IEEEE PEDS 2015, Sydney, Australia

9 – 12 June 2018

Commutation Torrque Ripple Reduction in Brushless

DC Motor usiing Modified SEPIC Converter
A.Ramyaa1, V.Srinath2, S.Samyuktha3, R.Vimal4, Dr. M. Balaji
B 5
1
Research Scholar, Department of Electrical
E Engineering, SSN College of Engineering, Chennaai, Tamil Nadu, India
2,3,4
UG Students, Department of Electrical Engineering, SSN College of Engineering, Chennaii, Tamil Nadu, India
5
Associate Professor, Department off Electrical Engineering, SSN College of Engineering, Chennnai, Tamil Nadu, India
E-mail: ramyaphd2014@gmail.com, srrinathvelavan@gmail.com, samyukthasivaram@gmail.com, iamrvimal@gmail.com,
balajim@ssn.edu.in

Abstract- Brushless DC Motor (BLDCM) drives, widely used reduced at low speed. In [13], a super lift Luo converter is
in high performance applications where torque smoothness is placed at the front of the invertter to produce desired DC link
essential, suffers from severe torque ripples. For BLDC motors,
voltage and the commutation toorque ripple is reduced at high
torque ripple is an important origin of acou ustic noise, vibration
and speed fluctuation. In this paper, a dc--dc Modified Single speed. Those methods suffer fromf slow voltage adjustment
Ended Primary Inductor Converter (MSE EPIC) and a switch and can achieve torque pulsatiion reduction only in low or
selection circuit is employed in front of the inverter in order to high speed regions. A new w approach of minimizing
obtain the desired commutation voltage reesulting in reduced commutation torque ripple foor BLDCM based on Single
commutation torque ripple. The theoretical analysis and ended primary inductor conveerter (SEPIC) is presented in
computer simulation, using MATLAB/ Sim mulink environment, [14]. But the conventional SEPIIC has pulsating output current
are given to illustrate the proposed method and
a the performance
is compared with conventional system. An nd the experimental
similar to buck boost convertters. In addition, the SEPIC
results are also provided for verification of o the BLDC drive converter transfers all its energy via the series capacitor so a
system. capacitor with high capacitance and current handling
capability is required.
Index Terms: BLDC Motor, Modified SEPIC Converter, In this paper, a Modified SE EPIC (MSEPIC) converter is
Commutation Torque Ripple, dc link voltage coontrol proposed as a step-up and stepp-down converter having high
power conversion efficiency and minimized voltage and
I. INTRODUCTION
current stress than the classicall SEPIC topology. The idea of
this proposed work is to drive phase
p currents to increase and
Brushless DC Motor (BLDCM), has beeen widely used in
decrease in the identical slope,, resulting in the reduction of
industries that require high reliability and precise
p control due
pulsated commutation torque riipple. Simulation results prove
to its simple structure, high power densitty and wide speed
that the torque ripple is reducced when compared with the
range [1]. Torque ripple, which occurs duuring commutation
conventional method.
period, has always been one major facctor in preventing
BLDCM from achieving high performaance. Two general II. COMMUTATION TOR
RQUE RIPPLE IN BLDCM
approaches have been proposed to reducee the torque ripple.
The first approach is to improve the motor’s
m geometrical Ideally, the current drawn by the BLDCM, with trapezoidal
structure [2]. The second approach is to control
c the winding back EMF, takes the form of rectangular waveform [8] as
currents to overcome the disturbances [3]]. More studies are shown in Fig. 1. This kind of current
c waveform will produce
being done to identify the sources, characteristics
c and a constant torque.
minimization of torque ripple [3] - [5]. A new approach to
optimize current waveform based on d-q frrame, which results
in minimum torque ripple and maximum efficiency of BLDC
motor drives is proposed in [6]. DTC is applied to BLDC
Motor drives to achieve instantaneous torquet control and
reduced torque ripple is described in [7]. The commutation
torque ripple and its compensation techhnique have been
analyzed theoretically in [8] - [10].
Researchers introduced some special topology of a circuit
to BLDCM drives to control its input voltagge in [11] - [13]. In
[11], the current slopes of the incoming annd outgoing phases
in the commutation period are equalizedd. In [12], a buck
converter is used, and commutation torquue ripple is greatly Fig. 1. Ideal Current and back emf waveform

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 Practically, the smoothness in torque waveform is not
observed and torque ripple is prevalentt. Various non –
linearity in the machine will result in thee disruption of the
ideal rectangular current waveform theereby resulting in
torque ripple. The excitation current waveforms
w do not
change instantaneously and a variable com mmutation time for
different speeds is observed [18] as shown in Fig. 2.
Fig. 2. Commutation Currents and Torques
To
During this commutation time, Torque ripple
r occurs due to
the difference between the time taken by the ongoing phase
‘b’ current to reach the saturation value andd the time taken by
the off going phase ‘a’ current decay to zeroo.
In order to eliminate the dip in the Torrque waveform, the
difference in the commutation time for onggoing and off going
phase currents should be made zero [18] as a shown in Fig. 3.
This torque dips can be reduced by suitabble dc link voltage
control method during the commutation time. This can be
achieved by using proposed MSEPIC in BL LDCM drives.
Fig. 3. Current waveform for the torque ripple compeensation
III. MODIFIED SEPIC CONVEERTER
The circuit topology of the conventional SEPIC Converter
[19] is presented in Fig. 4.
Fig. 4. Conventional SEPIC Connverter
The wide range of input voltaages can be realized because of
the step-up and step down stattic gains of SEPIC converter.
However, SEPIC converter sufffers from higher voltage and
current stress [19]. This disadvvantage can be eliminated by
using the proposed M-SEPIC converter circuit. Here, the
modification of the SEPIC coonverter is accomplished by
including diode Dm and capacitoor Cm as shown in Fig. 5.
Fig. 5. Modified SEPIC Converter
A multiplier cell (Cm and Dm) reduces the switch stress in
the proposed converter. The cappacitor Cm is charged with the
output voltage of the classicall boost converter. Hence, the
voltage applied to the inductor L2 during conduction is higher
compared with the classical SEPIC, thereby increasing the
static gain.
(a) Mode 1 (b) Mode 2
Fig. 6. MSEPIC modes
m of operation
The continuous conduction-m mode (CCM) operation of the
MSEPIC converter presents the following two modes [19].
1) Mode 1: In this mode the sw witch S is turned-off as shown
in Fig. 6(a) and the energy storred in the input inductor L1 is
transferred to the output througgh the capacitor Cs and output
diode Do, and also to the capaccitor Cm through the diode Dm.
Therefore, the switch voltage is equal to the capacitor Cm
voltage. The energy stored in thhe inductor L2 is transferred to
the output through the diode Do.
2) Mode 2: In this mode the switch
s S is turned-on and the
diodes Dm and Do are blocked as a shown in Fig. 6(b), and the
inductors L1 and L2 store energyy. The input voltage is applied
to the input inductor L1 and thee voltage (Vcs – Vcm) is applied
to the inductor L2. The voltage Vcm is higher than the voltage
Vcs.
The inductor L1 current is equual to the input current and
the inductor L2 current is equal to
t the output current.
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 IV. PROPOSED TORQUE RIPPLE MINIMIZA
ATION TOPOLOGY To achieve an immediate chhange of the input voltage of
FOR BLDCM inverter, S2 and S3 should be com
mplementary to each other. At
the beginning of every commuttation, S2 is switched OFF and
A Modified SEPIC Converter with a sw witch over IGBT for S3 is switched ON. The MSEP PIC converter stops adjusting,
implementing the dc link voltage adjustmeent [14] is shown in and the output voltage remainss constant. Once commutation
Fig.7. is over, S2 is switched ON annd S3 is switched OFF. The
MSEPIC converter will start reegulating again, and its output
voltage will reach the expected value before the next
commutation. The flowchart for the proposed method is
clearly indicated in Fig. 9.

Fig. 7. Configuration of BLDCM driving system with

w MSEPIC Converter

In Fig. 7, S1, S2, S3 are power MOSFETTs. By operating S1

appropriately, the energy storage componnents L1, L2, Cs, C0
and Cm of the M-SEPIC can be adjusted to get the desired
voltage. S2 and S3 are switched over power MOSFETs used
for choosing between the inputs of the innverter Vs and the
output voltage of the MSEPIC Vo.
Vo can be calculated as
1+ D
Vo = * Vs (1)
1− D
Where, D is the Duty ratio.
Em is proportional to speed, i.e.,
Em = Keω (2)
Where Ke is the back EMF co-efficient and ω is the speed of
the machine. Then, the duty ratio of S1 for satisfying
Vo = 4Em from [14] can be calculated by
4 Keω − Vs
D= (3)
Vs + 4 Keω
According to above equation, the duty d ratio of S1
corresponding to the desired dc link voltagge can be estimated
by measuring the motor speed. The relatioonship between the
duty ratio and speed is shown in Fig. 8. The duty ratio
calculations are done by assuming the innput voltage Vs as
200V.

Fig. 8. Duty ratio with respect to sppeed Fig. 9. Flowchart of the proposed methood for one electrical cycle

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 V. SIMULATION RESULTS

To validate the performance, the BLDCM drive system is

simulated in MATLAB/Simulink environment according to
the parameters of BLDC motor given in Appendix A. The
simulated phase currents of the BLDCM drive system with
and without the M-SEPIC converter at 1500 rpm are
compared in Fig. 10 (a) and (b) under the same operating
condition respectively. From Fig. 10 (b), it is evident that
there is considerable reduction in current ripple at
commutation instant. Fig. 11 (a) and (b) shows the simulated
torque variation with and without the MSEPIC converter. It
can be seen that under the appropriate input voltage of the
Fig. 12. Speed Response of BLDCM drive with MSEPIC Converter
inverter during commutation, torque pulsation is significantly
reduced by using the proposed method. The speed response
and the dc link Voltage (Vdc) of BLDCM drive at 1500 rpm
with MSEPIC Converter is shown in Fig. 12 and Fig. 13.

Fig. 13. Transient response of DC link voltage Vdc when reference speed is
1500 rpm

The comparison of torque ripple for various speeds is

shown in Table I.

TABLE I COMPARISON OF TORQUE RIPPLE FOR VARIOUS SPEEDS

Torque Ripple
Speed
(rpm) Without DC link With DC link Voltage
Voltage Control Control
1000 0.2580 0.2561
1500 0.2540 0.2499
Fig. 10. Simulated phase currents at 1500 rpm (a) With DC link voltage 2000 0.2632 0.2520
control by M-SEPIC Converter (b) Without DC link voltage control 2500 0.4351 0.2727
3000 0.6346 0.3980

The torque ripple is calculated for different speeds and it is

observed that there is considerable reduction in torque ripple
at higher speeds.
On the other hand, the maximum voltage and current stress
on the active switch is almost reduced to 50% in proposed
MSEPIC converter when compared with the conventional
SEPIC converter. The calculations for voltage stress are done
as per the reference [25].

VI. EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS

The closed loop control of conventional BLDCM drive is

implemented using FPGA Spartan 3E board. The whole
experimental setup of the BLDCM drive system is shown in
Fig. 11. Simulated torque response at 1500 rpm (a) With DC link voltage
control by M-SEPIC Converter (b) Without DC link voltage control
Fig.14.

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Fig. 14. Experimental setup of the BLDCM drive system
The phases are excited in accordance with the rotor
position information provided by Hall Effect sensor. The
experimental Hall signals are shown in Fig. 15. The
simulation results are validated from Fig. 16, as there is close
correlation between the experimental and simulated current
waveform at a speed of 1000 rpm.
Fig. 15. Experimental Hall signals of the BLDCM drive system
Fig. 16. Comparison of Simulated and Experimental current response under
closed loop condition at 0.5Nm load at 1000 rpm.
VII. CONCLUSION
In this paper a topology based on Modified SEPIC
converter is analyzed for reducing commutation torque ripple
in BLDCM drives. The reduction in voltage and current stress
of the main switches are the main advantage of this topology.
Simulation is done for wide range of speeds and from the
results it is apparent that the torque ripple is effectively
reduced. Hardware implementation of BLDCM drive with
conventional control is done using FPGA. The close
correlation between simulation and hardware results illustrate
the relevance of the topology for torque ripple minimization.
Appendix A
Specifications of BLDC Motor:
Voltage = 310V
Rated Current = 4.52A
Rated Speed = 4600rpm
Rated power = 0.7456 KW
Stator phase resistance = 3.07 ohms
Stator phase inductance = 6.57mH
Voltage constant = 51
Torque constant = 0.48701
No. of pole pairs = 4
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