IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 48, NO.
3, JUNE 2001
Analysis and Prediction of Inverter Switching
Frequency in Direct Torque Control of
Induction Machine Based on Hysteresis
Bands and Machine Parameters
Jun-Koo Kang, Member, IEEE, and Seung-Ki Sul, Fellow, IEEE
Abstract—In this paper, the influences of the hysteresis bands
on the direct torque control (DTC) of an induction motor are
analytically investigated, and the switching frequency of the
inverter is predicted based on the analysis. The flux and torque
hysteresis bands are the only gains to be adjusted in DTC, and
the inverter switching frequency and the current waveform
are greatly influenced by them. Therefore, the magnitude of
the hysteresis band should be determined based on reasonable
guidelines which can avoid excessive inverter switching frequency
and current harmonics in the whole operating region. This paper
predicts the inverter switching frequency according to torque and
flux hysteresis bands based on induction machine parameters and
control sampling period, and investigates the effect of hysteresis
bands to line current harmonics. The simulated and experimental
results prove the usefulness and feasibility of the proposed method.
Index Terms—Direct torque control, distortion factor, hysteresis
band, induction motor, total harmonic.
I. INTRODUCTION
S INCE THE concept of direct torque control (DTC) was de-
veloped in the mid 1980s [1], [2], it has been used in many
ac drives applications because it provides a fast torque response
and robustness against machine parameter variations without
speed sensor. DTC is also very simple in its implementation be-
cause it needs only two hysteresis comparators and switching
vector table for both flux and torque control. Therefore, the only
gains to be adjusted are the amplitudes of the hysteresis band.
The amplitude of the hysteresis band greatly influences the drive
performance such as flux and torque ripples, inverter switching
frequency, and current harmonics. Many papers have concerned
the improvement of the performance of DTC [3], [4], however,
there have been few papers about the influences of the hysteresis
band. The effects of the flux and torque hysteresis bands to the
system performance are shown in [5] and [6], but in these pa-
pers, there is no theoretical analysis about the variation of in-
verter switching frequency according to the machine parameters
and the operating speed condition.
Manuscript received October 6, 1998; revised February 21, 2001. Abstract
published on the Internet February 15, 2001.
J.-K. Kang is with Yaskawa Electric Corporation, Kitakyushu-City 803-8530,
Japan.
S.-K. Sul is with the School of Electrical Engineering, Seoul National Uni-
versity, Seoul 151-742, Korea.
Publisher Item Identifier S 0278-0046(01)03973-9.
0278–0046/01$10.00 © 2001 IEEE
545
In the DTC of induction motors, even though hysteresis bands
are set to be constant, the switching frequency varies according
to the operating conditions such as motor speed, flux level, and
output torque. This makes the hysteresis bands large enough not
to exceed the upper limit of inverter switching frequency that is
predetermined by hardware thermal restriction. Since the hys-
teresis bands are set to cope with the worst case, the system
performance is degraded, especially in the low-speed region.
In this paper, design procedures of flux and torque hysteresis
bands are suggested for considering switching frequency and
harmonic distortion of currents. To predict the switching fre-
quency, theoretical and experimental investigations have been
performed on the variations of the flux and torque by the se-
lected voltage vector in DTC. In what follows, basic flux and
torque equations of induction motor are briefly discussed first.
Then, the switching frequency of the inverter is obtained with
the hysteresis bands and motor equations. Finally, experimental
results are presented and compared with simulation results.
II. FLUX AND TORQUE EQUATIONS FOR DTC ALGORITHM
An induction motor can be modeled with stator and rotor
fluxes as state variables by the following equation:
V
(1)
where and represent stator and rotor flux vectors, V is
the input voltage vector, and are stator and rotor resis-
tances, , , and are stator, mutual, and rotor inductances
respectively, and is a rotor angular speed expressed in elec-
trical radians and leakage factor .
In the DTC algorithm, electromagnetic torque and stator flux
are used as control quantities. For a digital implementation, a
discrete form of torque can be expressed in terms of stator and
rotor flux vectors, or stator flux and current vectors as
Im
Im I (2)
546 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 48, NO. 3, JUNE 2001

(a)

(b)
Fig. 1. Control sequence of DTC algorithm with switching-voltage space vectors. (a) Control sequence. (b) Switching-voltage space vector.

where is the number of poles, I is a stator current vector, TABLE I

VOLTAGE-VECTOR TABLE FOR DTC ALGORITHM
and “ ” denotes the complex conjugate.
A discrete form of stator flux at sampling instant
can be written in terms of applied voltage and current as

V I (3)

where is a sampling period. The realization of the DTC

scheme is outlined in Fig. 1 where and are flux and
torque commands, respectively. Procedures i)–viii) are repeated
at every sampling period. At the beginning of each sampling
period, the controller reads in the stator voltage and current.
The flux and torque are then calculated using (2) and (3). Flux determined according to the location of flux vector . The
magnitude error and torque error are then calculated, switching signals of selected voltage vector are sent to the gate
which are used as inputs of hysteresis comparators. The output drive circuit. The typical waveform of by the torque hys-
voltage vector is selected based on Table I where sector is teresis controller of DTC is illustrated in Fig. 2 where torque
KANG AND SUL: INVERTER SWITCHING FREQUENCY IN DIRECT TORQUE CONTROL OF INDUCTION MACHINE 547

Fig. 2. Typical waveform of the output torque in the DTC of induction machine.

rising time and falling time are integer multiples of ,

and is a torque hysteresis band. In the steady state, torque
increases with a slope by nonzero voltage vectors and de-
creases with a slope by zero voltage vectors.
If is small enough to assume and are
constant during sampling time, stator and rotor fluxes at sam-
pling instant are given by following equations [10]:

V (4)

(a) (b)

(5)
By substituting (4) and (5) into (2), and neglecting the square
of , the torque variation during by nonzero vector
V can be given by

Im V

(6)
Similarly, torque variation by zero vector can be written (c)
as Fig. 3. A relative magnitude of three components which consist of torque slope
h . (a) h . (b) h . (c) h .

erating condition of an induction motor. Positive and negative

Im (7) slopes of the torque by an applied voltage vector can be calcu-
lated from (6) and (7), respectively. In (6), ascending slope
From (3), the flux variation during at the th can be divided into three parts as
sampling instant can be expressed as
(9)
V I (8) where

III. TORQUE AND SWITCHING FREQUENCY

A. Instantaneous Torque Slope Equations Im V

The switching frequency caused by the torque hysteresis con-

Im
troller of DTC is closely related to the parameters and the op-
548 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 48, NO. 3, JUNE 2001

(a)

(a)

(b)
Fig. 4. Variation of motor torque according to the selected voltage vector in
~ is selected as an output voltage. (b) V
sector 1. (a)V ~ is selected as an output
voltage.

(b)
Fig. 6. Switching frequency of torque hysteresis controller with different
hysteresis band  . (a) 7.5 kW. (b) 240 kW.

is negligibly small compared to and . Thus, the instanta-

neous torque slope equation can be approximated as
(10)
In the same manner, the descending slope in (7) is
(11)

B. Average Torque Slope Equations

Fig. 5. Torque ripple around the torque command by hysteresis controller.
In Fig. 3, to observe the relative magnitude of , , and ,
150% step torque response of DTC is simulated with a 7.5-kW
induction motor until it reaches to 1200 r/min (simulation pa-
rameters are listed in Appendix). As can be seen from Fig. 3,
In order to get an average switching frequency caused by the
torque controller, an average torque slope should be calculated.
To increase the torque in the sector m, voltage vector V or
V is selected based on the voltage vector table in Table I.
When the stator flux vector is in sector 1, either V or V is
selected regarding the sign of flux error. First, suppose that V
KANG AND SUL: INVERTER SWITCHING FREQUENCY IN DIRECT TORQUE CONTROL OF INDUCTION MACHINE 549

TABLE II
SPECIFICATIONS OF INDUCTION MACHINE AND INVERTER

is selected to increase stator flux as shown in Fig. 4(a). Then,

, the angle between voltage vector V and the stator flux ,
decreases from to as the stator flux rotates. There-
fore, torque slope changes according to the decrease of .
The average torque slope in sector 1 can be obtained using (10)
as
V
V V

(12)
where and is the angle be-
tween the stator and rotor flux vector. If V is selected to de-
crease stator flux as shown in Fig. 4(b), the average slope in
sector 1 is (a)
V
V V

(13)
Under the assumption that V and V are equally selected in
sector 1, the resulting average torque slope becomes
V V
(14)
The average descending slope can be obtained as

(15)
(b)
Since can be approximated as at no-load con- Fig. 7. Change of stator flux by the selected voltage vector in the space-vector
dition, (14) and (15) yield ~ is selected. (b) V
plane. (a) V ~ is selected.

(17)

V (16) where and are torque slopes defined at no-load con-

dition and is the amplitude of stator flux. As can be seen
550 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 48, NO. 3, JUNE 2001

Fig. 8. Simulated trajectory of stator flux according to various flux hysteresis bands.

from (16) and (17), the torque slopes are the functions of stator
flux, motor speed, and dc-link voltage. In particular, they are
strongly affected by motor speed.

C. Calculation of Switching Frequency Caused by Torque

Hysteresis Band

To calculate , a switching frequency due to the torque hys-

teresis controller, the torque rising time , and the falling time
are divided into several subregions as shown in Fig. 5. Using
no-load torque slopes and , and in Fig. 5 can
be expressed as

Fig. 9. Number of voltage vector changes versus hysteresis band  with

different sampling periods.
V
mining control performance and system switching frequency.
(18)
The overshoot interval and can be expressed as
(19)
(20)

In the same manner, and can be expressed as

Even though and are slightly different from and
according to load conditions, it is observed that it does not
make a large difference for our application purpose. A control (21)
delay time is an elapsed time from the point at which output
torque exceeds hysteresis band to the point at which torque slope The resulting switching frequency by the torque hysteresis
is changed by the updated voltage vector. In digital implemen- controller is given by
tation, a longer sampling period results in a longer delay time,
that means larger overshoot of torque and lower switching fre-
(22)
quency. Thus, the sampling period is an important factor deter-
KANG AND SUL: INVERTER SWITCHING FREQUENCY IN DIRECT TORQUE CONTROL OF INDUCTION MACHINE 551

Fig. 10. Configuration of the proposed switching frequency prediction block.

In a low-speed region, as becomes steep, can become where is an angle between and reference axis of sector 1
smaller than and, correspondingly, overshoot interval in- (at the beginning of sector 1, = 0). In Fig. 7(b), V is selected
creases proportionally to . Therefore, can be ex- to decrease stator flux, and then slope can be obtained as
pressed as . Similarly, if becomes
smaller than in a high-speed region, then overshoot interval
can be expressed as .
With various normalized torque hysteresis bands ,
switching frequency is simulated in Fig. 6. The system
parameters for simulation are presented in Table II. It can be
seen that is largely changed according to motor speed
that varies from 100 to 1800 r/min. Thus, it is difficult to keep
V
the switching frequency constant over the whole operating
region. In Fig. 6, has peak value at a medium-speed range,
and it is not affected by . V (24)

As can be seen from (23), (24), and Fig. 8, the increase and
decrease of the stator flux magnitude are highly nonlinear be-
IV. FLUX AND SWITCHING FREQUENCY cause and are sinusoidal functions with respect to stator
flux angle . Thus, the characteristics of flux variation are quite
A. Calculation of the Flux Slope different from those of torque. Thus, the calculation of switching
frequency by the flux hysteresis controller is also different
If the stator flux is located in the sector , V or V from (22).
is selected to increase or decrease the stator flux based on the
vector table of DTC. Hence, in sector 1, V or V should be B. Flux Hysteresis Band and Switching Frequency
selected according to the sign of flux error. The space-vector di- Fig. 8(c) and (d) have different as 0.07 and 0.1, but both
agram in Fig. 7 illustrates the variation of flux according sequentially select the same voltage vector V V V
to the location of flux in sector 1. In Fig. 7(a), V is se- among nonzero vectors in sector 1. Thus, the number of the
lected to increase stator flux. Neglecting the effect of , the change of voltage vector, , by the flux hysteresis controller is
flux slope can be obtained as the same as 3. It means that the switching frequency contributed
by the flux controller is the same in Fig. 8(c) and (d). If ex-
ceeds a certain level, an additional decrease of switching fre-
quency does not exist. In the case of in Fig. 8(b),
selected voltage vectors are V V V V V ,
and . In the case of in Fig. 8(a), is 14.
As described above, the effect of on the switching frequency
is highly nonlinear and it is difficult to obtain an equation like
(22). Fortunately, the relationship between and is not
V strongly affected by motor parameters. Therefore, versus
the hysteresis bands can be determined through the analysis and
V (23) the simulation results. Since both hysteresis band and sampling
552 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 48, NO. 3, JUNE 2001

period affect the switching frequency of the flux hysteresis con-

troller, the variation of versus hysteresis bands with different
sampling periods is shown in Fig. 9. It can be seen from Fig. 9
that, if is larger than 0.04, is not strongly affected by the
, and if is larger than 0.07, is constant as 3. Using
in Fig. 9, the resulting average switching frequency of the flux
hysteresis controller, can be obtained as

sectors arms Hz (25)

where is a frequency of stator flux.

C. Total Inverter Switching Frequency

The resulting inverter frequency can be obtained by com-
bining (22) and (25) as

(26)

Fig. 10 shows the configuration of the proposed block which (a)

predicts inverter switching frequency. In Fig. 10, (26) is used to
predict maximum switching frequency of the inverter in DTC.
If exceeds the maximum switching frequency , the
hysteresis bands and should be redesigned. The design
of hysteresis bands will be discussed in the next section.

V. EXPERIMENTAL VERIFICATION
Experimental tests have been carried out to verify the anal-
ysis on the effect of the flux and torque hysteresis bands to
the switching frequency. The experimental setup consists of a
7.5-kW squirrel-cage induction machine, insulated gate bipolar
transistor (IGBT) inverter, and digital-signal-processor (DSP)
(TMS320C40)-based controller. The specifications and param-
eters of the induction machine are listed in Table II.
Fig. 11(a) shows the switching frequency of the torque con-
troller versus motor speed under the no-load steady state
where solid lines indicate simulated results from (22). The mag-
nitude of the normalized torque hysteresis band is varied
from 0.005 to 0.1 with flux hysteresis band . In
Fig. 11(a), the torque hysteresis controller has its peak switching
frequency at around 1100 r/min. It means that the maximum (b)
switching frequency of the inverter should be designed consid- Fig. 11. Switching frequency versus motor speed with different hysteresis
ering that region. From Fig. 11(a), it can be seen that the exper- bands. (a) Torque hysteresis controller. (b) Flux hysteresis controller.
imental result is consistent with the simulation result.
Fig. 11(b) shows the switching frequency of the flux con- that (22) can be used for predicting switching frequency ac-
troller versus motor speed under the steady state where solid cording to various s.
lines indicate simulated results from (26). The magnitude of the In determining the amplitude of hysteresis bands, both
flux hysteresis band is varied from 0.003 to 0.09 of the rated switching frequency and total harmonic distortion factor
flux for no-load operation with . It can be seen from (THD) should be considered. Fig. 12(a) shows the effects
Fig. 11(b) that is proportional to motor speed because the of flux and torque hysteresis bands on the THD of motor
number of selected voltage vector is also increased as the stator current. It can be seen that THD is strongly dependent on
flux rotates. In the case of and , there and moderately affected by . It is desirable to keep
is no difference in switching frequency. This is well in accor- small and adjust for switching frequency control because
dance with the simulation results in Fig. 8 where the hysteresis an increase of causes rapid increase of THD without an
band larger than about does not contribute to reduce effective decrease of the switching frequency. From Fig. 11(b)
switching frequency of flux. Through the result, it is proved and Fig. 12(a), it can be observed that smaller than 0.01
KANG AND SUL: INVERTER SWITCHING FREQUENCY IN DIRECT TORQUE CONTROL OF INDUCTION MACHINE
(a)
(b)
Fig. 12. (a) THD of motor current versus hysteresis bands using direct torque
control algorithm. (b) THD of motor current versus switching frequency using
current-controlled space-vector PWM.
increases rapidly, but the THD of current is not lowered
proportionally. Therefore, smaller than 0.01 does not
seem to be effective in improving the performance. However,
it should be noted that a longer sampling period makes the
system sluggish, even with the same hysteresis band, as can
be seen in Fig. 9. Since Fig. 12(a) is obtained with a 50- s
sampling period, THD results can be adapted depending on
sampling period, based on the relationship in Fig. 9. Fig. 12(b)
shows the THD of motor current versus switching frequency
using current-controlled space-vector pulsewidth modulation
(PWM). By comparing Fig. 12(a) and (b), it can be seen that,
in DTC, since THD is strongly affected by , THD can be
large even if switching frequency increases with small , Seung-Ki Sul (S’78–M’80–SM’98–F’00) was born
whereas in current-controlled space-vector PWM, THD is
simply proportional to switching frequency.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
This paper has presented the results of an investigation into
the relationship between the hysteresis bands of DTC and the
switching frequency of the inverter. The switching frequency
of the inverter is predicted using the proposed average torque
slope equations of induction machines and the predetermined
voltage-vector change versus the flux control hysteresis band.
553
The results show that the switching frequency of the torque con-
troller has a peak value at medium speed due to the effect of
back EMF, while that of the flux controller is proportional to
operating speed. Analysis results can be a predictive tool for de-
signing the hysteresis bands of the inverter which make it pos-
sible to limit maximum switching frequency of power devices.
The proposed approach is also expected to be applicable to other
ac motors such as permanent-magnet synchronous motors and
synchronous reluctance motors.
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[8] P. Tiitinen, “The next motor control method, DTC direct torque control,”
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Jun-Koo Kang (S’96–M’01) received the B.S.,
M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering
from Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea, in
1986, 1988, and 1999, respectively.
He was with the Power Electronics Laboratory,
R&D Center, LG Industrial Systems Company,
as a Research Engineer from 1988 to 1993 and as
a Senior Research Engineer from 1993 to 1997.
Since 1999, he has been with Yaskawa Electric
Corporation, Kitakyushu-city, Japan, where he is
currently a Senior Engineer. His research interests
include the analysis and control of power electronics, matrix converters, and
high-performance ac drives.
in Korea in 1958. He received the B.S., M.S., and
Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Seoul
National University, Seoul, Korea, in 1980, 1983, and
1986, respectively.
He was with the Department of Electrical and
Computer Engineering, University of Wisconsin,
Madison, as an Associate Researcher from 1986 to
1988. He then was with Gold-Star Industrial Systems
Company as a Principle Research Engineer from
1988 to 1991. Since 1991, he has been a member of
the faculty of the School of Electrical Engineering, Seoul National University,
where he is a Full Professor. His current research interests are power electronic
control of electric machines, electric vehicle drives, and power converter
circuits.