Super-Twisting Algorithm Based Sliding Mode
Observer for Wide-Speed Range PMSM Sensorless
Control Considering VSI Nonlinearity
Donglai Liang, Jian Li, Ronghai Qu
State Key Laboratory of Advanced Electromagnetic Engineering and Technology, School of Electrical and Electronic
Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China, liangdonglai@hust.edu.cn
Abstract—This paper proposed a super-twisting algorithm ba-
sed sliding mode observer (STA-SMO) for permanent magnet sy-
nchronous machine (PMSM) sensorless control, in which voltage-
source inverter (VSI) nonlinearity is taken into consideration.
A lookup table for online tunning sliding mode coefficients
of STA-SMO is obtained based on existing stable conditions.
Since mismatch between reference and actual voltage due to
VSI nonlinearity may lead not only to estimation error but
also to system instability, especially at low speed range. Voltage
distortion due to VSI nonlinearity is compensated to improve
the estimation accuracy. A high-frequency harmonic components
extraction method is used to compensate the VSI nonlinearity.
Thus, a STA-SMO with suitable sliding mode coefficients and
accurate voltage parameters is obtained. The effectiveness of the
proposed sensorless control method with VSI nonlinearity com-
pensation is verified on a surface-mounted PMSM by simulations
and experiments.
Index Terms—permanent magnet synchronous machine; sen-
sorless control; super-twisting algorithm; sliding mode observer;
voltage-source inverter nonlinearity compensation
I. I NTRODUCTION
In the last decade, permanent magnet synchronous machine
(PMSM) has been widely used in industry area. High perfor-
mance field oriented control (FOC) of PMSM needs accurate
rotor position information which is usually obtained by resol-
ver or encoder. Sensorless control is becoming more and more
popular due to its compactness, low cost, high reliability, etc.
Sensorless control methods can be divided into two groups:
1) magnetic saliency based methods [1], 2) machine model
based methods [2]. In the first category, inductance variations
due to saturation or saliency of PMSM are used to estimate
rotor position, which is suitable for standstill or low speed
sensorless operation. Therefore, it is difficult to use magnetic
saliency based methods for surface-mounted PMSM sensorless
control. On the other hand, machine model based sensorless
control methods, including model reference adaptive system
(MRAS) [3], extended Kalman filter (EKF) [4] and sliding
mode observer (SMO) [2], [5], [6], are suitable for medium
or high speed sensorless operation, where back electromotive
force (back-EMF) is easier to be estimated.
For machine model based sensorless techniques, MRAS
may have difficulty in the model parameters adaptation and
EKF needs heavy online matrix computing. Although SMO
based sensorless techniques are widely employed in industrial
978-1-5090-4281-4/17/$31.00 2017
area due to their simplicity, robustness against parameter vari-
ations and fast response, they suffer from chattering problem
[7]. In order to reduce the chattering problem, a sigmoid
function is used to replace the traditional sign function in [8].
Besides, an adaptive gain tunning method for first-order SMO
is also proposed to extend the sensorless operation range and
obtains good performance. However, chattering problem can’t
be eliminated completely due to the inherent characteristic
of first-order SMO. High-order SMO is an effective method
for chattering reduction. Super-twisting algorithm (STA) is
widely employed in observers and controllers due to its
chattering-free characteristic [2], [5], [6], [9]. In [2], a STA
based SMO (STA-SMO) is employed for sensorless control
of inductance machine to eliminate chattering. However, fixed
sliding mode coefficients are adopted, making it difficult to
extend the sensorless operation range. In [5] and [6], possibi-
lity of operating PMSM based on STA-SMO is investigated
by simulations. Compared to conventional first-order SMO,
chattering is reduced greatly using STA-SMO based sensorless
technique. However, fixed sliding mode coefficients are also
adopted. Furthermore, mismatch between reference and actual
voltage is ignored in [5] and [6], which may bring large
estimation error at low-speed range.
In this paper, a STA-SMO (STA-SMO) for PMSM sen-
sorless control is proposed where voltage source inverter
(VSI) nonlinearity is taken into consideration. A STA-SMO
is designed to estimate stator currents. At the same time, a
lookup table is used for online tunning of the sliding mode
coefficients. The proposed lookup table satisfies the existing
stable conditions, which means the stability of self-tunning
algorithm can be proved by the same method. Furthermore,
VSI nonlinearity compensation technique is also employed to
reduce the mismatch between reference and actual voltage.
With the proposed signal process method, the 6th harmonic
components caused by VSI nonlinearity can be extracted wit-
hout attenuation. Then, the extracted 6th harmonic components
are injected into the reference voltage to compensate VSI
nonlinearity.
II. STA-SMO
A. Mathematic Model of Surface-Mounted PMSM
Assuming that the inductance of surface-mounted PMSM
in αβ stationary reference frame are the same, the voltage
c IEEE.
equations of PMSM in αβ-axis can be expressed as By subtracting (2) from (5), the state equations of current
errors are derived
diα R 1 1
= − i α + uα − e α (1a) dīα Rs 1
dt L L L =− īα + (k1 |īα |1/2 sign(īα )
dt L
s L s
diβ R 1 1 + k2 sign(īα )dt + eα )
= − i β + uβ − e β (1b)
dt L L L (6)
dīβ Rs 1
where iαβ , R, L, uαβ , eαβ are stator currents, stator resistance, =− īβ + (k1 |īβ |1/2 sign(īβ )
dt L
 s L s
stator inductance, stator voltage and back electromagnetic
force (back-EMF), respectively. Stator inductance in αβ-axis + k2 sign(īβ )dt + eβ )
are assumed to be the same in this paper.
When STA-SMO reaches to the equilibrium point, it means
B. Basic Principle of STA īαβ = 0. Then, the estimated back-EMF can be obtained as
follows
STA is a well-known second-order SMO proposed by A. 
1/2
Levant in [10] to reduce chattering. A strong Lyapunov êα = −k1 |īα | sign(īα ) − k2 sign(īα )dt (7a)
function is proposed in [11] to obtain stable conditions of 
STA. The basic form of STA can be expressed as êβ = −k1 |īβ |1/2 sign(īβ ) − k2 sign(īβ )dt (7b)
dx1
= −k1 |x̄1 |1/2 sign(x̄1 ) + x2 + ρ1 (x1 , t) The estimated rotor position and speed can be obtained by
dt (2) following equations
dx2
= −k2 sign(x̄1 ) + ρ2 (x2 , t) θ̂ = arctan(−êα /êβ )
dt
 (8)
where xi , x̄i , ki , ρi and sign() are state variables, error bet- ω̂ = ê2α + ê2β /ψf
ween estimated and actual state variables, sliding coefficients,
D. Proposed Self-Tunning STA-SMO Based on Lookup Table
perturbation terms and sign function, respectively.
According to the stability analysis presented in [11], sliding From the above analysis, it can be seen that stable conditions
mode coefficients of the above STA-SMO should be chosen for STA-SMO is not explicit. It seem that different sets of
as follow parameters could lead to similar finite time convergence of
5δ1 k1 + 4δ12 STA-SMO. In practice, although sliding mode coefficients
k1 > 2δ1 , k2 > k1 (3) selected based on (3) guarantee stable operation of the system,
2(k1 − 2δ1 )
the actual performance is different. Take [5] forexample,
and the perturbation terms should be globally bounded by sliding mode coefficients are set to k1 = 1.5 f + and
k2 = 1.1f + , where f + is the upper bound of perturbation. Sli-
|ρ1 |  δ1 |x1 |1/2 , ρ2 = 0 (4) ding mode coefficients that satisfy the largest perturbation are
selected. However, large sliding mode coefficients may lead to
where δ1 is a positive constant. If the STA-SMO satisfies the chattering in sensorless control system, especially at low-speed
above conditions, it converges in finite time. range where perturbation is much smaller. Therefore, online
tunning of sliding mode coefficients under different conditions
C. STA-SMO for PMSM are necessary.
In this paper, a lookup table for STA-SMO based on existing
The STA based stator current observers for PMSM sensor-
stable conditions is used. From (5), it can be seen that the
less control are constructed as follow
perturbation terms can be written as
dîα R 1 1 R 1
= − îα + uα + k1 |īα |1/2 sign(īα ) (5a) ρ1 = − îαβ + uαβ (9)
dt L
 L L L L
1
+ k2 sign(īα )dt It is obvious that the perturbation changes under different
L operation conditions and it is mainly affected by stator voltage.
Large perturbation with small sliding mode coefficients may
dîβ R 1 1 cause system instability, small perturbation with large sliding
= − îβ + uβ + k1 |īβ |1/2 sign(īβ ) (5b) mode coefficients may cause chattering. Therefore, it is ne-
dt L
 L L
1 cessary to tune the sliding mode coefficients online. In this
+ k2 sign(īβ )dt paper, a lookup table is used for online tunning the sliding
L
mode coefficients of STA-SMO. The sliding mode coefficients
where ˆ denotes estimated value. Comparing with (1) and (2), are obtained by experiments.
1 1
it can be noticed that − R
L iα + L uα and − L iβ + L uβ in PMSM
R
The block diagram of STA-SMO with lookup table is shown
voltage equations are regarded as perturbation terms. in Fig. 1.
Fig. 1. Waveforms of Dd and Dq under id = 0 control and ω = 52.4 rad/s.

III. VSI N ONLINEARITY C OMPENSATION Fig. 2. Waveforms of Dd and Dq under id = 0 control and ω = 52.4 rad/s.
VSI nonlinearity may cause mismatch between reference
and actual voltage, which will enlarge estimation error. Voltage
distortion in dq rotational reference frame caused by VSI
nonlinearity can be expressed as [12]
   
Vd,dead Vdead · Dd
=
Vq,dead Vdead · Dq
= Vdead × 2
⎡ ⎤ Fig. 3. High-frequency harmonics components extraction algorithm.
2π 2π
⎢ cos(θ) cos(θ − ) cos(θ + ) ⎥
×⎣ 3 3
2π 2π ⎦ TABLE I
−sin(θ) −sin(θ − ) −sin(θ + ) M AIN PARAMETERS OF PMSM AND C ONTROL S YSTEM
3 3
(10a)
⎡ ⎤ Items Value Items Value
sign(ias ) Stator resistance (Ω) 0.57 Rated phase current (A) 10.6
× ⎣ sign(ibs ) ⎦ Rotor flux linkage (Wb) 0.1385 DC bus voltage (V) 150
sign(ics )

Stator inductance (mH) 10.24 Rated speed (rpm) 500
1, i  0 Pole pairs 10 Rated torque (N·m) 20
sign(i) = (10b)
−1, i < 0 Rated power (kW) 10
Tdead + Ton − Tof f
Vdead = Vdc (10c)
Ts
where Tdead , Ton , Tof f , Ts , Vdc and Dd, Dq are dead-time ,
turn-on delay, turn-off delay, sampling period, DC bus voltage
and distorted dq-axis voltage, respectively. The simulated
waveforms of Dd and Dq under id = 0 and ω = 52.4 rad/s is
shown in Fig. 2. It is obvious that distorted voltage in dq-axis
are mainly composed by 6th harmonic components. It is repor-
ted in [12] and [13] that distorted voltage can be compensated
by injecting 6th harmonic components into reference voltage.
In [13], first-order low-pass filter (LPF) is used to obtain high- Fig. 4. System diagram of PMSM sensorless control based on proposed self-
frequency components. Under ideal situation, a first-order LPF tunning STA-SMO and VSI nonlinearity compensation.
is enough for extracting high-frequency components. However,
offset of current sensors may change, which could bring 1st
harmonic components. Traditional high past filter (HPF) can’t and 7th harmonic components are transfered to 6th harmonic
filter out high-frequency components completely, because it is components by inverse park transformation. The 6th harmonic
difficult to choose a suitable cut-off frequency to distinguish components can be obtained with negligible phase delay and
1st and 6th harmonic components. gain attenuation. The 6th harmonic components due to VSI
In this paper, a simple high-frequency components ex- nonlinearity can be minimized by injecting the extraction sig-
traction method considering the 1st harmonic components is nals into reference voltage. Compared to LPF based method,
proposed. The algorithm for high-frequency components ex- dq-axis currents still compose the 1st harmonic components
traction is shown in Fig. 3. First, park transformation presented by using the proposed method. Otherwise, the 1st harmonic
in (11) is used to transfer 1st and 6th harmonic components components caused by offset current error cannot be modified
to dc and 5th, 7th harmonic components, respectively. And by adjusting the offset of current sensors to normal level [14].
then, the dc component is filtered by a first-order LPF, whose
    
transfer function is shown in (12). Thus, the dc components u∗dc,5,7th cos(θ) sin(θ) u∗d
= (11)
can be filtered out by the LPF completely. Finally, the 5th u∗dc,5,7th − sin(θ) cos(θ) u∗q
 Fig. 5. Simulation results of STA-SMO with lookup table.
ωc
uout = uin
s + ωc
where ωc is the cut-off frequency of the LPF. In this paper,
LPF is used to filter dc components, therefore, ωc can be set
to a low value.
IV. S IMULATION R ESULTS
The system diagram of STA-SMO based PMSM sensorless
control with proposed self-tunning algorithm and VSI non-
linearity compensation is shown in Fig. 4. id = 0 control
is employed for simplicity. Reference voltage and measured
current are used for position and speed estimation. Main
parameters of the PMSM is presented in Table I.
The simulation results of STA-SMO with self-tunning gains
are shown in Fig. 5. For comparison, simulation results of
STA-SMO with fixed gains are presented in Fig. 6. The speed
command is changed from 50 rpm to 500 rpm at 0.2 s with a 10
Fig. 6. Simulation results of STA-SMO with lookup table.
(12)
N· m torque. For self-tunning STA-SMO, k1 is changed from
8000 to 80000, k2 is changed from 80000 to 800000. The gains
of STA-SMO with fixed gains is k1 = 8000, k1 = 80000. It
is obvious that the rotor speed and position estimation errors
of self-tunning STA-SMO are limited in a acceptable level
at low speed and high speed range. However, the estimation
error at high speed range becomes larger when fixed gains
are employed. That is because the perturbation term is much
larger than that of low speed, the gains for low speed range
are not suitable at high speed operation. The observer will
not converge when rotor speed is higher, which means stable
conditions (3) and (4) are not satisfied.
For comparison, the simulation results of uncompensated
results are shown in Fig. 7. The simulation results of proposed
VSI nonlinearity compensation method are shown in Fig. 8.
 (a) (a)

(b) (b)

(c) (c)

(d)
Fig. 7. Simulation results of proposed VSI nonlinearity compensation method.

(d)
The PMSM is operated under a speed command of 50 rpm
and a 10 N·m load. The dead time of the inverter is 4 us. In
Fig. 7, it can be seen that the VSI nonlinearity has a great
influence on reference voltages and currents. Sixth harmonic
components become dominated at low speed. These high
frequency components may cause large position estimation
error. However, the proposed VSI nonlinearity compensation
method can reduce the 6th harmonic components greatly as
shown in Fig. 8. (e)
Fig. 8. Simulation results of proposed VSI nonlinearity compensation method.
V. E XPERIMENTAL R ESULTS

Since the SMO based sensorless control method can not In order to verify the proposed self-tunning STA-SMO, the
operate at zero speed, the PMSM is started up in open loop. speed command of a surface-mounted PMSM is decelerated
The startup process is shown in Fig. 9. from 450 rpm to 30 rpm with a 5 Nm load. The experimental
 Fig. 9. Startup process STA-SMO.
Fig. 10. Experimental results of proposed self-tunning STA-SMO at 5Nm.
results are shown in Fig. 10 and Fig. 11. It is obvious that the
proposed STA-SMO has smaller estimation error, especially at
low-speed range, which means the sensorless operation range
is extended. The effectiveness of updating the sliding mode
coefficients of STA-SMO is verified.
The experimental results of 6th harmonic components ex-
traction method is shown in Fig. 12. The PMSM operates
at a speed command of 50 rpm. It is evident that there
exists a 6th harmonic components in d-axis reference voltage.
Besides, d-axis reference voltage composes 1st harmonic
components. Because current offset error exists in measured
currents causing d-axis reference voltage oscillates along with
phase currents. In Fig. 12, it can be seen that the extracted
high frequency d-axis reference voltage coincides with the
high frequency components shown in vd∗ . The rest experiments
will be presented in the future.
VI. C ONCLUSION
In this paper, a PMSM sensorless control method with
STA-SMO and VSI nonlinearity compensation algorithm is
proposed. A self-tunning algorithm based on lookup table is
employed for online tunning the sliding mode coefficients,
which can extend the sensorless operation range greatly. At the
same time, VSI nonlinearity is compensated by the proposed
method. Experimental results show that the proposed self-
tunning STA-SMO with VSI nonlinearity can reduce rotor po-
Fig. 11. Experimental results of traditional STA-SMO with fixed gains at
5Nm.
Fig. 12. Experimental results of proposed 6th harmonic components ex-
traction method.
sition and speed estimation error, which means the sensorless
operation range is extended to lower speed.
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