Virtual voltage vector based predictive current control of speed sensorless induction motor drives

Nowadays, predictive current control (PCC) strategy has been recognized as a promising option for the control of electric drives for their control flexibility, fast dynamic response and weighting factorless structure of objective function. However, such kinds of conventional control strategies make drives to suffer from the ingress of significant harmonics in stator current, increasing further the steady state flux ripple followed by a noticeable torque ripple. To ameliorate these aforementioned shortcomings of conventional scheme, the present work employs the concept of virtual voltage vector (V3) in PCC strategy. The mathematical steps of the proposed V3PCC make the scheme more frontward in delay compensation, and also less parameter sensitive than the conventional one. As a baseline for the performance analysis, the present V3PCC is compared with a weighting factorless V3 based predictive flux control (PFC) scheme in induction motor (IM) drive. A speed adaptive flux observer is considered for the speed estimation purpose in both the control schemes. The performance of both the sensorless schemes for IM drive are analysed in MATLAB/Simulink, and also experimentally verified in a 2.2 kW IM drive test bench.(c) 2022 ISA. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

Nowadays, predictive current control (PCC) strategy is a promising option for electric drives due to its control flexibility, fast dynamic response, and structure without weighting factors. However, conventional control strategies lead to significant harmonics in stator current, resulting in steady state flux and torque ripple. To overcome these shortcomings, this study proposes a PCC strategy with the concept of virtual voltage vector (V3). The proposed V3PCC is more advanced in delay compensation and less parameter sensitive compared to the conventional approach. The performance of the proposed V3PCC is compared with a weighting factorless V3 based predictive flux control (PFC) scheme in induction motor (IM) drive, and the analysis is validated through simulations and experiments.