisfactory
way.

VIII.

Fig. 14. Commutation sector (magenta) and actual speed (blue) are reported
in the upper axis, estimated position (black) and estimated speed (green) are
reported in the lower axis, during a speed transition from 60 to 570 rpm
(speed is scaled to 300rpm/div).

VI. CONCLUSIONS
An approach to the rotor speed and position estimation in
a five-phase BLDC motor is proposed, based on a back-EMF
observer. A linear transformation is developed to represent
the five-phase motor by an equivalent two-phase model and
a 4th order state observer is implemented including the backEMFs dynamics. The position is extracted from the
estimated back-EMFs using a PLL algorithm.
The presence of saturation is not taken into account
because the two-phase linear model developed in this study
is able to correctly describe the behavior of the system with
good approximation.
The proposed strategy has been validated by experimental
results with the observer operating in open-loop, the analysis
has pointed out that the rotor position and speed are
estimated with good reliability both at high and low speed.
Estimation errors reported at high frequency operation
such as the influence of the observer gains set-up require a
deeper analysis and will be investigated in the next step of
this research.
TABLE I
MOTOR PARAMETERS
base speed
base voltage
base current
rated torque
pole pairs
phase resistance
phase inductance
back-EMF constant

600 rpm
240 Vpk
5 Apk
16 Nm
9
3.88
24.1 mH
0.0972 Vpk / rpm

VII. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors want to thanks UmbraGroup (Foligno, Italy)
for making available the five-phase motor prototype
considered as test case in this paper.

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IX. BIOGRAPHIES
Giuseppe Fabri was born in Rieti, Italy, on January 24, 1982. He graduated
from the University of LAquila in 2009 in Electronic Engineering. He is
currently a Ph.D. student in the Department of Electrical and Information
Engineering, University of LAquila, where is involved in development of
electrical motor drives for automotive and aerospace application.
Carlo Olivieri was born in Teramo, Italy, on August 5, 1983. He received
his M.S. degree in Computer Science and Automation Engineering in 2008
from the University of LAquila. At present he is a Ph.D. student in the
department of Electrical and Information Engineering, at the University of
LAquila, working in the field of automotive devoted to the study of the
sensorless techniques and in the field of robust control.
Marco Tursini received the M.S. degree in electrical engineering from the
University of LAquila, Italy, in 1987. He became an Assistant Professor of
power converters, electrical machines, and drives in 1991, and an Associate
Professor of electrical machines in 2002. In 1990, he was Research Fellow
at the Industrial Electronics Laboratory, Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology of Lausanne, where he conducted research on sliding mode
control of permanent magnet synchronous motor drives, and in 1994 at the
WEMPEC, Nagasaki University. His research interests are focused on
advanced control of ac drives, including vector, sensorless, and fuzzy logic
control, digital motion control, DSP-based systems for real-time
implementation, and modeling and simulation of electrical drives. He has
authored more than 90 technical papers on these subjects.

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