114

IEEE Transactions on Energy Conversion, Vol. 6, No. 1, March 1991

Development and Implementation of

High Performance Variable Structure Tracking Control for Brushless Motors

M. A. El-Sharkawi, Senior Member

Department of Electrical Engineering, FT-10
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195

motors; and the advancements in the solid-state power electronic

A high performance controller for dc brushless motors is proposed in
this paper. The controller is based on the theories of Variable
Structure Tracking. With the proposed method, the rotor position can
trace any arbitrarily selected track with high degree of accuracy, and
without overshooting or overstressing the hardware of the system.
The control strategy is adaptive and very robust. External
disturbances and variations in system parameters are adaptively
compensated by the tracking controller. The proposed controller is
suitable for such applications as robotic, actuation and manipulation
where most of the present fixed parameters positional control
methods are inadequate.
The proposed system is designed and implemented in the
laboratory. Test results are presented and discussed in this paper.
Keywords: Brushless dc machine, Variable Structure Control,
Tracking Control
Introduction
devices and circuits. These brushless motors are replacing, in a rapid
pace, the existing hydraulic as well as the conventional electric drive
systems in a number of applications that require high torque
positional control.
Using these motors in "high performance" drives require adaptive
a n d m t control strategies. A high performance drive is defined as
a system consisting of a motor, a converter and an advanced
controller. The function of the controller is to provide on-line tracking
of the rotor position and/or speed at all time [5-71.This is quite
different from the positional control applications where only the final
value of the rotor position and/or speed are controlled with no or
minimal control on the travelling time or overshoots.
The high performance tracking is essential in several modern
applications. For most robots, for example, just moving the end
effector of the robot arm from point "A" to point " B is insufficient. It
is, however, essential that the end effector follows a previously
determined trajectory while travelling. To achieve this, every motor in
the robot arm must follow a specific track so that the aggregated
motion of all motors keeps the end effector alongside its trajectory at
all time.

Brushless dc motors with permanent magnetic material such as
Samarium-Cobaltare currently considered among the best options in
several electric drives applications such as actuation, manipulation
and robotics [1-4]. These machines are characterized by their high
power/volume ratios, high starting torques and the ease by which
they can be controlled. Since these machines are brushless, they are
ideal to use in clean and explosive environments such as food
processing, aeronautics or chemical industries.
The prices of these motors are becoming competitive with other
conventional options. This is because of several reasons, among
them are: the increasing market for these motors; the continual
improvement in the manufacturing process of the dc brushless
90 SM 310-3 EC A paper recommended and approved by
the IEEE E l e c t r i c Machinery Committee of the IEEE
Power Engineering Society f o r presentation a t the IEEE/
PES 1990 Summer Meeting, Minneapolis, Minnesota,
J u l y 15-19, 1990. Manuscript submitted June 2, 1989;
made a v a i l a b l e f o r p r i n t i n g A p r i l 2 4 , 1990.
0885-8969/91/0300-0114$01.ooO1991IEE
Unlike most of the conventional positional controllers, the tracking
c o n t r o l l e r s d o t employ constant parameters. The structure and the
parameters of the tracking controllers are adaptively changing to
achieve two basic objectives: 1) to provide the best possible tracking
performance without overstressing the hardware; and 2) to enhance
the system robustness. In the applications where the parameters of
the load or the drive system are changing, the robustness of the
controller is a basic requirement [5-71.Fixed parameters controllers,
such as the PID can not be considered robust.
In this paper, a brushless dc system is proposed for high
performance tracking (or trajectory control). The controller of the
system is based on the theory of the Variable Structure Tracking
Control (VSTC). The entire system is tested in the laboratory. The
system accuracy and robustness during disturbances and system
variations are demonstrated by lab measurements.
Model of Brushless Motor Drive Svstem
A brushless dc machine is basically a synchronous machine with a
permanent magnet in the rotor circuit. The armature windings, which
are mounted on the stator, are electronically switched according to
the position of the rotor. Thereby, it mimics the commutator
switching action of the conventional dc machines.

A dc brushless drive system consists of four basic components [3]: 1)
Brushless motor; 2) Position encoder to provide information on the
rotor position; 3) Switching converter; and 4) Controller. In the three-
phase systems, the switching converter provides three-phase
waveforms with frequency proportional to the speed of the rotor. The
function of the controller is to provide the desired speed or position
control. In recent designs, instead of using a positional encoder, a
high frequency signal is injected in the armature winding to indirectly
measure the rotor position.
The model of the brushless machine is given in equation (1). Details
of this model can be found in reference [e]. The model is based on
the following assumptions: 1) all electric quantities are referred to
direct and quadrature reference frames mounted on the rotor; 2) the
airgap is uniform; 3) the inverter is a balanced three-phase voltage
source; 4) The inverter is a 180°, six-step switching; 5) the
fundamental frequency has the dominant effect on system dynamics.
id1 I w - r/L 0 o I Ii
Ib'3
"'
iq and id are the direct and quadrature components of the stator
current. w and 6 are the rotor speed and the rotor angle respectively.
r and L are the stator resistance and self inductance. x is the
amplitude of the flux linkages established by the permanent magnet
as viewed by the stator windings. D and J are the damping factor
and inertia constant of the machine. p is the number of poles. Vi is
the voltage of the dc link. The angle+, is defined by
0, =ev@) t er(0); (2)
eJo) is the initial phase angle of the stator voltage. e r(0)is the initial
rotor position (quadrature axis) with respect to the stator axis. ev(0)
can be adjusted to advance or delay the switching of the inverter
relative to the rotor position.
All the above states can be directly or indirectly measured. 6 and w
can be obtained by a position encoder [9]. i and id can be
calculated from the stator current using Parks tranaormation [8]
iq = i cosq (3)
id = - isinc (4)
where 9 is the phase angle between the stator voltage and rotor
angle.
x can be computed by a simple open circuit test, where the rotor
circuit is driven by a prime mover, and the open circuit voltage across
the stator winding is measured [8].By this test, x equals to
(5)
2
115
where Vo is the open circuit peak phase voltage of the stator
windings. w 0 is the electrical speed of the rotor.
Equation (1) can also be written in the state space form
-
dX(t)/dt = A(t) X(t) t 6 Vi(t) G Tm(t) (6)
Where A is the state matrix, 6 is the control vector and G is the load
torque vector. X is the state variable vector of the system. Matrix A is
time dependent because it contain one of the state variables (U).
Since the control strategy is applied in a discrete form, Matrix A can
be assumed constant during a single interval of time, i.e. Matrix A(t)
at the time interval (t) is a function of w (1-1) of the previous time step.
Variable Structure Trackincl Controller
Variable Structure Control (VSC) is a simple and a powerful tool for
position and speed control [10-19]. The idea behind the VSC control
can be demonstrated by the phase portrait of the second order
system shown in Figure 1. Assume that the system states represent
errors to be compensated. Hence, the point of the origin is the
desired final destination of the states. A "hvperplane" is calculated by
using a weighted linear or nonlinear sum of all the states. A
"switchina hvperplane' is defines as a surface at which the
magnitude of the hyperplane is zero, i.e. the weighted sum of the
states (errors) is zero.
x2 f
Constant Gain
Control
\/
' Switching Hyperplane
figure 1. Phase Portrait of Second Order System With VSC
Wth the VSC, the structure of the control loop is kept fixed until the
states hit (crosses) the switching hyperplane. Then the VSC structure
is adaptively adjusted to force the state to slide along the switching
hyperplane until they reach their final destination. This change of
structure is achieved by several switching actions where the sign and
the magnitude of the control loop gain is adaptively changed.
This VSC control strategy, when adequately designed, can surpass
most of the existing adaptive control strategies. However, VSC has
some key limitations such as:
1. The switching actions of the VSC are only applied when the
operating point of the system is in the vicinity of the switching
hyperplane. However, the motion of the system from the initial
time until it hits this hyperplane is usually accomplished by a
fixed gain feedback loops [lo]. This makes the System
susceptible to parametric variations such as inertia, load torque
and armature resistance. Hence, the robustness of the
 116

controller is not ensured during this period, but may be -

improved if a high feedback gain is used, which could be
impractical to implement [5].
To enhance the robustness of the controller, some methods are
proposed in the literatures [11,14]. However, the operation of
the system by these methods is very much restricted by some
specific shapes and types of the switching hyperplanes.
2. The travelling time from the initial point to the final destination
can neither be specified nor controlled. Hence, this type of VSC
is not suitable for high performance tracking applications.
U(t) z (CHB)-l C [ d/dt R(t) HAX(t) + HG Tm] ; iff o (t) < 0
(14)
It appears from the above equations that the control signal is
dependent on the load torque. This implies that the torque should be
measured or identified, which could be a very complex, costly and/or
time consuming process. However, because of the inequalities in
equations (13) and (14), the exact value of the load torque is not
really needed. Both equations can be met if the load torque in (13) is
replaced by its minimum expected value, and that of equation (14) is
replaced by its maximum expected value.

3. The states of the system may overshoot several times before

reaching the final destination. This may cause unnecessary
stress on the system hardware.
To avert the above mentioned drawbacks, a modified version of the
VSC is introduced [5]. It is called Variable Structure Tracking Control
(VSTC). To briefly describe the basic structure of the VSTC, let the
system under control (the brushless dc machine) be expressed by
the following state variables equations:
d/dt X(t) = AX(t) + B U(t) - G Tm (7)
Y(t) = H X(t) (8)
Where X is the system state vector, U is the control vector and Y is
output vector. A, 6 and H are system matrix, control vector and
output matrix respectively.
Assume that R(t) is a desired track vector containing the desired time
history of the variables under control. The control signal U(t) should
be selected to ensure that the following error function is reduced to a
minimum at all time:
Laboratorv ImPlementation
Figure 2 shows a schematic of the basic components of the
laboratory setup. The motor was a &pole, 3-hp Samarium-Cobalt
brushless machine with the following parameters::
Rated voltage = 270 V (on the dc link)
No load speed = 10,OOO r/min
Stator resistance (at 65OF) = 0.43 ohm
Stator inductance (L) = 8.26 mH
Rotor inertia = 0.00021 kg m2
A position encoder was mounted on the rotor shaft. It produced 2000
pulses per revolution. The motor was driven by a three-phase, six-
step dc/ac switching converter. The switching devices were
MOSFETs. The switching converter was driven by an ac/dc
converter. The triggering logics of the switching devices were
generated based on the rotor position to achieve the brushless dc
motor operation. The armature voltage of the stator windings was
adjusted by means of the Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) method.

-
I I
E(t) = Y(t) R(t) (9)
The first step in applying the VSTC technique is to select a CONVERTER
hyperplane U (t) in the following form [5,19]: AC'DC

(T (t) = C E(t) (10) POSITION

Where C is a weighting vector. The elements of C can be selected to
give a more emphasis on tracking one particular output over another.
It should also be selected to ensure the stability of the controller [19]. CONVERTER

A "switching hyperplane" is defined as (T (t) = 0. It represents any

operating point of the system at which the weighted magnitudes of CURRENT
the errors in E(t) are summed up to zero. It is also known as a "sliding
hyperplane".
I PWM I 1 CALCULATING CIRCUIT 1
The objective of the VSTC is to maintain the system operating point
in the vicinity of the switching hyperplane while "sliding" the states to
their final destination. A sufficient condition is given as follows [5,19]:

(T (t) [d/dta ( t ) ] ~0

hence,

-
(T

(T
(t) C [d/dt {H X(t) Re)}] =
(t) C [H {A X(t) - G Tm + 6 U(t)} - d/dt Re)] s 0

To satisfy the condition of equation ( l l ) , U(t) must be selected as

(12)
0
REFERENCE TRACKS
follows:

U(t)s (CHB)-l C [ d/dt R(t) - HAX(t) + HG Tm] ; iff (T (t). 0 Figure 2. Schematic of Laboratory Setup
(13)

and

The measurements of the system were: 1) rotor position; 2) rotor
speed; 3) armature current; 4)armature voltage; and 5) phase angle
of the armature current. All these measurementswere directly sensed
via a dynamic filtering circuit to provide information on only the
fundamental frequency. The "pass" frequency of the. filters was
adjusted to match the speed of the rotor.
These measurements were injected into a calculating circuit to
compute the states of the system as described earlier in this paper. It
also updated the state space matrix A(t) at every time interval. The
output of the calculating circuit was given to the VSTC block. The
VSTC block also received information on the reference tracks. The
output of the VSTC, which is the control signal, was inputted to the
PWM chip that adjusted the duty cycles of the switching MOSFETs
[9], and in turn adjusted the magnitude of the armature voltage.
The calculating circuit and the VSTC block can be implemented by
using digital electronic circuits. However, for prototype development
and testing, a Personal Computer (PC) was used to house these two
blocks. tt was also used as a data acquisition and processing device.
The PC system was similar to that reported in reference [9].
Details of the VSTC block is shown in Figure 3. There were three
inputs to the VSTC block: 1) the reference track vector Re); 2) the
derivatives of the reference tracks dR(t)/dt; and 3)the state vector of
the system X(t).
Two reference tracks were used: a track for rotor position and a track
for rotor speed. The rotor position track can be arbitrarily selected,
but the rotor speed track must be computed as a derivative of the
position track. If not, the position and speed tracks will not conform
with the system dynamics [5]. The derivative of the reference tracks
can be obtained in a closed form if the rotor position track is
represented by a set of equations. In this study, the position track
was composed of several sigmoidal segments as shown in the next
section.
I holding positions: the first was at 100 radian; the second was at the
"I&\
Figure 3.Details of the VSTC Block
117
The dashed box in Figure 3 shows the implementation of the right
hand side of equations (13)or (14).The hyperplane was calculated
by comparing the measurements Y(t) to the corresponding tracks at
every time step as given in equation (10).The sign of the hyperplane
determined the switching action of blocks Sl and S p Based on the
sign of the hyperplane, and on the sign of the output signal of the
dashed box, the switching action in block SI satisfied the conditions
of the control equations (13)or (14).kl and k2 were constants
replacing the inequalities in these control equations.
If the mechanical torque is directly monitored, its value can be
injected into the VSTC block. However, as seen from equations (13)
or (14),and based on the discussions that followed these equations,
only the minimum and maximum values of the mechanical torque
were needed. In this case, the torque limit was selected by the
switching action of block !+.
Test Results
The VSTC technique is not restricted to any shape of tracks. Any
restriction, however, is imposed by the system's hardware limitations.
To reduce any unnecessary stress, the tracks should conform with
the dynamics of the system. Furthermore, the tracks should result in
"soft transition"; e.g. soft starting, soft speed change and soft
braking. Abrupt and repeated large changes in speed may eventually
result in ruinous effects on the mechanical integrity of the motor or
load, and unnecessary electrical stresses on the motor or converter. A
soft transition does not necessarily mean a slow transition [5].For
example, an exponential and a sigmoidal tracks can both achieve
position control, and can even have the same transition time.
However, the exponential track, unlike the sigmoidal track, can cause
high mechanical and electrical stresses due to its initial slope.
Any track can be constructed from composed segments of the so
called "sigmoidal function" [5]. A single segment of a sigmoidal
function can be written in the following form:
6T(t) = J 0 t A 6 f / (1 t eXp(-At/.r )I; (15)
At = t - $ h (16)
Where 6T(t) is a desired track segment for rotor position at an
arbitrary time (t). 6 o is an initial rotor angle. ~6~ is a desired change
in the rotor angle at the final time of the track segment. $h is a
threshold time which centers the transition region of s(t). 7 is a
desired time constant of the track segment which determines the
abruptness of the transition.
Once the rotor position track is determined, the speed track WT(t)
must not be arbitrary selected, but should be calculated by
differentiating equation (15).Otherwise, the position and the speed
tracks will not conform with the motor dynamics.
The selected track for this paper was composed of three segments of
sigmoidal functions. The first was to advance the rotor position by
100 radian; the second was to further advance the rotor position by
another 100 radian; and the third was to return the rotor to its original
position by means of counter current braking. There were also three
200 radian and the third was at the original position. This track
included starting, speed change, braking and holding. These are the
modes of operation of any electric drive system.
Several test cases were performed during the course of this study.
For brevity, only salient results are reported here. In all the following
118

figures, the solid lines show the real measurements and the dashed Sliding equation
lines show the selected tracks. I

The motor was loaded by a constant weight of 10 Kg. The pulley

arrangement was designed to produce varying load torque in a
single direction of rotation. The minimum was about 2.4 Nm, and the
maximum was about 6.2 Nm.

Time (Sec)

-so I I
0 5 10 IS 20 25

TLm8 (Sac)

Figure 4. Position Tracking

I
-30
0 5 LO I5 20 25

Tlme (Sec)

Figure 7 . Current in the dc Link

-50 0 50 100 150 200 250

Rotor Angle (rad)

Figure 5. Phase Portrait of Speed Tracking Vs Rotor Position Tracking

Figure 4 shows the track for the rotor position and also the measured
rotor angle. As seen in this figure, the brushless motor with the VSTC
achieved a high degree of tracking accuracy. This was especially
encouraging since the load torque was not continually monitored.

Figure 5 shows the phase portrait of the speed versus rotor position.
Point A represents the starting point, point B represents the first
holding position at 100 radian, point C represents the second holding
position at 200 radian, and point 0 represents the final destination. I
Again the track (dashed line) and the measurements (solid line) are 0 A S 10 I5 20 . 25 50
in very good agreement. T h e (S8oondm.)

The hyperplane profile is shown in Figure 6. The switching

hyperplane is a horizontal line at zero value. It is shown in this figure
that the VSTC was continually forcing the system to move along the
switching hyperplane. Any deviation from the switching hyperplane
was corrected in the following time step@).
Figure 8 Position Tracking with Load Disturbance
Figure 7 shows the current in the dc link. The switching action of the
VSTC can be seen in this plot, This switching action was minimized
to reduce unnecessary stresses on the machine by adjusting the

constants C, K1 and K2 of Figure 3. A trial-anderror method was
used until acceptable switching is achieved.
Another interesting test is shown in Figure 8. In this case the load was
intentionally disturbed several times while the motor was tracing its
trajectories. The disturbance was done by hand lifting the load then
suddenly dropping it. This was equivalent to 100% load drop then
100% load increase. Both of the mechanical load and the system
inertia were disturbed. This disturbance was repeated several times,
the locations of the disturbance were marked in the figure by arrows.
The track in this case was specified by the number of revolutions
versus time. The figure shows that the system maintained excellent
tracking capability even in the face of unexpected large disturbances.
Conclusions
A high performance variable structure tracking controller is proposed
for brushless motor drives. The system is capable of tracing any
arbitrarily selected tracks at all time with a high degree of accuracy,
even during disturbances. The proposed system is built in the lab
where the test results confirm the robustness and accuracy of the
proposed VSTC. This system is suitable for such applications as
actuation, manipulation and robotic.
Acknowledqment
The author would like to acknowledge the Electric Energy
Consortium and the b e i n g Company, for their support during the
course of this and previous related studies.
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Sons. 1976.
A. El-Sharkawi (SM76MWSrM83) was born in Cairo,
Egypt, in 1948. He received his 6 9 .in Electrical Engineering in
1971 from Cairo High Institute of Technology, Egypt. His M.A.Sc and
Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering were received from the University of
British Columbia in 1977 and 1980 respectively.
He was a demonstrator at Cairo High Institute of technology from
1971 to 1975, and as a Teaching Assistant at University of British
Columbia from 1976 to 1980. In 1980 he joined University of
Washington as a faculty member where he is presently an associate
professor.
His major areas of research include electric drives, high performance
tracking control, power electronics applications to power systems
and artificial neural networks applications to power systems. Most of
his research in these areas are funded by the US government, and by
public and private industrial organizations.