INTRODUCTION:

Conventionally, control of thyristor converter fed electrical drives (both dc

and ac) is performed using analog discrete components. In the drive control,
conventional speed control systems have been improved continuously and
gradually in terms of their control performance. This hardware oriented
control of drives becomes more and more complex with the increase in
sophistication required, i.e. the requirements of high precision, performance
and reliability. The various controllers, the control circuits for the power
converters are realised using hardware oriented circuits. The control suffers
from the drift and parameter variations of the components due to
temperature and the improvement is rather limited.
Because of the involved complexity and the limitations of improvement in
performance due to drift problems, several sophisticated methods of
controlling ac motors, such as vector control of induction motors, did not
become popular until the developments in the area of drive technology,
which have been very rapid in the recent past. With these the control is
possible with fewer components with the advantages of easy maintenance,
economy, serviceability and general applicability. Also this rapid and fast
development of digital technology has been the opening for new concepts
of control using microprocessors and associated digital components, A/D
converters, etc. These have resulted in compact control systems for drives
which effectively replace the complex hardware oriented control using
analog discrete components.
The digital processing of speed and angular position is more exact and less
expensive than analog processing, which makes use of tacho-generators
and position transducers. The control is free from drift and parameter
variations.This control is free from drift and parameter variations .The main
features of digital control with Microprocessors and Control of Electric
Drives that it is mainly software oriented. When once the necessary
algorithms are developed, the software can be used for different plants with
only a few modifications. This is not possible with dedicated hardware
control.
APPLICATION AREAS

1. Static Ward Leonard control of de motor using dual converters

2. Four quadrant control of de motor using multiphase choppers
3. Control of PWM inverter for ac motors
4. Four quadrant operation of CSI fed ac drives
5. Four quadrant operation of cycloconverter fed ac drives
6. Static motor starters

FUNCTIONS OFMICROPROCESSORS IN DRIVE

TECHNOLOGY
1. Generating and providing firing pulses to the converters
2. Generation of necessary waveforms to feed the motors
3. Nonlinear function generation. Estimation of feedback signal.
4. Processing the measured signals, such as voltage, current and speed
5. Storing and processing the information of controlled quantities
6. Estimation of feedback signals and computation of reference quantities
which cannot be directly measured, such as torque and flux
7. Identification and adaptation of variable parameters.
8. Adaptive control and optimisation
9. General sequencing control
10. Monitoring and warnings
11. Diagnostics and tests

1. SPEED DETECTION
In the dedicated hardwarecontrol using analog components, the speed
sensing is accomplished by means of tacho-generator. For control of the
drive using a microprocessor, this analog speed signal can be converted to
digital signal by an A/D converter. In systems employing microprocessors,
the speed measurement is carried out by means of a shaft encoder or pulse
generator, which generates a train of pulses depending upon speed.
There are two methods of determiningthe speed :
1. The pulses are counted in a given period of time. This is suitable forhigh
speeds.
2. The interval is measured between two consecutive pulses. Suitable forlow
speeds.
When the speed is determined using these methods, special care must
betaken to see that the problems such as delay in detecting time at low
speedare not there. Only with such precautions can low speeds be
measuredwith reasonable accuracy.
The high resolution of the speed sensing signifies the stable control
overwide range of speeds. The high accuracy of speed measurement
improvesthe steady-state control accuracy. A larger detecting time
increasesthe lag in the speed control system, making it difficult to realise
stable highspeeds.

2. Gate Firing of the Converters

The gate pulses required by the thyristors are often derived from the digital
pulses using a simple buffer unit. Analog firing controllers are used in
systems with dedicated hardware. They are recommended for constant low
frequency operation where the firing precisionisnotcritcal. They are simple.
At high frequencies,the firing pulses would depend highly on the
precision and stability
og components used, such as resistors, capacitors, linear and
nonlineardevices responsible for time lags, etc. The firing pulses cannot be
realized with adequate symmetry.
The requirements of a firing angle controller are:
1. A synchronised triggering output
2. Thyristor bridge must provide the desired out.
3. The firing angle must be varied in the range 0 to 180°
4. The firing angle control should be smooth and precise.
5. The response of the controller must be very fast
6. The controller must have self regulating property when the amplitude of
supply voltage varies

3.Feedback Control
The power converter itself is a discrete time system due to switching of
thyristors. The speed loop and current loop have their own time constants
and sampling frequencies. The state variablefeedback may be employed
using the state space techniques which can be applied
to both linear and nonlinear systems. The controllers for such feedback
control of a variable speed systems are shown in figures below:

A microprocessor basedcompensator has the following features:

1. It is cheaper than its analog counterpart.
2. It offers advanced control capacity. Adaptive control is possible.3. It offers
significant flexibility.
4. It is more compact and lighter .
5. It is highly reliable because the number of components is less .
The control variables are not allowed to have excursions. In a
microprocessor based controller these limitsare stored in the memory. Thus
the limiting properties of microprocessorbased compensator are adaptable
to any operating conditions by changing thevalues in the memory.

4. Function Generation
The function generation can be easily carried outusing a microprocessor.
This task is very difficult to implement using discreteanalog components
This function generation can be accomplished by means of alook-up table in
the computer memory. If the microprocessor is sufficientlyfast, the function
generation can be implemented using linear segment computations or curve
fitting techniques. The necessity for function generation arises
also in the de motor control and synchronous motor control.
5. Linearisation
Thelinearisation techniques can be very well employed when a
microprocessor is used in the control. The non-linear transfer characteristics
of thesystem can be linearised using standard techniques of producing an
inverse non-linear function in the processor.

6. Processing the Feedback Slgnals

Some feedback signals can be determined by sensing. These are the signals
of
voltage, current and speed. These are analog signals when measured, and
have
to be converted to digital quantities by suitable A/D converters.These signals
must be processed by the microprocessorfor use in feedback loops. Further,
the microprocessor should be capableof synthesising the feedback signals,
such as torque, flux, etc., which cannotbe easily measured.

7. Implementation of PWM Techniques

The principles of PWM are employed in the control of inverter for the
necessary voltage control in the inverter. These techniques are also used in
the controlof harmonics in the output voltage. These are Sinusoidal
modulation or trapezoidal modulation. The technique of look up table is
very much suited for selective harmonic elimination and is desirable at high
frequencies. The major application of microprocessor finds in the control of
AC motors using PWM inverters.

8. Programmable time Delay

One of the functions of a microprocessor in the control of variable speed
drivesis to provide an adjustable delay, e.g, delay angle in the gating of
thyristors.This can be accomplished in a microprocessor by means of up or
down counters. These are used to increment or decrement a digital word
stored in thememory.
CONTROL OF DC DRIVES USING MICROPROCESSOR
The dc motors fed from thyristor converters for variable speeds are being
extensively used in general industrial applications. A dual converter, which is
a combination of two antiparallel connected three phase/single phase
bridge converters, provides a reversible Control of DC Drives Using
Microprocessors with regenerative facilities. The response of the drive is
fast. The speed control systems of the drive using the dedicated hardware
with discrete components as well as a microprocessor, are shown in Figures:
The following are the functions of a microprocessor in the control of a dc
motor fed from a dual converter:

Speed sensing:

A digital speed encoder provides the information concerning the speed to a

microprocessor. The train of pulses from the shaft encoder are processed in
the microprocessor to estimate the speed.

Feedback control:

The closed loop control here has an inner current loop and an outer speed
loop. The current is measured and converted to a digital quantity using an
A/D converter. After conversion the signal is fed to the microprocessor
based control system. The controllers implemented on a microprocessor are
adaptive. These improve the performance and flexibility of the Control of DC
Drives Using Microprocessors. The feedback signals are limited by the
proper limiters supported by the software of the microprocessor.

Gate firing scheme:

A microprocessor is programmed to generate the firing pulses, depending

upon the information available from the feedback signals. The firing
schemes must provide high dynamic performance to the drive. Besides
reducing number of components.
Selection of a Control of DC Drives Using
Microprocessors
1.The main function of the microprocessor is generating the firing pulses
with least possible asymmetry, The asymmetry level is decided by the resolu-
tion of the firing angle. To get a resolution of the order of 1°-2° the sampling
processor chosen must be capable of small cycle and computing time to
allow for high rates of sampling control.

2. The accuracy in the calculation of current and speed loops. The sampling
periods of these loops are however larger than those of the generating
pulses. The error in computation must be limited.
3. If extra accuracy is required in the speed loop the microprocessor must be
capable of floating point arithmetic in order to handle large numbers. For
this purpose a fast microprocessor with optimised programs may be
required.

Some other applications of microprocessors in the area of dc drivesare:

1. Chopper controlled four quadrant dc drives using separately excited

dc motor or dc series motor.
2. multiphase chopper controlled dc drives
3. pulse width controlled dc drives
4. The multiple firing schemes for improving the performance of dc
drives, g., TRC and CLC.

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