IEEE PEDS

2011,

5 - 8 December 2011

Singapore,

Study on the Current Control Loop of PMSM

Based on Sinusoidal Commutation
Tzu-Yu Liu!, Cheng-Hu Chen2, Wen-Chun Chi! ,and Ming-Yang Cheng!
IDepartment of Electrical Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan
2Department of Mechanical and Electro-Mechanical Engineering, National Han University, Han, Taiwan
E-mail : mycheng@mail.ncku.edu.tw
Abstract-This paper focuses on the current control loop
design of the permanent magnet synchronous motor based on
sinusoidal

commutation.

It

is

well

known

that

sinusoidal

commutation can provide a smooth and fast torque response

and

is

particularly

suitable

for

permanent

magnet

synchronous motor with sinusoidal back EMF. In general,

sinusoidal commutation can be further divided into SPWM and
SVPWM. In this paper, simulations of different current control
loop approaches, e.g., three-phase current control and field
oriented

control

are

performed

using

Matlab/simulink

The control strategy of the current loop for the PMSM

based on sinusoidal commutation can be divided into two
categories: three-phase current control and Field Oriented
Control (FOC). This paper conducts an in-depth study on the
above two control strategies through computer simulation
and detailed analysis. Practical implementation of the servo
drive design using the FOC is also achieved.
11.

to

obtain suitable control parameters. Moreover, this paper also

develops a motor drive for a permanent magnet synchronous
motor, in which both SVPWM sinusoidal commutation and
field oriented control are implemented using a cost effective
microcontroller. Experimental results indicate that the motor
drive

developed

in

this

paper

exhibits

satisfactory

DYNAMIC MODEL OF A PMSM

Most of the PMSMs are three-phase AC machines. The

equivalent circuit for a PMSM is shown in Fig. 1, and the
stator phase voltage equation in the stationary a-b-c
reference frame can be expressed as

performance.

Keywords

sinusoidal

commutation,

current

control

loop,

(
(

permanent magnet synchronous motor.

sin ee

I. INTRODUCTION
Recently, due to attractive features such as high power
density, high efficiency and reliability, PM synchronous
machines have become very popular in a wide variety of
industrial applications, household electrical appliances and
electric vehicles [1-2]. In order to achieve high performance,
the armature currents should match the shape of the PM
synchronous machine's back EMF [3]. The PM synchronous
machine can be classified into two types: Permanent Magnet
Synchronous Motors (PMSMs) and Brushless DC Motors
(BLDCMs). In particular, the PMSM has a sinusoidal back
EMF and requires sinusoidal armature currents to produce
constant torque, while the BLDCM has a trapezoidal back
EMF and requires rectangular armature currents to produce
constant torque [4-5].
In order to be capable of high acceleration/deceleration
and have smooth operation over the entire speed range, the
current loop controller of the PMSMs with sinusoidal
commutation must be properly designed [5-7]. Since the
current loop is the inner loop in a servo control system, it
should have quicker response than the outer loops. For PM
synchronous machines, the current control loop can be
regarded as the torque control loop. It simplifies the control
design and parameter tuning for the outer velocity and
position loops [8-12]. Its performance will affect the servo
system's bandwidth, therefore a short response time and
zero steady state error are the major aims when designing
the current loop controller.

sin ee

)
;)

(1)

21r
3

where Va, Vh, Vc are the input phase voltages and ia, ih, ic are
the armature currents of phase a, b, c. Rs is the armature
resistance, L is the self inductance of each phase, Am is the
magnet flux linkage amplitude, ee is the rotor angle, and OJe
is the electric angular velocity. According to the principle of
energy conservation, the electromagnetic torque can be
written as
Te

A i sin(-e)+ ihSii-e
=P ma
) i sii-e
+231rI+
l _27Z"1
3)
2

where
speed.

(2)

is the number of pole pairs and OJrm is the rotor

F ig. 1. Equivalent circuit of a three phase PMSM.

978-1-4577-0001-9/1/$26.00 2011

IEEE

670

The mathematical model of the three-phase PMSM

described by Equations (1) and (2) is time varying and
nonlinear. In order to facilitate the analysis and control
design, one can transform the three-phase system to an
equivalent two-phase representation [3-4]. The equivalent
two-phase representation of a PMSM can be achieved in the
synchronous frame, as shown in Fig. 2. The d-q reference
frame is fixed to the rotor frame, and the d-axis is aligned
with the magnet flux direction, while the q-axis leads the
d-axis by 90 of space angle. The a-b-c variable can be
transformed into the d-q reference frame, which is also the
synchronous rotating reference frame for synchronous
machines in the steady state. The electrical equations
represented in the d-q reference frame are:

Vd

( :t }q+OJeLdid +OJeAm
( +Ld :Jid -OJeLqiq
R,

In this paper, the PI type controllers are used in the

current control loops. Suppose that the PMSM is a balanced
three-phase sinusoidal machine. As a result, the current
controllers for three phases are the same. Fig. 3 shows the
control block diagram of phase a. In order to simplify the
derivation, the equivalent control block diagram of Fig. 3 is
shown in Fig. 4, in which the back EMF is moved to the
input side. In addition, the gain constants are determined
using the pole-zero cancellation technique. By setting the
integration time constant T;=KicIKpc=R/L, the resulting
closed-loop system can be simplified as a 1st order system,
in which its transfer function is described by (7).

T(s)

(4)

% [Amiq + (Ld -L))q]

(5)

Current loop designfor three-phase current control

In the PMSM, the three-phase winding currents are

combined to produce a smoothly rotating current space
vector of constant magnitude. The stator windings are 120
apart from each other. The PMSM has sinusoidal or
quasi-sinusoidal back EMFs. In order to produce the desired
torque, one needs to provide the sinusoidal current command
to the stator winding with the same frequency of the back
EMF. Rewrite (2) as (6)
3. E .
(6)
I cos a 3 KG I cos a
I:
2 OJrm
2

( )

= -

CURRENT Loop CONTROLLER FOR PMSM USING

The simulation is performed using Matlab/Simulink and

the simulation system block is shown in Fig. 5. In the
simulation, the motor rated speed is set to 3000 rpm, hence
the supply frequency f = 200Hz we = 1256rad/s). In order to
avoid phase lag and magnitude attenuation, the current loop
*
bandwidth We is set to 10000rad/s, which leads to the PI
gain constants Kpe=32.06 and Kic=10800. Table 1 lists the
major parameters of the surface-PMSM adopted in this
paper. In the simulation, the input DC bus voltage is 155V
and the peak value of current command is 1A from Os.

SINUSOIDAL COMMUTATION

= -

(7)

As mentioned previously, the input current commands for

the three-phase current control strategy are sinusoidal
signals. Therefore, the bandwidth of the current loop is one
of the important design specifications. As a result, the
frequency domain analysis of the controller design will be
conducted. For a PMSM, the motor speed is proportional to
the frequency of back EMFs, and the frequencies of the
input current commands are the same as that of back EMFs.
'
That is, the system bandwidth OJe (rad/s) can be determined
by the motor rated speed. With system bandwidth given, one
can determine the P gain Kpe using (8). After the value of Kpe
is decided, one can determine the 1 gain Kic by Ti and Kpe.
(8)
Kpc -OJe L

In (5), the electromagnetic torque consists of two

components. One is the synchronous torque, and the other is
the reluctance torque. Since Am is a constant for a PMSM,
when id equals zero, the rotor flux is produced only in the
q-axis. Hence, the electromagnetic torque is proportional to
iq, which is analogous to the characteristics of a general DC
motor.

A.

(3)

+Lq

Rs

Ill.

Kpc / L
ia
(s)
s
s
+
Kpc /L
I
a K cs+ K,c ea
p
.

where Vq, Vd are the stator voltages, iq, id are the stator
currents, and Lq, Ld are the stator phase inductances in the
d-q axis. The electromagnetic torque Te is given by

I:

isb

isq

is

is

( )

isd
N

where E is the peak voltage of the three-phase back EMF, J

is the armature peak current, Ke is the back EMF constant,
OJrm is the motor speed, and a is the phase difference
between the armature current and the back EMF. That is,
when the armature currents and the back EMFs are in-phase,
a is zero. If this is the case, the PMSM output torque is
linearly proportional to the armature peak current. As a
result, the control of the output torque can by achieved by
controlling the armature currents. This kind of control
strategy is called the three-phase current control.

is

isa

a-b-c: 3 phase stationary axes

-: stationary quadrature axes

isc

d-q: synchronous rotating quadrature axes

Fig. 2. The stationary and synchronous frames in a PMSM.

671

Fig. 6 shows the current response, current command and

Hall sensor signal (back EMF and Hall sensor signal are
in-phase relation) of phase a using three-phase current
control. For the first 0.1 seconds, the armature current and
the back EMF are in-phase. However, after 0.1 seconds, the
phase shift of the armature current is close to 90, while the
motor speed reaches the steady state value. Moreover, since
the armature current lags 90 behind the back EMF in the
steady state, the output torque is reduced to ahnost zero
according to (6). Note that the peak armature current
remains unchanged in this case, this means that the system
efficiency deteriorates.
Suppose that the armature current and the back EMF are
in-phase. The phase a current command signal and back
EMF can be expressed as (9) and (10).
(9)
i;(t) = J' sin(-eJ= J' sin(ml)

Us,

(I ) = t' sin(ml)
2Kem

KiC + (Kpcm y
2

'Slll

ml + 90

( )]
-tan- --. I

K p em

(12)

K"

PI controller

plant

Fig. 3. Block diagram of phase a current control loop for PI controller.

s
---- e

KfXS+K"

(10)

PI controller

where OJ is the supply frequency. The input command U(s)

for the PI controller is expressed as (11). Substituting (9)
and (10) into (11) and also taking the inverse Laplace
transform, one can fmd the steady state input command (i.e.
I 00 ) as described by (12 ) . Clearly, the input command to
the PI controller contains not only the current command but
also the perturbation due to back EMF. The simulation
results illustrated in Fig. 7 shows that the perturbation due to
back EMF does indeed cause phase lag and gain reduction in
the armature current. These simulation results indicate that
the performance of the PMSM using three-phase current
control is limited due to the hardware restriction in system
bandwidth and the influence of back EMF.

plant

Fig. 4. Equivalent control block diagram of Fig.3.

Table

(11)

I Major parameters of the surface-PMSM

Type
Sinano 8C75

Rated power

750 W

Rated speed

3000 rpm

Rated torque

2.391 N-m

Poles number

Armature resistance

1.08 n

Inductance in d-q axis

Ld Lq 3.206 mH

Back EMF constant

0.34872

Moment of Inertia

2.449 kg-cm2

ia

Clock]

ib*

To Workspace

Scope3

I command

(Torque commnad)
id

Tl

.q

T2

Te

T3
Subsystem

Current Controller

SVPWM Module

TIlclac

Subsystem

Subsystem

VSI

PMSM

Current Controller design

for Vdc

v,,'sc*

155 V

ci-q Model

w_"w,
Te(Nm)
Theta

fad

B
D

id

.q
2c

->

ill

ib

3fs

.a
ib

ScopeS

Scope 16

TL

10000 radls

Kp 32.06
Ki 10800

'- Thctac
----,T""hc.,-ta-,c(,-rad-;.,-)---<---;;T;;-hc.,-ta-,c(r-ad-;;-)--+-+-

:::r---I

Hal
';;lsig-na
Cl ge
- ne-ca-:-'torl

Fig. 5. Simulation system block for three phase current control.

Scope2

672

B.

Similar to the case of three-phase current control, the back

EMFs are considered as perturbations in the FOe, which
will affect the current response. One way to deal with the
above problem is to compensate for the effect due to back
EMF by using:
(13)
v;(S)=V;(s)-weLqiq

Current loop design for field oriented control

The basic idea of Foe is to decompose the stator current

into two components - magnetic field current and armature
current, in which both components can be controlled
separately. In the surface-PMSM, since the inductances in
d-axis and q-axis are the same, it does not have reluctance
torque. From (5), if id is controlled to be zero, then the motor
output torque is proportional to iq- Namely, in FOe, iq is
equivalent to the armature current in a general De motor.

0.02

0.04

0.06

0.08

0.1

0.12

0.14

0.16

0.18

Time (s)
(a) Current waveform and current command for phase a.

V;(s)=Vq'(s)+wrmKe

(14)

Because both the plant and current control structure are

the same for the d-axis and q-axis, therefore the same
controller design approach can be applied to both the d-axis
and q-axis. Let the integration time constant be equal to
the electrical time constant of the magnetic circuit, namely
=Kp/Kiq=L/R,. By using a similar approach to the one
adopted in three-phase current control, the transfer function
of the closed-loop control system using FOe (after
simplification) can be described as:
1
(15)

T(s)=( =
s
lq 1+ --K pq/Lq

0.2

In FOe, the current command and current feedback are dc

signals, therefore the desired system bandwidth is not
required to be extremely large. The controller design is
based on the current loop bandwidth:
(16)
Kpq =we Lq
*

'

0.02

0.04

0.06

0.08

0.1

Time (s)

0.12

0.14

0.16

0.18

In the simulation, the current loop bandwidth we is set to

4000rad/s and it leads to the PI gain constants Kpq=12.824
and Kiq=4320. In addition, the input dc bus voltage is 155V,
and the peak value of current command is lA, namely, the
current command in q-axis is 1A. In order to compare with
the case of three-phase current control, the simulation results
of id and iq in the Foe are transformed back into ia, hand ie
through coordinate transformation. Fig. 8 illustrates the
current response of phase a using Foe. For the first 0.1
seconds, the output current can track the current command
successfully. However, after 0.1 seconds, the voltage
command reaches the upper limit and saturates, while the
motor speed also reaches the steady state value. In the steady
state, the armature current and the back EMF are in-phase,
while the output torque is reduced to almost zero. Unlike the
case of three-phase current control, the peak armature
current in the FOe reduces to a very small value. Tn other
words, the efficiency of FOe is better than that of
three-phase current control.

0.2

(b) Input current command and Hall signal for phase a.

1200

1000

e-

800

600

400

"
"

Speed

200
0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

Time (5)

0.3

0.35

0.4

0.45

0.5

(c) Motor output speed.

Fig. 6. Current response of the PMSM using three-phase current control (PI
controller).

u(t): input command

iu

$1

. .
la

0.5

.";?

0 k----1

.",

-I
-- .
2
-1.5 '----o
O

O.
"' O4

O.bO6

.
O ko
O8

.
O +018
"J O.2
O.1'o -O.\o12-O.Ih4-O.Ib6-

.";?

-I
-2 '---
-- O.O2-O.O4-O.O6-O.O8-O.I-O.I2-O.I4-O.1 6- O.I8- .
0 2

Time (s)

Time (s)
Fig. 8. Current response of the PMSM using FOC (PI controller).

Fig. 7. Phase relation among current command ia '(t), input command u(t) of
the closed-loop and current response iii) for phase a.

673

B.

Based on the simulation results, it is found out that the

FOC has the following advantages over the three-phase
current control:
1. The current loop bandwidth of FOC is not required to be
extremely large so that it can facilitate the suppression of
high-frequency noise.
2. The FOC has better current response so that the overall
system performance can be much improved.
3. In the steady state, the peak armature current is smaller.
In addition, the armature current and back EMF are
in-phase. The above two observations suggest that the
efficiency of the overall system using FOC is better.
IV.

Velocity control experiment

A flywheel with moment of inertia 8 times that of the

rotor inertia is used as the external load to evaluate the
performance of the velocity loop of the motor drive
developed in this paper. In the experiment, the desired
velocity command is a periodic step input. In particular, for
the first 1.6 second, the velocity command is 1000rpm,
while the velocity is changed to 2000rpm for the next 1.6
second. Fig. 13 illustrates the experimental results of speed
command, motor speed, armature current (phase a) and Hall
signal. Clearly, both the current and speed response are
satisfactory.

EXPERIMENTAL EVALUATION

The motor drive developed in this paper has two control

loops - velocity loop and current loop. Since the simulation
results and detailed discussion provided in the previous
section indicate that FOC is superior to the three-phase
current control, throughout the experiments the FOC is
adopted as the control strategy for the current loop. Note that
the PI type controllers are adopted in both the velocity loop
and the current loop. In addition, since the SVPWM uses the
DC bus voltage more efficiently than the SPWM, the
SVPWM sinusoidal commutation is used in the experiment.
All the SVPWM sinusoidal commutation, FOC and PI
controllers are implemented using a low cost 16-bit
microcontroller dsPTC30F4011 by Microchip Technology.
Fig. 9 shows the motor drive board developed in this paper.
A.

Microcontroller
board

Fig. 9. Drive board developed in this paper.

Current control loop experiment

Fig. 10 illustrates the block diagram of the experimental

setup. Fig. 11 shows the experimental results of the current
loop in different speed ranges. Clearly, the results indicate
that the armature current and back EMF are in-phase. That is,
the armature current can indeed accurately track the input
current command. Fig. 12 illustrates the current response of
phase a when the motor speed reaches 1000rpm or
-1000rpm. In this case, the input current command iq will be
set to zero.

Inverter
Gate Driver

dsPIC30F4011
MireD-controller

Encoder

Motor Driver

Fig. 10. Block diagram of performance experiment.

(Chl: 5V/div. Ch2: 2A/div. Time:1Oms/div)

(Ch1: 5V/div. Ch2: 2A/div. Time:2ms/div)

(a) motor speed: 245rpm.

Fig.

(b) motor speed: 2500rpm.

I I. Experimental results of current loop; Hall sensor signal(Ch I); armature current waveform(Ch2) in phase a (iq': 4A; load: 2.18N-m)

674

' - 'I' "

'1"

"

1"

"

1"

"

"

"

I' "

'1"

"

1"

2000 rpm-+
1000

rpn2.

"

1"

"

II _
"I11I..
"

Ch2

111111'JiIHlI
iIMiI

(Chl:1V/div, Ch2:IV/div, Ch3:2A/div, Ch4:5V/div, Time:400ms/div)

(Ch1:1V/div, Ch2:1 V /div, Ch3 :2A/div, Time:400ms/div)

Fig. 12. Forward and reverse operations in constant torque control; Chi is
motor speed, Ch2 is current command i'l and Ch3 is the
armature current waveform of phase a.

V.

Fig. 13. Experimental results of velocity loop and current loop; speed
command(Chl), motor speed(Ch2), armature current(Ch3) and Hall
signal(Ch4).
[10] Y. Y. Tzou and S. Y. Lin, "Fuzzy-tuning current-vector control of a
three-phase PWM inverter for high-performance AC drives," IEEE
Trans. onlnd. Electron., vol. 45, no. 5, pp. 782-791, October 1998.
[II] H. Kim, and T. M. Jahn, "Current control for AC motor drives using a
single DC-link current sensor and measurement voltage vectors,"
IEEE Tran. on Indus. App/., vol. 42, no. 6, pp. 1539-1547, Nov/Dec
2006.
[12] S. Morimoto, M. Sanada, and Y. Takeda, "High performance current
sensorless drive for PMSM and SynRM with only low resolution
position sensor," IEEE Tran. on Indus. App/., vol. 39, no. 3, pp.
792-801, May/June 2003.

CONCLUSION

This paper performs an in-depth study on the current

control loop design of PMSM with sinusoidal commutation.
Two different current control strategies: three-phase current
control and FOC are investigated. The performance of the PI
controllers adopted in these two current control strategies
have been compared and analyzed through computer
simulations. Simulation results show that the FOC has better
performance. In addition, unlike previous literature utilized
high-end DSPs, this paper designs and implements the FOC
and SVPWM sinusoidal commutation in a PMSM drive
board by using a low cost microcontroller. Experimental
results have verified that the motor drive developed in this
paper exhibits satisfactory performance.
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