2013 13th Iranian Conference on Fuzzy Systems (IFSC)

Predictive Torque Control of Induction Motor

Based on Improved Fuzzy Control Method
Mohammad Javad Lesani

Hamid Mahmoudi

Iran University of Science

and Technology
Tehran, Iran
Lesani@elec.iust.ac.ir

Iran University of Science

and Technology
Tehran, Iran
Hamid_Mahmoudi@
elec.iust.ac.ir

AbstractIn this paper, we use fuzzy logic speed control with

two ahead prediction torque control of induction motor drive for
high performance. Transient response, torque ripple and
switching frequency are main features in control induction
motors. Predictive torque control performs the best tradeoff
between above features. Also the fuzzy controller is applied to
make a better transient response since it reduces speeds
overshoot. Moreover, some changes in fuzzy strategy as a new
idea to help the predictive torque control to reduce torque
distortions. To verify the performance of this control, Matlab
simulation results are demonstrated and a comparison with a
conventional PI controller is provided.
Index Terms fuzzy control, predictive torque control, induction
motor.

I. INTRODUCTION
Induction motors are widespread in industrial applications.
They are cost-efficient and have a robust structure. FieldOriented Control (FOC) and Direct Torque Control (DTC) are
known methods to control AC machines in the industry.
Recently, the power electronics community started to adopt
the concept of Model Predictive Control (MPC) from the
control community. Due to the development of real time
industrial networks more often electric drives operate in an
interconnected system with different optimization criteria such
as dynamic performance, switching losses, torque and current
Total Harmonic Distortion (THD). Conventional cascade
control methods, with PI regulators, cannot exploit the
available capacity of the controller to achieve simultaneously
all of these performance specifications in an optimized way.
Broadly speaking, the emerging field of MPC for electrical
drives can be divided into two groups. The first set of
approaches builds on FOC by replacing the inner (current)
control loop by MPC and keeping the modulator in place. In
the second variant, MPC directly manipulates the inverter
switch positions thus superseding a modulator. The latter
scheme which is used for controlling electromagnetic torque,
is called Model Predictive Direct Torque Conrtol (MPDTC).
Applying MPDTC for an induction motor compared with FOC
and DTC leads to lower switching frequency, torque ripple
reduction, simpler algorithm and easier dead time
978-1-4799-1228-5/13/$31.00 2013 IEEE.

Masoud Ebrahim
Seighalani Varzali

Davood Arab khaburi

Science and Research Branch

Islamic Azad University
Qazvin, Iran
mesv1363@gmail.com

Iran University of Science

and Technology
Tehran, Iran
Khaburi@iust.ac.ir

compensation [1]. But the most important advantage of

MPDTC over other control methods is its precise and faster
torque response [2]. This inherent advantage results in
effectively following an arbitrary torque reference trajectory.
In the conventional FOC, DTC and MPDTC methods, a PIcontroller regulates the torque reference according to the error
which is obtained from the difference between the speed
reference and the rotor speed [3]. Overshoot in the rotor speed
is inevitable during an unexpected change in the speed
reference. To overcome the mentioned problem, the fuzzy
logic controller (FLC) is proposed to regulate the reference
torque [4]. In this regard, researchers work on this topic and
proposed a variety of methods such as adaptive Neuro-fuzzy
control [5].
In this paper MPDTC based on a fuzzy method for an
induction motor is proposed. The main aim of this paper is to
compare performance of the Fuzzy-MPDTC with PI-MPDTC.
Moreover, the difference between transient response and
torque ripple of proposed control with other methods will be
shown.
Fuzzy controller, consider the input error and change of
error that results in efficient regulation of reference torque
unlike the PI controller. In this circumstance, MPDTC has the
capability to effectively respond to the unexpected changes of
reference torque and follow the trajectory with minimum error,
which is the advantage of MPDTC over FOC and DTC, and
make the fuzzy control more adaptable to itself.
The paper is organized as follows: Section II discusses
different approaches to MPC for drive applications. In section
III physical model of the inverter fed induction motor drive is
presented. The proposed algorithm is introduced in section IV.
Section V investigates the design of fuzzy logic controller for
control of the induction motor drive; simulation results and
conclusion are represented in section VI and VII.
II. MPDTC
Over three decades many different approaches to the model
predictive control have been investigated. MPC methods
applied to power electronics and drives can be classified into
two main categories:

1) Classical MPC with continuous control set.

2) Finite Control Set MPC (FCSMPC).
MPC and FCSMPC are established on completely
different ideas. In MPC the controller yields a continuous
voltage vector which can be applied through a modulator
whereas in FCSMPC the controller directly outputs a
switching state of the inverter. In contrast to classical methods,
FCSMPC considers only finite switching states of the inverter
and solves the cost function for each of them and chooses a
switching state with the minimum cost function.
The main advantage of FCSMPC is its simplicity and
design flexibility. Considering only a finite number of possible
voltage vectors, leads to a significant reduction of
mathematical complexity that MPC has to deal with to solve
the cost function. In FCSMPC many different control targets
can be included in a single cost function. Due to that, FCS
MPC is a powerful tool for designing Multiple Input Multiple
Output (MIMO) controllers also many technical performance
specifications can be easily achieved by imposing additional
terms into the cost function [6].
Because of such advantages, FCSMPC has been
successfully applied to a diversity of drive systems. However
for an acceptable performance, it requires a very short
sampling time to also suffer from variable switching frequency
[7]. MPDTC , is addressed from the concept of FCS-MPC, is
discussed in this paper.

A model of the system to be controlled is an essential

component for MPC. The model is used to predict future
behavior of the system.
A. Physical Model of the Inverter
A two-level voltage source inverter is used for driving an
induction motor. The switching states of the converter are
determined by the gating signals Sa , Sb and Sc as follows:
(1)

1, if S2 on and S5 off
Sb =

0, if S2 off and S5 on

(2)

1, if S3 on and S6 off
Sc =

0, if S3 off and S6 on

(3)

All of the calculations of the controller are performed in

the stationary reference frame. An induction motor is
characterized by (6) (10) in the stationary reference frame. vs
and vr are voltage vectors of stator and rotor, is and ir stator
and rotor current vectors, s and r stator and rotor flux
vectors, r mechanical speed, Rs and Rr stator and rotor
resistances, Ls and Lr stator and rotor inductances, Lm mutual
inductance, T the produced electromechanical torque, p
number of pole pairs.

vs = Rs . is +

d s
dt

(6)

d r
j. pr . r
dt

(7)

s = Ls . is + Lm . ir

(8)

r = Lr . ir + Lm . is

(9)

Te = 3 / 2 p ( s is )

(10)

0 1
j=

1 0
The discrete model is derived using a forward Euler
approximation. These equations can be used for prediction. In
the predictive equations mechanical speed and flux of the rotor
are treated as parameters.

s ( k + 1) = s ( k ) + Ts ( vs ( k ) Rsis ( k ) )

and can be expressed in vectorial form by

a = e j (2 /3)

B. Model of the induction motor

Where

1, if S1 on and S 4 off
Sa =

0, if S1 off and S4 on

Where

The load voltage vector v can be related to the switching

state vector S by
v = Vdc S
(5)

vr = 0 = Rr . ir +

III. PHYSICAL MODEL

2
S = ( S a + aSb + a 2 S c )
3

Fig. 1. Voltage source inverter

(4)

is ( k + 1) = is ( k ) + Ts .(

Re
K A
is ( k ) + r r r ( k )
Le
Le

v ( k + 1)
K r p r ( k )
. j r ( k ) + s
)
Le
Le

(11)

(12)

T ( k + 1) =

_
3
pIm{ s (k + 1)is ( k + 1)}
2

(13)

Where Ts is the sampling time.

According to (13) predicted electromagnetic torque can be
calculated with respect to the calculation of predicted flux (11)
and current (12) which can be obtained by the machine
equations.
IV. PROPOSED PREDICTIVE CONTROL STRATEGY
Switching state of inverter can be selected by means of a
cost function which contains the control variables. The cost
function with the horizon of two steps which is advantageous
over a cost function with the horizon of one step because of a
better minimization of torque ripple and flux ripple is chosen
as follows:

1 |
|

|
1 |

2 |
|

2 |

V. FUZZY CONTROLLER
(14)

The term denotes the weighting factor, which increases

or decreases the relative importance of the torque versus the
flux control. This is the only parameter to be adjusted in
MPDTC. The weighting factor is usually tuned by means of
empirical estimating the importance of the controlled state
variables. If the same weight were assigned to both control
variables, these factors would correspond to the ratio between
the magnitudes of the nominal torque Tn and stator flux s n :

Tn

sn

Fig. 3. Membership function of inputs and output

(15)

According to (14), the cost function is calculated for all

possible switching states of the inverter in the next two
sampling instants and the switching state which leads to the
least value of the cost function is applied to the inverter.

As is shown in Fig. 2, a fuzzy controller is used to provide

the reference of the torque. Inputs of fuzzy controller are speed
error and change of speed error, and the output is change of
reference torque which have similar per unit membership
functions that is shown in Fig. 3. The output variable is the
change in torque T which is integrated to get the reference
torque as shown in the equation

T * (ts ) = T *(ts 1) + T

(16)

The fuzzy logic controller consists of four blocks,

Fuzzification, inference mechanism, knowledge base and
Defuzzification.
A. Fuzzifications
In this stage the crisp variables of inputs are converted into
fuzzy variables. The fuzzification maps the error (E) and
change in error (CE) to linguistic labels of fuzzy sets. The
proposed controller uses following linguistic labels NB, NM,
NS, ZE, PS, PM, PB. Each of the inputs and output contain a
membership function with all these seven linguistics.
B. Knowledge base and inference stage
Knowledge base involves defining the rules represented as
IF-THEN rule statements governing the relationship between
input and output variables in terms of membership functions.
The universe of discourse is divided into seven parts that for
two inputs, 49 rules are developed which AND method is used
in the antecedent parts of the rules. These rules are represented
in the rule table shown below.
C. Defuzzification

Fig. 2. Proposed control scheme

This stage introduces different methods that can be used to

produce fuzzy set value for the output fuzzy variable T. The
centroid method is used in order to defuzzify the consequent.

TABLE I: Fuzzy Controller Rule Base

E(pu)
CE(pu)

NL
NM
NS
ZE
PS
PM
PL

NL

NM

NL
NL
NL
NL
NM
NS
NS

NL
NL
NL
NM
NS
ZE
PS

NS

ZE

PS

PM

PL

NL
NL
NM
NS
ZE
PS
PS

NL
NM
NS
ZE
PS
PM
PL

NM
NM
ZE
PS
PM
PL
PL

NS
ZE
PM
PM
PL
PL
PL

PS
PS
PM
PM
PL
PL
PL

VI. SIMULATION RESULTS

The proposed predictive torque control and other control
methods are simulated and the comparison between the
dynamic response of rotor speed and torque ripple of results is
performed.

Fig. 5. Torque in steady state operation in Fuzzy-MPDTC

A. Torque ripple
MPDTC with two-step torque and flux prediction
decreases torque ripples (about 1.22%) compared with onestep prediction.
Also as shown in Fig.4 and Fig.5, Torque ripple of FuzzyMPDTC with two-step torque and flux prediction in
comparison to PI-MPDTC two-step have approximately been
reduced about 1.44%. This improvement is because of the
modification of the output scale of the fuzzy controller in the
situations the torque is oscillating under a particular value
which mostly occur in steady-state operation of the motor, the
generated reference torque has become smooth and results in
reduction of torque ripple.
It is new idea to reduce torque ripple because up to now
researchers concentrate to a method of control for torque ripple
reduction but one of the aim of this paper for torque ripple
reduction is to improve torque reference. For this reason the
electromagnetic torque that follow the torque reference have
less distortion.
Overall, the proposed MPDTC improve Torque ripple of
induction motor about 2.66% in comparison to MPDTC onestep. Simulations are performed at the nominal torque of the
load.

Fig. 6. Speed dynamic response with three control methods

FOC - DTC - MPDTC

B. Dynamic response of rotor speed

Settling times of rotor speed in FOC, DTC and proposed
MPDTC are shown in Fig.6 and the values of settling time are
174.8, 465 and 165.2 ms respectively. The reason that DTC
has a large settling time is due to control method that have a
lack of attention to rotor position. If the acceleration of speed
reference is high, rotor can't follow it and after a time it
stopped. For this reason, DTC has a limit for the magnitude of
settling time of rotor speed.
According to the above-mentioned results have proven that
MPDTC has the best transient response of rotor speed. This
response is due to selecting switching states better than the
other methods. The cost function of MPDTC is chosen in per
sampling time to have a good tradeoff between torque and flux
vector of induction motor. Because of this reason have the best
transient of rotor speed.
Also at the equal settling time of speed, speeds overshoot
with FLC method is reduced compared with a system with a
well-tuned PI controller.
VII. CONCLUSION

Fig. 4. Torque in steady state operation in PI-MPDTC

This paper presents a new approach for reduction of torque

ripple. MPDTC method has the ability to follow any torque
reference to the minimum possible error. A proper torque
reference generator which considers the working condition of

the motor can make a good couple with the MPDTC. That is
the reason fuzzy controller is compatible with the MPDTC. As
shown in the results, the modification of the output scale of
fuzzy controller in steady-state is assisting the MPDTC to
produce the torque with reduced ripple.
Also the fuzzy controller reduced the speed overshoot
compared with the PI controller. Moreover the simulation
results prove the excellent transient speed response for the
proposed control method.
APPENDIX
Specification of Induction Motor:
Machine type-3 phase induction motor
Rotor type-squirrel cage
Reference type-Stationary
149.2KVA, 1748.3 RPM, 460V,60 Hz, 4 poles
Rs =14.85m, Rr=9.295m, Ls=Lr=10.8mH, Lm=10.46mH
J=3.1Kg.m, B=0.08kg.m/s

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