66
1, MARCH 2004
A Permanent-Magnet Synchronous Motor
Servo Drive Using Self-Constructing
Fuzzy Neural Network Controller
Faa-Jeng Lin, Senior Member, IEEE, and Chih-Hong Lin
Abstract—A self-constructing fuzzy neural network (SCFNN)
is proposed to control the rotor position of a permanent-magnet
synchronous motor (PMSM) drive to track periodic step and si-
nusoidal reference inputs in this study. The structure and the pa-
rameter learning phases are preformed concurrently and online
in the SCFNN. The structure learning is based on the partition of
input space, and the parameter learning is based on the supervised
gradient decent method using a delta adaptation law. Several sim-
ulation and experimental results are provided to demonstrate the
effectiveness of the proposed SCFNN control stratagem under the
occurrence of parameter variations and external disturbance.
Index Terms—Fuzzy neural network, gradient decent method,
self-constructing, synchronous motor.
I. INTRODUCTION
T HE ac servo drives, including permanent-magnet synch-
ronous motors (PMSMs) [both trapezoidal and sinusoidal
types], switched reluctance motors, and induction motors have
been widely used in robotics, computer-numerically-controlled
(CNC) machine tools, elevators, and many other applications in
the area of mechatronics [1], [2] for decades. To achieve fast
four-quadrant operation and smooth starting and acceleration,
the field-oriented control [1]–[3], or vector control, is used in
the design of ac servo drives. Compared with induction servo
motors, a PM synchronous motor has such advantages as higher
efficiency owing to the absence of rotor losses and lower no-load
current below the rated speed; moreover, its decoupled control
performance is much less sensitive to the parameter variations of
the motor [1], [2]. Thus, the PM synchronous motor drive plays
a vitally important role in motion-control applications in the
low-to medium-power range. However, the control performance
of the PM synchronous motor servo drive is still influenced by
the uncertainties, which usually are composed of unpredictable
plant parameter variations, external load disturbances, unmod-
eled, and nonlinear dynamics of the controlled plant.
The fuzzy neural networks (FNNs) combine the capability of
fuzzy reasoning in handling uncertain information [4]–[6] and
the capability of neural networks in learning from processes
[7]–[9]. Generally, the learning for most FNN applications is
Manuscript received August 6, 2001; revised June 16, 2002. This work was
supported by the National Science Council, Republic of China, under Project
NSC 89-2213-E-033-048.
F.-J. Lin is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, National Dong
Hwa University, Hualien 974, Taiwan, R.O.C.
C.-H. Lin is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, National Lien-Ho
University, Miao Li 360, Taiwan, R.O.C.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TEC.2003.821835
0885-8969/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION, VOL. 19, NO.
only parameter learning based on the supervised backpropaga-
tion algorithm, in which the parameters of the membership func-
tions and the connected weights are adjusted and the structure of
the FNN has been determined in advanced and fixed. Though the
control performance of the fixed structure FNNs with the ability
of online parameter learning are usually acceptable [6], large
numbers of nodes are usually needed in the hidden layers for
complex controlled plant. On the other hand, several approaches
consist of structure and parameter learning phases for the FNN
have been proposed in [10]–[13]. These two phases learning al-
gorithms not only extract the fuzzy logic rule from input data
with adjustment of fuzzy partitions for the input and output
spaces but also adjust the parameters of the FNN. Traditionally,
these two phases are done sequentially [11] (i.e., the structure
learning phase is employed to decide the structure of fuzzy rules
first, and then the parameter learning phase is used to tune the
coefficients of each rule) [e.g., membership functions]. The dis-
advantage of this sequential learning scheme is the suitability
only for offline instead of online operation [11], and a large
amount of representative data should be collected in advance
for the implementation of this scheme. Moreover, the indepen-
dent realization of the structure and parameter learning usually
spends a lot of time. To overcome these problems and to achieve
the purpose of fast learning, a self-constructing neural fuzzy in-
ference network (SONFIN) was proposed in [13] to perform the
structure and parameter learning phases concurrently. However,
the network structure and parameter learning algorithms pro-
posed in [13] are both complicated. Therefore, the SONFIN is
difficult to implement for practical applications. To solve the
mentioned difficulty, the SCFNN is proposed in this study. The
structure parameter learning phase and the parameter learning
phase are done concurrently and online in the SCFNN. In addi-
tion, the structure learning algorithm of SCFNN, which is based
on the partition of the input space, is simpler than SONFIN, and
the parameter learning algorithm of SCFNN is based on the su-
pervised gradient decent method [6]–[9] using the delta adapta-
tion law proposed in [14].
In this study, a field-oriented control PMSM servo drive using
a SCFNN position controller is designed to track periodic sinu-
soidal reference input of rotor position with robust and accuracy
tracking performance. First, the field-oriented control PM syn-
chronous servo motor drive is introduced. Next, the structure
and learning algorithms of the SCFNN are described in detail.
The SCFNN position controller is then implemented in a com-
puter-controlled PMSM servo drive. Finally, the effectiveness
LIN AND LIN: A PERMANENT-MAGNET SYNCHRONOUS MOTOR SERVO DRIVE USING NEURAL NETWORK CONTROLLER 67

and robustness of the proposed SCFNN controller are demon-

strated by some simulation and experimental results.

II. FIELD-ORIENTED PMSM DRIVE SYSTEM

The machine model of a PMSM can be described in the rotor
rotating reference frame as follows [1]–[3]:
(1)
(2)
and
(3)
(4)
(5)
where
, -, -axis stator voltage;
, -, - axis stator current;
Fig. 1. System configuration of field-oriented PMSM drive.
, -, - axis stator inductance;
, -, - axis stator flux linkage;
differential operator; and damping constants of the rotor to emulate the parameter
stator resistance; variations of a mechanical load. By using the field-oriented
inverter frequency; technique, the PMSM drive can be reasonably represented by
equivalent -axis magnetizing current; the following equations [3]:
-axis mutual inductance; (8)
rotor speed;
number of pole pairs. (9)
The electric torque can be expressed as
(10)
(6)
where is the electromagnetic torque; is the torque con-
and the equation for the motor dynamics is stant; is the -axis current command in synchronous rotating
(7) reference frame [3]; is the Laplace operator. Detailed param-
eters of the drive system are [on a scale of 50 (rad/s)/V]
In (7), is the load torque; is the damping coefficient; and
is the moment of inertia. Nm/A
The basic principle in controlling a PM synchronous motor Nms Nms rad/V
drive is based on field orientation. The flux position, in
Nms/rad Nm/V
the – coordinates can be determined by the shaft-position
sensor because the magnetic flux generated from the permanent The overscore “—” symbol represents the nominal value of the
magnet (PM) of the rotor is fixed in relation to the rotor shaft system parameter.
position . In (4) and (6), for a surface-mounted permanent
magnet machine, if , the -axis flux linkage is fixed, III. SELF-CONSTRUCTING FUZZY NEURAL NETWORK
since and are constant for a PM synchronous motor;
A. Description of Self-Constructing Fuzzy Neural Network
the electromagnetic torque is then proportional to , which
is determined by closed-loop control. The configuration of A fuzzy logic rule with constant consequent part of the fol-
an experimental field-oriented PMSM servo drive system is lowing form is adopted in the SCFNN:
shown in Fig. 1. The servo drive system consists of a PMSM is and and is THEN (11)
set (loaded with a PM dc generator/motor), a ramp comparison
current-controlled pulse-width-modulation (PWM) voltage where and are the input and output variables, respectively;
source inverter (VSI) [1], [2], a field-orientation mechanism, is the linguistic term of the precondition part with mem-
including the coordinate translator, a speed control loop, and bership function ; is the constant consequent part; is
a position control loop. The PMSM used in this drive system the numbers of input variables. The structure of the SCFNN is
is a three-phase four-pole 750 W 3.47 A 3000 r/min type. The shown in Fig. 2 where the functions of the node in each layer
PM dc motor coupled to the PMSM is driven by a current are described as follows.
source drive to provide constant disturbance torque for position Each node in layer 1 is an input node, which corresponds to
control. An inertia varying mechanism is also coupled to the one input variable. These nodes only bypass the input signal to
rotor of the PMSM. Different sizes of iron disks can be mounted the next layer. In this study, the input variables are (the
on the axis of the varying mechanism to change the inertia speed error) and (the derivative of speed error).
68
Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of SCFNN.
Each node in layer 2 acts as a linguistic label of one of the
input variables in layer 1 (i.e., the membership value specified
the degree to which an input value belongs to a fuzzy set is
determined in this layer). The Gaussian function is adopted as
the membership function as follows:
exp (12)
where and are the mean and standard deviation, re-
spectively, of Gaussian functions of th term associated with th
input variable .
Each node in layer 3 represents the precondition part of a
fuzzy logic rule. Therefore, each node of this layer is denoted
by , which multiplies the incoming signals and outputs the
product result (i.e., firing strength of a rule). For the th rule
node
(13)
where is the output of the th rule node.
The layer 4 acts a defuzzifier. The single node in this layer is
labeled , and it sums all incoming signals to obtain the final
inferred result
(14)
where the link weight is the output action strength associated
with the th rule; is output of the SCFNN. The consequent
part of a fuzzy logic rule is implicitly contained in .
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION, VOL. 19, NO. 1, MARCH 2004
B. Online Learning Algorithms for SCFNN
Two types of learning algorithms, the structure learning and
the parameter learning, are developed to construct the SCFNN.
The structure learning is used to find proper input space fuzzy
partitions and fuzzy logic rules subject to two objectives:
1) to minimize the number of rules generated; 2) to minimize
the number of fuzzy sets on the universe ofdiscourse of each
input variable. The parameter learning is based on supervised
learning algorithms (i.e., the link weights in the consequent
part and the parameters of membership functions are adjusted
by the backpropagation algorithm to minimize a given energy
function). Initially, there are input and output nodes only in
the SCFNN without any membership and rule nodes. The
membership and the rule nodes are generated automatically
and dynamically in the learning process according to the online
incoming data by performing the structure and parameter
learning processes.
1) Structure Learning Phase: The first step in the structure
learning is to determine whether or not to perform the structure
learning. If or , where and
are preset positive constants, then the structure learning is nec-
essary. Next, it will further decide whether or not to add a new
node (membership function) in layer 2 and the associated fuzzy
logic rule in layer 3. Since one cluster formed in the input space
corresponds to one potential fuzzy logic rule, the firing strength
of a rule for each incoming data can be represented as the
degree that the incoming data belong to the cluster. The firing
strength obtained from (13) is used as the degree measure
(15)
where is the number of existing rules at time . According
to the degree measure, the criterion of generating a new fuzzy
rule for new incoming data is described as follows. Find the
maximum degree
(16)
If , then a new membership function is generated
where is a preset threshold which should be de-
cayed during the learning process to limit the size of SCFNN.
Next, the mean and standard deviation of the new membership
function are assigned with preset values using heuristic or prior
knowledge. Thus, the mean and standard deviation of the new
membership function are selected as follows:
(17)
(18)
where is the new incoming data and is a preset constant.
To avoid the newly generated membership function being too
similar to the existing ones, the similarities between the new
membership function and the exiting ones must be checked. The
similarity measure proposed in [11] and [13] is used to check
the similarity of two membership functions. Suppose there are
two fuzzy sets and with membership functions
and ,
LIN AND LIN: A PERMANENT-MAGNET SYNCHRONOUS MOTOR SERVO DRIVE USING NEURAL NETWORK CONTROLLER 69

respectively, to be measured. Assume , it follows that In layer 4, the error term to be propagated is computed as
can be computed by the following equation [11], [13]:
(24)

and the link weight is updated by the amount

(25)
(19)
where factor is the learning-rate parameter of the link weight
where . Then a suitable similarity measure [14]. The link weights in layer 4 are updated according to the
[11], [13] is given by the entropy following equation:

(20) (26)

The similarity checking was performed on all input variables
in [11], [13]. However, this increases the complexity of the
algorithm significantly and is not a practical realization. There-
fore, in this study, the similarity check is performed only on
the first input variable (i.e., the position error). The similarity
measure between the new membership function and all ex-
isting ones are calculated and the maximum one is found
as follows:
where denotes the iteration number of the th link.
In layer 3, only the error term needs to be calculated and
propagated
(27)
In layer 3, the error term is computed as follows:

max (28)
(21)
where represents the Gaussian membership func-
tion defined as (12) with mean and standard deviation ; The update law of is
is also the number of membership functions of the th
input variable. If , where is a preset value, (29)
then the new membership function is adopted and the number
is incremented; that is
The update law of is
(22)

Since the generation of a membership function corresponds (30)

to the generation of a new fuzzy rule, the link weight as-
sociated with a new fuzzy rule has to be decided. Generally, the
link weight is selected with a random or preset constant.
2) Parameter Learning Phase: The central part of the pa-
rameter learning algorithm for the SCFNN concerns how to re-
cursively obtain a gradient vector in which each element in the
learning algorithm is defined as the derivative of an energy func-
tion with respect to a parameter of the network. This is done by
mean of the chain rule, and the method is generally referred to as
the backpropagation learning rule, because the gradient vector
is calculated in the direction opposite to the flow of the output of
each node. To describe the online parameter learning algorithm
of the SCFNN using the supervised gradient descent method,
first the energy function is defined as
(23)
where and represent the output of the reference model
and rotor position of PMSM, respectively, and denotes the
output error between the reference model and the PMSM. Then,
the parameter learning algorithm based on backpropagation is
described in the following.
where and are the learning-rate parameters of the mean
and the standard deviation of the Gaussian function [14], re-
spectively. The mean and standard deviation of the membership
functions in this layer are updated as following:
(31)
(32)
The exact calculation of the Jacobian of the system
which is contained in cannot be determined due to the
uncertainties of the plant dynamic such as parameter variations
and external disturbances. To overcome this problem and to in-
crease the online learning rate of the network parameters, the
delta adaptation law proposed in [14] as follows is adopted:
(33)
where is a positive constant and is the error between
and . The detailed proof of the convergence of the SCFNN
using (33) is similar to [14] and is omitted here. The flowchart
of the learning algorithms for SCFNN can be found in Fig. 3.
70 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION, VOL. 19, NO. 1, MARCH 2004

Fig. 4. Block diagram of SCFNN position control system.

Fig. 3. Flowchart of learning algorithms for SCFNN.

Fig. 5. Simulation results of SCFNN position controller at case 1 for periodic

IV. SIMULATION AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS sinusoidal command: (a) Tracking response. (b) Control effort.

A. Simulation of SCFNN Position Controller

A block diagram of a SCFNN-controlled PMSM servo drive
system is shown in Fig. 4, where , , , , and are
the rotor position command, rotor position, output of the ref-
erence model, error between and , and derivative of the
error, respectively. To investigate the effectiveness of the pro-
posed SCFNN position controller, a third-order transfer func-
tion of the following form with a rise time of 0.3 s is chosen as
the reference model for period step command [15]

(34)

On the other hand, when the input is periodic sinusoidal com-

Fig. 6. Simulation results of SCFNN position controller at case 2 for periodic
mand, the reference model is set to be 1. sinusoidal command: (a) Tracking response. (b) Control effort.
Three simulation conditions including parameter variation
and external load disturbance in the shaft are considered here
of the reference model and the rotor position at case 2 for pe-
riodic sinusoidal command changing from to rad are
Case (35)
shown in Fig. 6(a), and the associated control effort is shown
Case (36) in Fig. 6(b). Moreover, the simulation results of the reference
Case (37) model and the rotor position at case 3 for periodic sinusoidal
command changing from to rad are shown in Fig. 7(a),
Both the position control loop and the training of the SCFNN and the associated control effort is shown in Fig. 7(b). The ex-
are carried out every 2 ms. The learning parameters are set as ternal load disturbance occurs at 5.6 s for periodic sinusoidal
, , , and . First, command. From the above simulation results, accurate tracking
the simulation results of the reference model and the rotor posi- performance is obtained less than 200 times of online training
tion at case 1 for periodic sinusoidal command changing from of the SCFNN. The decayed chattering phenomena in the con-
to rad are shown in Fig. 5(a), and the associated con- trol efforts are mainly due to the mechanism of online structure
trol effort is shown in Fig. 5(b). Then, the simulation results learning of the SCFNN. The robust control performance of the
LIN AND LIN: A PERMANENT-MAGNET SYNCHRONOUS MOTOR SERVO DRIVE USING NEURAL NETWORK CONTROLLER
Fig. 7. Simulation results of SCFNN position controller at case 3 for periodic
sinusoidal command: (a) Tracking response. (b) Control effort.
Fig. 8. Measure responses of SCFNN position controller at case 1 for periodic
sinusoidal command: (a) Tracking response. (b) Control effort.
SCFNN position controller both in the conditions of parameter
variations and external load disturbance is obvious.
B. Experimentation of SCFNN Position Controller
The proposed servo drive system is implemented using a
Pentium computer with Turbo C package [6] and the sampling
rate of the SCFNN controller including the online training
algorithms is 2 ms. The current-controlled PWM VSI is
implemented by an IPM switching component (PM50RSA060)
manufactured by Mitsubishi Co. with a switching frequency of
15 kHz.
Using the same conditions as in the simulation, some exper-
imental results are provided here to demonstrate the effective-
ness of the proposed SCFNN position controller. The measured
responses of reference model and rotor position and the asso-
ciated control effort at case 1 for periodic sinusoidal command
changing from to rad are shown in Fig. 8. Accurate
tracking responses are obtained after approximate 200 times of
online learning. Moreover, the measured responses of reference
model and rotor speed and the associated control efforts at case
2 and case 3 for periodic sinusoidal command changing from
to rad are shown in Figs. 9 and 10, respectively. The
external load disturbance also occurs at 5.6 s for periodic sinu-
soidal command. From the experimental results, large control
71
Fig. 9. Measure responses of SCFNN position controller at case 2 for periodic
sinusoidal command: (a) Tracking response. (b) Control effort.
Fig. 10. Measure responses of SCFNN position controller at case 3 for
periodic sinusoidal command: (a) Tracking response. (b) Control effort.
effort is needed due to parameter variation and external load
disturbance. Furthermore, accurate tracking responses are ob-
tained after approximate 300 times of online learning under the
occurrence of uncertainties. Thus, the robustness of the SCFNN
controller is obvious. On the other hand, if the robustness of the
controller is not good enough, the degenerated response is the
result due to the occurrence of uncertainties [6]. In addition, the
undulate phenomena presented in the control efforts are mainly
due to torque pulsation and friction of the motor drive system.
V. CONCLUSION
A self-constructing-type fuzzy neural network, the SCFNN,
is successfully developed for practical application of PMSM
servo drive in this study. There are only input and output
nodes in the proposed SCFNN initially, and the structure and
parameter learning are done concurrently and online. First,
the structure of the network and the training algorithms were
described in detail. Next, a PMSM servo drive system was
adopted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed position
controller. Finally, simulation and experimental results have
shown that the proposed SCFNN control system is robust
72
in regard to plant parameter variations and external load
disturbance. The SCFNN position controller has the merits of
robustness, accurate tracking performance, simple structure,
and parameter learning algorithms.
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Faa-Jeng Lin (M’93–SM’99) received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical
engineering from the National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan, R.O.C.,
in 1983 and 1985, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering
from the National Tsing Hua University, Hsin Chu, Taiwan, R.O.C., in 1993.
Currently, he is Chairman and Professor in the Department of Electrical En-
gineering at National Dong Hwa University, Hualien, Taiwan. R.O.C. His re-
search interests include motor servo drives, computer-based control systems,
control theory applications, and power electronics.
Chih-Hong Lin was born in Taichung, Taiwan, R.O.C., in 1964. He received
the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from National Taiwan Uni-
versity of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C., in 1989 and 1991,
respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Chung Yuan
Christian University, Chung Li, Taiwan, R.O.C., in 2001.
Currently, he is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical Engi-
neering at National Lien-Ho University, Miao Li, Taiwan, R.O.C., where he has
been since 1992. His research interests include motor servo drives and intelli-
gent control.