PERMANENT MAGNET BRUSHLESS DC MOTORS

CAROLINE ANN SAM ASST. PROFESSOR

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MECHANICAL AND ELECTRONIC COMMUTATOR

MECHANICAL COMMUTATOR
In a DC motor ,field stationary, armature having no. of coils distributed over its surface rotate in the magnetic field. Armature coils interconnected to form a closed winding. Armature receives current through a mechanical commutator and brushes ,torque produced due to the interaction of the fields produced by armature and magnets.

MECHANICAL COMMUTATOR
When a commutator segment comes in contact with the brush, current flows through the section of the winding connected to the DC supply through commutator and brushes. Commutator serves the purpose of switching current from one section of the armature winding to the other at correct instant.

ELECTRONIC COMMUTATOR
A synchronous motor considered to operate as a DC motor. In SM, field rotating, armature stationary supplied by an inverter controlled by shaft position sensing signals. Static inverter-electronic commutator. This facilitates operation of a synchronous motor as a versatile variable speed DC motor having no mechanical commutator and brushes. Maintenance free motor-BLDC motor.

ELECTRONIC COMMUTATOR
3 phase Inverter

DC supply

SM Gating pulses

Torque command

Commutator circuit and controller

From current sensor

Feedback signals

ADVANTAGES
Low inertia and friction Can have faster acceleration and run at much high speeds. Since armature stationary, cooling better.

HALL SENSORS

HALL SENSORS
Transducer that varies its output in response to the changes in magnetic field. Used for positioning ,speed detection and current sensing application.

HALL EFFECT THEORY

If an electric current carrying conductor kept in magnetic field, the magnetic field exerts a transverse force on the charge carriers which tends to push them to one side of the conductor. Build up of charge at the sides of the conductor will balance the magnetic influence, producing a measurable voltage between the two sides of the conductor. The presence of this measurable transverse voltagehall effect.

HALL EFFECT THEORY

TYPICAL HALL SENSOR OUTPUT

VH= 0 ; when no magnetic field VH is positive for one polarity of magnetic field ie., N or S and negative for other polarity.

HALL SENSORS IN BLDC MOTOR

Commutation of BLDC controlled electronically. Position information required. Rotor position sensed using hall effect sensor embedded into the stator. Hall sensors embedded on the non driving end of the motor. Whenever the rotor magnetic field pass near the hall sensors, they give a high or low signal , indicating N or S passing near the sensors. Based on the exact combination of the 3 hall sensor signals placed 120 (electrical) apart, exact sequence of commutation determined.

HALL SENSORS IN BLDC MOTOR

HALL SENSORS IN BLDC MOTOR

Embedding hall sensor into the stator complex process any misalignment in hall sensors with respect to rotor magnets ,generate an error in determination of rotor position. Hall sensor magnets (scaled down replica version of the rotor) on the rotor in addition to the main rotor magnets. Whenever the rotor rotates, hall sensors give the same effect as the main magnet.

TRANSVERSE SECTION OF BLDC MOTOR

ADVANTAGE
Independent of ambient condtions (ie.,dust, humidity).

DISADVANTAGES
Distance of sensor from rotor should be less than 1 cm. Presence of offset voltage, ie.,voltage even in the absence of magnetic field. Expensive.

OPTICAL SENSORS

THREE PHASE UNIPOLAR DRIVEN BLDC

OPTICAL SENSORS
A simple 3 phase unipolar operated motor using optical sensors(photo transistors). Three photo transistors PT1 ,PT2 and PT3 placed 120 electrical apart. Exposed to light in sequence through a revolving shutter coupled to the motor shaft. PT1 detects light and turns TR1 ON. South pole created by salient pole P1 by the current flowing through the winding ,attracting the north pole of the rotor to move in the direction of arrow.

SWITCHING SEQUENCE

BLDC MOTOR

CONSTRUCTION OF BLDC MOTOR

Stator
conventional 3 phase ac winding ,star or delta connected. Sequentially switched with DC current or voltage through a 3 phase inverter. Inverter switching pattern and frequency controlled by the rotor position and speed. Back EMF trapezoidal in nature

Rotor
permanent magnet rotor

Rotor position sensing

Stator switchings are to be synchronised with the rotor position.

CONSTRUCTION OF BLDC MOTOR

Surface mounted PM rotor- if the permanent magnets are mounted on the surface of the rotor Interior PM magnet rotor- If the magnets placed in the groves or slots on the rotor.

Fig (a)

Fig (b)

ADVANTAGES
No brush maintenance required. No sparking. Absence of commutator and brush gears reduce motor length Better efficiency Better power factor Greater output power

DISADVANTAGES
The need of shaft position sensing Increased complexity in electronic controller Increased cost

SWITCHING CIRCUIT FOR THE COMMUTATION OF BLDC MOTOR

PRINCIPLE OF OPERATION

PMBLDCM DRIVE

BASIC CONFIGURATION OF BLDC MOTOR DRIVE

BLDC MOTOR DRIVE

BLDC motor Position sensing Controller Drive and power circuit

HALL SENSOR SIGNALS AND BACK EMF WAVEFORMS

SEQUENCE TABLE
HA HB HC FORWARD REVERSE

0 1 1 0

0 0 1 1

0 0 0 0

5, 4 1, 4 1, 6 3,6

3,6 3,2 5,2 5,4

0
0

1
0

1
1

3,2
5,2

1,4
1,6

CONTROLLER CIRCUIT
Rotor position sensed by a position sensor. Decoded by combinational logic to provide firing angles for 120 conduction in each of the three phases. Commutation logic or rotor position decoder has six outputs which control upper and lower phase leg transistors.

CONTROLLER CIRCUIT

CONTROLLER CIRCUIT
Basic forward control loop is a voltage control. Fixed reference frequency. Duty cycle controlled by analogue voltage reference. Current feedback and speed feedback provided in the same way as that of DC motor.

DRIVE AND POWER CIRCUIT

Base drive circuit
position signal pulses from logic circuit between +5V and 0V. do not have enough power content in them to turn the transistor ON and OFF. Need of base driver circuit

Power content in the pulse needed to be enhanced Isolation of controller circuit from the power circuit- optoisolator . Power circuit
Three phase bridge inverter. Feedback diodes across each switch.

SENSORLESS CONTROL

ROTOR POSITION DETECTION

Positon sensors like hall sensors. Estimating position by measuring the back EMF.

NEED FOR SENSOR LESS CONTROL

Increase in cost A small deviation in the position of hall sensors cause large error in position sensing of the rotor.

BACK EMF SENSING METHOD

When the permanent magnet inside the BLDC rotates, there will be a change in flux w.r.t. the stator windings An emf will be induced known as back EMF. Zero crossing point of the back EMF of the un energized winding sensed for finding out which winding to be commutated next.

SWITCHING SEQUENCE
Step 1 2 3 4 5 6 Phase A IN ZERO OUT OUT ZERO IN Phase B OUT OUT ZERO IN IN ZERO Phase C ZERO IN IN ZERO OUT OUT

BACK EMF SENSING

In each step there is a zero crossing of back EMF and at the end of each step commutation of winding will happen. Find out which windings back EMF crossing zero Find out the direction of zero crossing. Detect the back EMF of un energised winding only.

ZERO CROSSING EVENT DETECTION PRINCIPLE

Consider the first step Need to find out the zero crossing of back EMF in the C winding and the direction of zero crossing. Give a constant pulse in the lower switch and PWM switch in the top switch.

PWM ON
Latch in the OFF condition.

PWM OFF
Voltage at the comparator input is back EMF. When the back EMF crosses zero , comparator output zero. Comparator output stored in latch. Direction of crossing obtained form latch.

MICROCONTROLLER BASED BLDC CONTROL

BLOCK DIAGRAM

 Using PWM average voltage across the windings controlled, thus controlling the speed. PWM outputs control the switches Q0 to Q5 . A matching driver circuit used. Sequence table entered in the program memory based on the hall sensor placement Main features
PCPWM Input capture module ADCs

INPUT CAPTURE MODULE

Hall sensors A,B,C connected to input capture module. IC module interrupts every transition on any of the IC pins. Upon IC interrupt in the IC Interrupt Service Routine , the status of all the three input capture pins read combination used to pick up the correct sequence from the table.

PCPWM MODULE
Three duty cycle registers
PDC0H:PDC0L PDC1H:PDC1L PDC2H:PDC2L

SOFTWARE FUNCTIONS
Main loop- initialization routine ,fault display , key detection and decoding. Initialization routine- initializes all the peripherals. PWM outputs driven to inactive state until all the fault exists. Key activity monitoring- keys are monitored and each press of either button toggles the state corresponding to the keys. Fault signals-Overvoltage, overcurrent and overtemperature monitored.

SOFTWARE FUNCTIONS
ISR loop- Hall sensor transition and AD channel conversion monitored. Hall sensor-Any transition on hall sensor inputs read the corresponding value from the sequence table corresponding to the direction. A/D channel conversion- AD channels converted in every cycle.

FLOWCHART
ISR

Hall sensor change

yes Select mode

no Load forward table Load reverse table

no ADC ready

yes
Calculate and load duty cycle registers

Return value from table and load register

Return from interrupt

TORQUE/SPEED CHARACTERISTICS

TORQUE/SPEED CHARACTERISTICS
Peak torque(TP ) or stall torque
Maximum torque that motor can deliver for a short duration of time. Not available for all speed ranges

Rated Torque (TR )

Torque available on the shaft for the given speed range.

Continuous torque zone

Motor can be loaded up to rated torque. Torque remains constant for a speed up to rated speed. Motor can be run up to max. speed which can be up to 150% of the rated speed, torque starts drooping.

TORQUE/SPEED CHARACTERISTICS
Intermittent torque zone
Applications that have frequent starts and stops and frequent reversals of rotation with load on the motor, demand more torque than the rated torque. eg., when the motor starts from standstill and during acceleration. extra torque required to overcome the inertia of the load and rotor itself. Motor can deliver higher torque, maximum up to peak torque.

TORQUE/SPEED CHARACTERISTICS

COMPARING BLDC WITH BRUSHED DC MOTOR

COMPARING BLDC WITH INDUCTION MOTOR