European Journal of Scientific Research ISSN 1450-216X Vol.71 No.1 (2012), pp. 117-126 EuroJournals Publishing, Inc.

. 2012 http://www.europeanjournalofscientificresearch.com

Digital Control of Four Quadrant Operation of BLDC Motor using dsPIC30F4011

C. Sheeba Joice Research Scholar, Department of I & C Anna University, Chennai, India E-mail: sheebaalfred@yahoo.com Tel: + 91- 98405 15829 S. R. Paranjothi Former Dean, Department of EEE Anna University, Chennai, India E-mail: srpjothi@yahoo.com V. Jawahar Senthil Kumar Assistant Professor, Department of I & C CEG,Anna University,Chennai,India E-mail: veerajawahar@annauniv.edu Abstract Brushless DC (BLDC) motor drives are becoming more popular in industrial, traction applications. This makes the control of BLDC motor in all the four quadrants very vital. This paper deals with the digital control of three phase BLDC motor. The motor is controlled in all the four quadrants without any loss of power; in fact energy is conserved during the regenerative period. The digital controller dsPIC30F4011, which is very advantageous over other controllers, as it combines the salient features of Digital Signal Processor and PIC microcontroller, is used to achieve precise control. A closed loop control is achieved using dsPIC. The speed, duty cycle and the direction of rotation of motor can be controlled. A sensor based control is realized in this paper. Keywords: BLDC motor, Digital Control, dsPIC, Four Quadrants, Regenerative Mode

1. Introduction
Brushless DC motor has a rotor with permanent magnets and a stator with windings. It is essentially a DC motor turned inside out. The brushes and commutator have been eliminated and the windings are connected to the control electronics .The control electronics replace the function of the commutator and energize the proper winding. The motor has less inertia, therefore easier to start and stop. BLDC motors are potentially cleaner, faster, more efficient, less noisy and more reliable. The Brushless DC motor is driven by rectangular or trapezoidal voltage strokes coupled with the given rotor position. The voltage strokes must be properly aligned, between the phases, so that the angle between the stator flux and the rotor flux is kept close to 90, to get the maximum developed torque. BLDC motors often incorporate either internal or external position sensors to sense the actual

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rotor position or its position can also be detected without sensors. BLDC motors are used in Aerospace, Consumer, Medical, Industrial Automation equipment and instrumentation. This paper is organized as follows: Section 2 describes the four quadrant operation of the three phase BLDC motor, its features; the controller dsPIC30F4011, with its special features is explained in section 3. The complete drive system is reviewed in section 4. In section 5, the simulation of four quadrant control operation of the BLDC motor is presented. Experimental setup and the results are presented respectively in sections 6 and 7. Section 8 concludes the proposed work.

2. Four Quadrant Operation of BLDC Motor

2.1. BLDC Motor Brushless DC Motors are driven by DC voltage, but current commutation, is controlled by solid state switches. The commutation instants are determined by the rotor position[1].Sensorless techniques need extra computation time and external circuitry to estimate the back-EMF, than the sensor-based systems. Moreover, sensorless techniques demand high performance processors, large program codes, and large memory. In sensor based system the Hall sensors are used to determine the position of the rotor at any instant of time [2][3]. The rotor shaft position is sensed by a Hall Effect sensor, which provides signals to the respective switches. Whenever the rotor magnetic poles pass near the Hall sensors, they give a high or low signal, indicating either N or S pole is passing near the sensors. The numbers shown around the peripheral of the motor diagram in figure 1 represent the sensor position code. The north pole of the rotor points to the code that is output at that rotor position. The numbers are the sensor logic levels where the Most Significant bit is sensor C and the Least Significant bit is sensor A.
Figure 1: BLDC Motor Star connected

Based on the combination of these three Hall sensor signals, the exact sequence of commutation can be determined.These signals are decoded by combinational logic to provide the firing signals for 120 conduction on each of the three phases. The rotor position decoder has six outputs which control the upper and lower phase leg MOSFETs of figure 2 [4]-[8].The rotor shaft position is sensed by a Hall Effect sensor, which provides signals as represented in Table 1. In the figure 2 shown below, at any specific instant, one MOSFET in the upper leg and one MOSFET in the lower leg will be switched ON. The respective PWM pulses are received from the controller, at appropriate time.

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Figure 2: Three Phase Inverter Circuit to BLDC Motor

Table1:
Ha 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1

Clockwise Hall Sensor Signals, Phase Voltages and Drive Signals

Hb 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 Hc 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 EMFA 0 0 -1 -1 +1 +1 0 0 EMFB 0 -1 +1 0 0 -1 +1 0 EMFC 0 +1 0 +1 -1 0 -1 0 S1 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 S2 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 S3 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 S4 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 S5 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 S6 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0

2.2. Four Quadrant Operation There are four possible modes or quadrants of operation using a Brushless DC Motor. In an X-Y plot of speed versus torque, Quadrant I is forward speed and forward torque. The torque is propelling the motor in the forward direction. Conversely, Quadrant III is reverse speed and reverse torque. Now the motor is motoring in the reverse direction, spinning backwards with the reverse torque. Quadrant II is where the motor is spinning in the forward direction, but torque is being applied in reverse. Torque is being used to brake the motor, and the motor is now generating power as a result. Finally, Quadrant IV is exactly the opposite. The motor is spinning in the reverse direction, but the torque is being applied in the forward direction. Again, torque is being applied, to attempt to slow the motor and change its direction to forward again. Once again, power is being generated by the motor. The BLDC motor is initially made to rotate in clockwise direction, but when the speed reversal command is obtained, the control goes into the clockwise regeneration mode [9], which brings the rotor to the standstill position. Instead of waiting for the absolute standstill position, continuous energization of the main phase is attempted. This rapidly slows down the rotor to a standstill position. Therefore, there is the necessity for determining the instant when the rotor of the machine is ideally positioned for reversal. Hall-effect sensors are used to ascertain the rotor position and from the Hall sensor outputs, it is determined whether the machine has reversed its direction. This is the ideal moment for energizing the stator phase so that the machine can start motoring in the counter clockwise direction.

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3. Digital Controller
The digital pulse width modulation control of BLDC motor will be efficient and cost effective [10], [11]. The digital control of the four quadrant operation of the three phase BLDC motor is achieved with dsPIC30F4011.This digital controller combines the Digital Signal Processor features and PIC microcontroller features, making it versatile. The controller has a modified Harvard architecture, with a 16 x 16 bit working register array. It has two 40 bit wide accumulators. All the DSP instructions are performed in a single cycle. The three external interrupt sources, with eight user selectable priority levels, for each interrupt source, helps to get the hall sensor inputs from the motor. The reference speed and the required duty cycle can be fed into the controller. The closed loop control is achieved with the PI controller. 3.1. PI Controller The regulation of speed is accomplished with PI Controller. By increasing the proportional gain of the speed controller, the controllers sensitivity is increased to have faster reaction for small speed regulation errors. This allows a better initial tracking of the speed reference by a faster reaction of the current reference issued by the speed controller. This increased sensitivity also reduces the speed overshooting. The armature current reduces faster, once the desired speed is achieved. An increase of the integral gain will allow the motor speed to catch up with the speed reference ramp, a lot faster during sampling periods. This will indeed allow a faster reaction to small speed error integral terms that occur when a signal is regulated following a ramp. The controller will react in order to diminish the speed error integral a lot faster by producing a slightly higher accelerating torque when following an accelerating ramp. On the other hand, too high increase of the proportional and integral gains can cause instability, and the controller becoming insensitive. Too high gains may also result in saturation. 3.2. PWM Module The PWM module simplifies the task of generating multiple synchronized Pulse Width Modulated (PWM) outputs. It has six PWM I/O pins with three duty cycle generators. The three PWM duty cycle registers are double buffered to allow glitchless updates of the PWM outputs. For each duty cycle, there is a duty cycle register that will be accessible by the user while the second duty cycle register holds the actual compared value used in the present PWM period. 3.3. ADC Module The 10 bit high speed analog to digital converter (A/D) allows conversion of an analog input signal to a 10 bit digital number. This module is based on Successive Approximation Register (SAR) architecture, and provides a maximum sampling rate of 500 ksps. The A/D converter has a unique feature of being able to operate while the device is in sleep mode [12].

4. Complete Drive System

The schematic diagram of the drive arrangement of the three phase BLDC motor is shown in figure 3. The position signals obtained from the hall sensors of the motor are read by the I/O lines of the dsPIC controller. The hall sensor inputs give the position of the rotor which is fed to the controller. The controller compares it with the reference speed and generates an error signal. The required direction of rotation either clockwise or counter clockwise can also be fed to the digital controller. The PWM module of the controller generates appropriate PWM signals, which are applied to the three phase inverter. Whenever there is a reversal of direction of rotation it implies there is a change in the quadrant. When the motor is operating in the motoring mode, in the clockwise direction, the relay contacts are

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normally open. But when braking is applied or when a speed reversal command is received, the relay contacts are closed. The kinetic energy which will be wasted as heat energy is now converted into electric energy which is rectified and stored in a chargeable battery. The relay circuit is shown in figure 4. The relay coil is energised with a 24V power supply. The frequent reversal of direction of rotation will result in the continuous charging of the battery. The energy thus stored can be used to run the same motor when there is an interruption of power supply. The actual speed of the motor is fedback to the dsPIC controller, which is compared with the reference speed. The difference in speed generates an error signal which aids the motor to run at a constant speed.
Figure 3: Complete Drive System

Figure 4: Relay Circuit

5. Simulink Model
The closed loop controller for a three phase brushless DC motor is modeled using MATLAB/Simulink [13], [14] and [15] is shown in figure 5. Permanent Magnet Synchronous motor with trapezoidal back

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EMF is modeled as a Brushless DC Motor. The quadrant control PWM driver block is simulated with switches, with appropriate time delay, to drive the inverter circuit. The rotor speed, stator current and stator back emf of the BLDC motor are captured in the scope. The model of the controller shown in figure 6, receives the Hall signals as its input, converts it in to appropriate voltage signals. The gate signals are generated by comparing the actual speed with the reference speed. Thus a closed loop speed control is achieved.
Figure 5: Simulink Model of Four Quadrant Drive

Figure 6: Modeling of Controller

6. Practical Implementation
The practical implementation of the four quadrant control of the three phase BLDC motor is shown in figure 7. The specifications of the motor, battery and relay coil are listed in Tables 2, 3 and 4 respectively. Chargeable battery is used to store energy during regenerative mode.
Figure 7: Practical Implementation

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Table 2: BLDC Motor Specifications

C. Sheeba Joice, S. R. Paranjothi and V. Jawahar Senthil Kumar

Description Rated Voltage Rated Current Rated Speed Rated Power Frequency No. of Poles

Value 24 V 2.4 A 3000 rpm 60W 100Hz 8

Table 3:

Battery Specifications
Value 6V 1.3 A/hr

Description Rated Voltage Charging Current

Table 4:

Relay Coil Specifications

Value 24V 640 3 N/O , 3N/C

Description Rated Voltage Coil Resistance No. of Contacts

7. Results
The Hall sensor signals and the phase current (of one phase) of three phase brushless DC motor are shown in figure 8. The digital storage oscilloscope image shown in figure 9 indicates the trapezoidal voltage of two phases. The PWM pulses which are given as input to the inverter are shown in figure 10. The oscilloscope output shown in figure 11 gives the reference speed and the actual speed. The motor reaches the actual speed within a short time. The small dip or disturbance seen is because of the load fluctuations. In figure 12, the waveform shows that the battery starts energising from the instant the speed reversal command is received. The oscillations die out gradually as the motor changes its direction of rotation.
Figure 8: Hall Sensor signals and Phase Current

Digital Control of Four Quadrant Operation of BLDC Motor using dsPIC30f4011

Figure 9: Trapezoidal voltage of two phases

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Figure 10: PWM Input to the Inverter

Figure 11: Reference Speed and Actual Speed

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Figure 12: Energisation of the Battery

8. Conclusion
In this paper, a control scheme is proposed for BLDC motor to change the direction from CW to CCW without going through the standstill position. The time taken to achieve this braking is comparatively less. The generated voltage during the regenerative mode can be returned back to the supply mains which will result in considerable saving of power. This concept may well be utilized in the rotation of spindles, embroidery machines and electric vehicles where there is frequent reversal of direction of rotation of the motor. The designed and implemented prototype model may be implemented even for higher rated motors.

References
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R. Krishnan, Sung-Yeul Park, and Keunsoo Ha, Theory and Operation of a Four-Quadrant Switched Reluctance Motor Drive With a Single Controllable SwitchThe Lowest Cost FourQuadrant Brushless Motor Drive, IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, Vol.41, No. 4, 2005, pp.1047 -1055. Anand Sathyan, Mahesh Krishnamurthy, Nikola Milivojevic, Ali Emadi, A Low-Cost Digital Control Scheme for Brushless DC Motor Drives in Domestic Applications, Proc. Of International Electric Machines and Drives Conference, 2009, pp.76 82. Anand Sathyan, Nikola Milivojevic, Young-Joo Lee, Mahesh Krishnamurthy, and Ali Emadi, An FPGA-Based Novel Digital PWM Control Scheme for BLDC Motor Drives, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics,Vol.56,No.8,August 2009,pp.3040 3049. Microchip, dsPIC30F4011/4012 Data Sheet, High Performance Digital Signal Controllers. C. Sheeba Joice and Dr. S.R. Paranjothi, Simulation of Closed Loop Control of Four Quadrant Operation in Three Phase Brushless DC Motor using MATLAB/Simulink, ICPCES 2010, pp.259-263. Vinatha U, Swetha Pola, and K.P.Vittal, Simulation of Four Quadrant Operation & Speed Control of BLDC Motor on MATLAB / SIMULINK, in Proceedings of IEEE Region 10 Conference 2008, pp.1-6. R.Shanmugasundram, K. Muhammed Zakariah, N. Yadaiah, Low-Cost High Performance Brushless DC Motor Drive for Speed Control Applications,Proceedings of International Conference on Advances in Recent Technologies in Communication and Computing,2009, pp.456-460.