1076 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 35, NO.

5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1999

New Direct Torque Control of Induction

Motor for Minimum Torque Ripple and
Constant Switching Frequency
Jun-Koo Kang, Student Member, IEEE, and Seung-Ki Sul, Senior Member, IEEE

AbstractIn this paper, a direct torque control (DTC) method
of an induction machine is proposed which enables the mini-
mum torque ripple control, while maintaining constant switching
frequency. Some drawbacks of the conventional DTC are the
relatively large torque ripple in a low speed range and the
variation of switching frequency according to the amplitude of
hysteresis bands and the motor operating speed. In the proposed
strategy, an rms torque-ripple equation is derived using instanta-
neous torque equations and, at each switching cycle, an optimal
switching instant which satisfies the minimum torque-ripple con-
dition is determined based on the ripple equation. The proposed
strategy improves the performance of the DTC by combining
a low-torque-ripple characteristic in steady state with the fast
torque dynamics. Experimental results prove the feasibility of the
proposed strategy as compared with the conventional method.
Index TermsDirect torque control, induction motor control,
inverter, minimum torque ripple.
I. INTRODUCTION
in particular, in a low speed range because of small back
EMF of an induction machine, and third, high control sampling
time (below 25 s) is required to achieve good performance
[4]. Constant-switching-frequency strategy seems to have been
achieved to some extent by several studies [6][8]. However,
these papers have mainly focused on the constant-switching-
frequency regulation, thus, these methods have not shown a
large improvement in reducing instantaneous torque ripple.
Also, the detailed torque control law is not suggested in
[6], and the torque control equations which are needed for
determining the switching instant of the power switch are not
properly described in [7] and [8].
In this paper, a new DTC technique is proposed which
minimizes torque ripple by keeping constant switching fre-
quency. Output voltage vector is selected using the con-
ventional DTC switching table, but the pulse duration of
is determined by the torque-ripple minimum condition. The
instantaneous torque variation of the motor can be expressed

I N RECENT years, the application fields of flux and torque

decoupling control of induction machines have greatly
increased in the areas of traction, paper and steel industry, and
as a function of the applied voltage vector . Then, the
rms torque-ripple equation during one switching period can
be obtained from the instantaneous torque variation equations.
so on. The direct torque control (DTC) is one of the actively The optimal switching instant (i.e., the on duration of )
researched control schemes which is based on the decoupled is determined by taking a partial derivative of the rms torque
control of flux and torque. DTC provides a very quick and ripple equation with respect to .
precise torque response without the complex field-orientation
block and the inner current regulation loop [1][3]. There
have been some DTC-based strategies, e.g., voltage-vector II. PROPOSED MINIMUM TORQUE RIPPLE STRATEGY
selection using switching table [1], direct self-control [2],
and space-vector modulation [3]. Among them, the voltage- A. Basic Induction Motor Equations
vector selection strategy using a switching table is widely
The induction motor can be modeled with stator and rotor
researched and commercialized [4] because it is very simple
fluxes as the state variables by the following equation:
in concept and easy to be implemented without complicated
overmodulation technique, which is unavoidable in space
vector pulsewidth modulation (PWM) [5]. However, the DTC
strategy using a switching table (hereafter simply referred to as
DTC) has some drawbacks. First, switching frequency varies
according to the motor speed and the hysteresis bands of (1)
torque and flux [5]. Second, large torque ripple is generated,
Paper IPCSD 9923, presented at the 1998 Industry Applications Society where is the - and -axes stator flux complex vector with
Annual Meeting, St. Louis, MO, October 1216, and approved for publication , is the - and -axes rotor flux complex
in the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS by the Industrial Drives
Committee of the IEEE Industry Applications Society. Manuscript released vector with , is the - and -axes stator
for publication February 15, 1999. voltage complex vector with , and are
The authors are with the School of Electrical Engineering, Seoul Na- stator and rotor resistance, and are stator and rotor self-
tional University, Seoul 151-742, Korea (e-mail: junkoo@eepel.snu.ac.kr;
sulsk@plaza.snu.ac.kr). inductance, is mutual inductance, is leakage coefficient
Publisher Item Identifier S 0093-9994(99)05360-8. with , and is motor angular velocity.
00939994/99$10.00 1999 IEEE
KANG AND SUL: NEW DTC OF INDUCTION MOTOR 1077

The electromagnetic torque can be written in terms of stator

and rotor flux as

(2)

where is the number of poles of the machine and denotes

the complex conjugate. With a small control sampling time
, stator and rotor flux at sampling instant ( ) can
be written as [9]

(3)
Fig. 1. The typical steady-state torque waveform by DTC algorithm.

TABLE I
(4) VOLTAGE-VECTOR TABLE FOR PROPOSED DTC ALGORITHM

By substituting (3) and (4) into the discrete form of (2) and
neglecting the square of , the torque increment by
nonzero voltage vector during time duration at the
th sampling instant can be obtained as

(5)
vectors are consecutively applied during one control cycle
where represents the slope of torque variation by the period.
nonzero voltage vector. In the same manner as (5), the torque Then, the square of the rms torque ripple during
decrement by the zero voltage vector during time time duration (shaded area) can be expressed as
duration at the th sampling instant can be obtained as

(9)

(6) where is the switching instant at which the voltage vector is

changed from a nonzero to zero voltage vector, is a torque
where is the slope of torque by the zero voltage vector.
initial value, and is a torque command. Then, the optimal
switching instant which minimizes the torque ripple during
B. Minimum Torque-Ripple Strategy one control period must satisfy the differential (10)
Supposing that the voltage command is selected by the
DTC algorithm with , the torque slopes in
(5) and in (6) can be simplified as (subscript is omitted)

(10)
(7)
By solving the quadratic (10) with respect to , the optimal
(8) switching instant is obtained as

where . With a small , (11)

slopes and can be considered to be constant during the
duration of because the dynamics of flux and speed are With the results above, the proposed strategy can be briefly
not so fast. Thus, as can be seen from Fig. 1, the increase and described as follows.
decrease of torque are approximated as straight lines. Here, The stator voltage vector is selected using Table I
for the convenience of description, time is reset to 0 when a [10], where signs of torque and flux error, and ,
new control period begins. In Fig. 1, nonzero and zero voltage are determined with a zero hysteresis band.
1078 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 35, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1999

TABLE II
SPECIFICATIONS OF INDUCTION MACHINE AND INVERTER

(a)

(b)

(c)

from voltage and current models of an induction motor [11].

The proposed controller combines the voltage-vector selection
(d) block of the conventional DTC with the minimum torque-
ripple controller which regulates the turn-on duration of the
active voltage vector by inserting a zero vector at . The
basic switching vector selection rule is the same as that of the
Fig. 2. Step torque response of induction machine with the proposed DTC
conventional methods [9], [10].
algorithm. (a) Motor torque. (b) Calculated optimal switching instant ts . (c) The definition of flux sector and the inverter voltage vectors
Torque slope f2 . (d) Torque slope f1 . are shown in Fig. 4, where the stator flux vector is rotating
with a speed of . The switching rule is summarized in
Ascending and descending torque slopes and are Table I. Under the assumption that is in sector and
calculated from (7) and (8). rotating counterclockwise, either or will be cho-
Switching instant is determined from (11). sen to increase torque ( ) regarding the sign of flux
Stator voltage vector is applied at , and then error ( indicates that flux magnitude should
switched to zero voltage vector at . In other words, be increased). According to the magnitude of torque error,
the on durations of the active and zero voltage vector are there are two ways to reduce output torque. If torque error
and ( ), respectively. is smaller than a certain users setting level (i.e.,
If or (i.e., torque is not in the steady state), ), a zero voltage vector or is selected. If torque
selected voltage vector is fully turned on during the error is larger than the setting level (i.e., ),
whole sampling period . or is selected. In the DTC algorithm, there exists
At each new switching cycle, time is reset to zero and a flux buildup mode for startup and near-zero-speed operation
the above sequences are repeated. [5]. In that mode, is selected for the magnetization of the
motor, regardless of the switching rule in Table I. In the flux
Before illustrating the full system configuration, a simu-
buildup mode, the proposed method is not applied, because
lation result by the proposed DTC algorithm is presented in
torque-ripple minimization need not be considered in that
Fig. 2. The control time period is 120 s and the parameters of
operation.
the induction machine are listed in Table II. It shows the step
torque response of the proposed controller where the command
B. System Switching Frequency
torque is 60 N m, 150% of the rated torque. In Fig. 2, the
output torque is rapidly built up by controlling to 120 s (it Fig. 5 shows the hardware switching signals of a, b, and c
means the active voltage vector is fully turned on), and it has phases of the insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) module
a torque ripple less than 7% of the rated torque in the steady using the proposed method (with ) where 0 and
state by controlling below several tens of milliseconds. 1 represent turn-on and turn-off, respectively. As described
The waveform of is strongly affected by the selected above, the voltage vector is selected based on the switching
voltage vectors, and slowly decreases proportionally to table, and the minimum torque-ripple control block regulates
motor speed. the duration of the active voltage vector by inserting the zero
voltage vector at . For example, in order to increase
both flux and torque, and are consecutively
III. THE CONFIGURATION OF THE PROPOSED DTC
selected in sector 6 during one sampling period . In the
same manner, and are selected in sector 3.
A. System Configuration It indicates that, in sectors 3 and 6, torque ripple is controlled
The control block diagram of the proposed method is shown through the onoff control of the a-phase power switch. In
in Fig. 3. The stator and rotor flux linkages are calculated the other four sectors, the a-phase power switchonly stays in
KANG AND SUL: NEW DTC OF INDUCTION MOTOR
Fig. 3. The control block diagram of the proposed torque ripple control DTC of an induction motor.
Fig. 4. Movement of the stator flux vector 8S and the inverter voltage in
the space-vector plane.
the 1 or 0 states, as shown in Fig. 5. A similar explanation
can be made for the other phases. Thus, , the average
switching frequency of each phase, is
switching sector
(12)
total sector
IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
An experimental test has been carried out in order to verify
the proposed algorithm. The experimental setup in Fig. 6
consists of a 10-hp cage-rotor induction machine, an IGBT
inverter, and the TMS320C31 digital signal processor (DSP)
from Texas Instruments. The specifications and parameters of
the induction machine are listed in the Table II. Fig. 7 shows
the step torque response of the proposed controller under no-
load condition. The torque command is rated torque (40 N m).
At the start, a selected active voltage vector is fully turned on
during the entire control time period for a rapid torque buildup,
and then the on duration is rapidly reduced to below several
tens of microseconds because ascending slope is larger than
descending slope in the low-speed region. These results are
1079
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
Fig. 5. Hardware switching signals of the proposed DTC. (a) Switching
signal of a phase. (b) Switching signal of b phase. (c) Switching signal of
c phase. (On = 0, Off = 1). (d) Variation of sector by the rotating stator
flux vector.
consistent with those of Fig. 2. From (12), the average switch-
ing frequency of the experimental system is 2.2 kHz with a
150- s control sampling period. To show the effectiveness of
the proposed control algorithm, its performance is compared
with that of the conventional DTC. A direct comparison is dif-
ficult because the average switching frequency cannot be kept
constant despite the constant hysteresis band in the conven-
tional method [5]. In the experiments, the control time interval
is 20 s, and the hysteresis bands of both torque and flux con-
troller are set at 0.6% and 0.5% of the rated value, respectively.
Then, from the experimental experiences, it is found that the
conventional DTC has a maximum switching frequency of
around 3 kHz at steady-state speed of around 1000 r/min.
A. Torque Control Performance
A step torque command is applied to the induction machine
in Figs. 8 and 9, where motor speed is below 100 r/min.
1080 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 35, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1999
Fig. 6. Experimental setup of the proposed method.
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
Fig. 7. Experimental step-torque response. (a) Torque. (b) Calculated opti-
mal switching instant ts . (c) Torque slope f2 . (d) Torque slope f1 .
Comparing the two figures, the proposed method reduces the
torque ripple to pp 3 N m, while the conventional method has
ripple over pp 15 N m. The poor torque control capability of
the conventional method, in particular, in a low speed region,
is caused by a relatively large slope , i.e., low back EMF in
that region. As shown in the switching instant of Fig. 9, in the
proposed DTC, torque ripple is controlled by adjusting the on
duration of the stator voltage vectors to satisfy the minimum
condition in (11).
The 150% torque responses are compared in Figs. 10 and
11. Initially, the magnitude of stator flux is slowly
established to 0.42 Wb. The initial flux buildup slopes are
arbitrarily set in the experiments to prevent excessive current
overshoot. The torque command is a step function of 60
N m, and it is changed to 2 N m when the machine speed
reaches 1000 r/min. Each figure has a quick torque response.
(a)
(b)
(c)
Fig. 8. Low-speed performance of the conventional DTC. (a) Torque. (b)
Torque command. (c) Magnitude of stator flux.
(a)
(b)
(c)
Fig. 9. Low-speed performance of the proposed DTC. (a) Torque. (b) Torque
command. (c) Optimal switching instant ts .
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
Fig. 10. 150% step-torque response with the conventional method. (a)
Torque. (b) Magnitude of stator flux. (c) Motor speed. (d) Current.
In Fig. 10, the system has pp 12-N m torque ripple while
the switching frequency varies from around 550 Hz to 3 kHz
(measured by a software pulse counter) according to the motor
speed and the torque. In Fig. 11, the system has pp 3 N m
torque ripple while the average switching frequency is fixed
to 2.2 kHz, and line current is also well regulated in the whole
speed range. It can be seen from the test results above that the
KANG AND SUL: NEW DTC OF INDUCTION MOTOR
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
Fig. 11. 150% step-torque response with the proposed method. (a) Torque.
(b) Magnitude of stator flux. (c) Motor speed. (d) Current.
(a)
(b)
Fig. 12. Stator flux control performance with the proposed method. (a)
Trajectory of the d- and q -axes stator flux. (b) d- and q -axes stator flux
in time domain.
proposed controller has good performance in terms of torque
control characteristic, in particular, in the low speed region.
Torque ripple increases in the high speed region in Fig. 11;
this is because the torque becomes larger proportionally to
motor speed, as shown in (8).
B. Flux Control Performance
The control performance of the stator flux is shown in
Figs. 12 and 13. The induction machine is running at the
steady-state speed of around 1050 r/min under no load, and
stator flux is regulated at the rated value of 0.42 Wb. The
proposed system controls the switching instant of the voltage
vector focusing on the minimum torque-ripple control. There-
fore, the flux control of the proposed system may be different
from the conventional method. However, as can be seen from
1081
(a)
(b)
Fig. 13. Stator flux control performance with the proposed method. (a)
Trajectory of the d- and q -axes stator flux. (b) d- and q -axes stator flux
in time domain.
two figures, the two methods have no distinct difference in flux
control performance under the same operating condition. In the
flux buildup mode for startup, the flux control performance
of both controllers is also similar, as can be seen from the
flux waveforms in Figs. 10 and 11 (the time differences in
the initial flux buildup is only caused by the differences
in the flux command). Therefore, the results above verify
that the proposed method can reduce torque ripple without
deteriorating the flux control capability of the conventional
DTC.
V. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, a new direct torque control strategy for in-
duction machines has been proposed to achieve both constant-
switching-frequency regulation and reduced torque-ripple con-
trol. In the proposed torque-ripple control algorithm, the
optimal switching instant is calculated at each switching
cycle to satisfy the ripple minimum condition based on the
instantaneous torque slope equations. The differences between
the proposed and the conventional DTC have been investi-
gated through experiment. The experimental results verify that
the proposed DTC improves the torque control characteristic
without deteriorating the flux control capability.
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Jun-Koo Kang (S96) was born in Seoul, Korea,
in 1963. He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees
in electrical engineering in 1986 and 1998, re-
spectively, from Seoul National University, Seoul,
Korea, where he is currently working towards the
Ph.D. degree.
He was with the Power Electronics Laboratory,
R&D Center, LG Industrial Systems Company, An
Yang, Korea, as a Research Engineer from 1988 to
1993 and as a Senior Research Engineer from 1993
to 1997. His interests include power electronics,
power converters, and advanced motor drives.
Seung-Ki Sul (S78M80SM98), for a photograph and biography, see p.
51 of the January/February 1999 issue of this TRANSACTIONS.