Energy Conversion and Management 52 (2011) 1669–1676

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Energy Conversion and Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enconman

A novel position-sensorless control method for brushless DC motors

X.Z. Zhang a,b,⇑, Y.N. Wang a
a
School of Electrical and Information Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha, People’s Republic of China
b
School of Computer and Communication, Hunan Institute of Engineering, Xiangtan, People’s Republic of China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper presents the design and implementation of a high performance position-sensorless control
Received 29 November 2009 scheme for the extensively used brushless DC (BLDC) motors. In the proposed method, with proper
Received in revised form 30 September PWM strategy, instead of detecting the zero-crossing point (ZCP) of the nonexcited motor back electro-
2010
magnetic force (EMF) or the average motor terminal to neutral voltage, the true zero-crossing points of
Accepted 15 October 2010
Available online 10 November 2010
back EMF are extracted directly from the difference of the specific average line-to-line voltages with sim-
ple RC circuits and comparators. In contrast to conventional methods, the neutral voltage is not needed
and the diode freewheeling currents in the nonconducted phase are eliminated completely; therefore, the
Keywords:
Brushless DC (BLDC) motor
commutation signals are more accurate and insensitive to the common-mode noise. Moreover, 100%
Sensorless control pulse-width-modulation (PWM) duty ratio control of BLDC motors is provided with the presented
Back EMF zero-crossing point detection method. As a result, the proposed method makes it possible to achieve good motor performance over
PWM a wide speed range and to simplify the starting procedure. The detailed circuit model is analyzed and
some experimental results obtained from a sensorless prototype are shown to verify the analysis and
confirm the validity of the proposed method.
Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Permanent magnet brushless DC (BLDC) motors offer many
advantages including compact form, high efficiency, easy of control
and low maintenance. A BLDC motor needs an inverter and a posi-
tion sensor to commutate so that the motor line current is in phase
with the corresponding back electromotive (EMF). However, the
position sensor presents several disadvantages because of its neg-
ative impact on drive cost and system reliability. Sensorless control
techniques for BLDC motors have been a research topic for the last
two decades [1]. These schemes are based on using back EMF of the
BLDC motor [2], detection of freewheeling diode conduction in the
open phase [3], detection of the stator third harmonic voltage com-
ponents [4], estimation by observer [5] and so on [6]. Among the
various techniques, the zero crossing detection of back EMF is
the most popular one. Many indirect and direct back EMF detection
methods, which sense the back EMF ZCP of the open phase, have
been published in the last decades.
One well-known back EMF detection method is to build a motor
neutral point and then to sense voltage difference between the
open phase terminal and the motor neutral point [2]. Since this
method will introduce a high common-mode noise in the motor
neutral point, low pass filters are required to eliminate the noise;
⇑ Corresponding author at. School of Electrical and Information Engineering,
Hunan University, Changsha, People’s Republic of China. Tel.: +86 13574084952.
E-mail address: Z_X_Z2000@163.com (X.Z. Zhang).
however, usage of low pass filters will introduce a phase delay,
especially at high speed [7]. Compensation for the filter phase de-
lay is reported in [8] by using a frequency independent phase shif-
ter. The back EMF integration and third harmonic voltage
integration are introduced in [4] to reduce the common-mode
noises. But the works in [2,4,7,8] still require building a motor neu-
tral point. An approach to sense back EMF by detection of free-
wheeling diode conduction in the open phase is presented in [3].
This method requires special PWM strategy that tends to introduce
open phase current, which definitely results in unexpected torque
pulsation. Moreover, its sensing circuit requires extra power sup-
plies, which increase system cost. A direct back EMF detection
method is proposed in [9], in which the voltage difference between
the open phase terminal and 0 V (the power ground of DC-link) is
detected. As the sensing circuit can only work during the free-
wheeling period (off time of PWM) in this method, a minimum
off time (3 ls) is required to do sampling, this leads to a result that
the maximum duty ratio of PWM is less than 100%. Another direct
back EMF detection technique to perform wide duty ratio control,
from 5% to 95%, is proposed in [10]. It is the first paper which elim-
inates duty cycle limitation by changing the sampling point of back
EMF according to duty ratio. However, the ZCP of back EMF is de-
rived by logic comparison rather than by calculation. The another
problem in [10] is that the use of two reference voltages increases
the cost of the sensing circuit.
Under the ideal assumption that no freewheeling current exists
in the nonconducted phase, a simple position-sensorless method to

0196-8904/$ - see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.enconman.2010.10.030
1670 X.Z. Zhang, Y.N. Wang / Energy Conversion and Management 52 (2011) 1669–1676

detect the back EMF ZCP in [11] and start the machine in [12] are
proposed. These methods rely on a difference of line voltages mea-
sured at the terminals of the motor, and the difference can provide
an amplified version of back EMF at its ZCPs. Unfortunately, this
ideal assumption does not always hold. Actually, when using the
method in [11,12], there is likely to have freewheeling current in
the nonconducted phase both during normal commutation period
and un-commutated period. As a result, the sum of two conducted
phase currents is not equal to zero; therefore, the obtained ZCPs
are not accurate and cannot to be used to compute the commuta-
tion points. Moreover, the adjustable range of the PWM duty ratio
is not wide and far less than 100%.
Therefore, in this paper, our motivation is to design a novel po-
sition-sensorless scheme for BLDC motors based on back EMF
detection with the purpose of overcoming the disadvantages of
the aforementioned sensorless scheme. Unlike the method in
[11,12], the proper PWM strategy is adopted and it is proved that Fig. 2. Ideal back EMF and phase current waveforms.
the motor neutral voltage equals to half DC-link voltage (0.5Udc),
and the diode freewheeling currents in the nonconducted phase
are eliminated completely. Hence, the true back EMF ZCP can be di- must be in phase with the corresponding phase back EMF, which
rectly extracted by detecting the difference of line-to-line voltages have a trapezoidal waveform, as shown in Fig. 2. In permitted
measured at the terminals of the motor without sensing the motor scope, the assumption is as follows.
neutral voltage, and no filtering circuit is required. It is shown that
this difference of line-to-line voltages provides an amplified ver- (1) The stator winding is a concentrative winding with 120°
sion of an appropriate back EMF at its zero crossings. Compensat- equi-spacing.
ing 30° offset, the required commutation positions can be (2) The winding is distributed equably on the smooth surface of
calculated and determined. Moreover, compared with [9–12], the the stator.
adjustable range of the PWM duty ratio is more wider and can (3) The magnetic saturation is neglected. Vortex and magnetic
reach 100%. Also, no extra power supplies are required for sensing hysteresis losses are neglected.
circuit. As a result, the proposed back EMF detection method (4) The armature reaction is neglected and the distribution of
makes it possible for this sensorless BLDC motor control system air–gap field is uniform.
to achieve good motor performance over a much wider speed
range and the starting procedure is simplified. The voltage equation of the three-phase BLDC motor is
0 1 0 10 1 0 10 1
ua ra 0 0 ia La 0 0 ia
2. Proposed sensorless commutation scheme B C B CB C B CB C
@ ub A ¼ @ 0 r b 0 A@ ib A þ p@ 0 Lb 0 A@ ib A
2.1. Mathematical model of BLDC motor uc 0 0 rc ic 0 0 Lc ic
0 1 0 1
ea un
Consider a BLDC motor having three stator phase windings con- B C B C
þ @ eb A þ @ un A ð1Þ
nected in star. PMs are mounted on the rotor. The BLDC motor is
ec un
driven by a three-phase inverter with what is called six-step com-
mutation. Fig. 1 shows the equivalent circuit of a BLDC motor and
where ‘‘p” denotes the derivative operation, and ua, ub, uc the phase
the inverter topology, and Fig. 2 illustrates the relationship among
winding voltage of stator (in volts); ea, eb, ec phase winding back
the back-EMF waveform of an ideal BLDC motor and the armature
EMF of the stator (in volts); ia, ib, ic phase winding current of stator
current, where E, I denotes the amplitude of back EMF and current,
(in amperes); ra, rb, rc phase winding resistance of stator (in ohms);
respectively. The currents should have a rectangular waveform and

Fig. 1. Inverter topology and equivalent circuit of a BLDC motor. Fig. 3. Timing diagram of H_PWM–L_PWM control signals.
 X.Z. Zhang, Y.N. Wang / Energy Conversion and Management 52 (2011) 1669–1676 1671

La, Lb, Lc phase winding inductance of stator (in henrys); un is the impedance cannot be ignored. However, it can be seen from Fig. 2
neutral voltage of motor (in volts); um is the mid DC-link voltage that the back EMF ZCPs are far away from the commutation points
(in volts). when phase B is open. In other words, in the vicinity of back EMF
Because the motor’s three phases are similar, in permitted ZCPs of unexcited phase during the non-commutation interval,
scope, ra = rb = rc = r, La = Lb = Lc = L, and (1) can be simplified as the proper approximation that ea = ec = E and ia = ic = I is
ux = rix + Lpix + ex + un, where x = a, b, c. established.
In the two-phase conduction mode, there are six combinations In the normal conduction period, only two phases conduct.
of the stator excitation in one cycle and each combination lasts for Assuming at a particular step, phase A and phase C are conducting
60 electrical degrees. In order to produce maximum torque, the in- while phase B is open. Referring to Fig. 2, it shows that switches T1
verter commutation should be performed every 60 electrical de- and T6 or T2 and T5 are chopping, separately. As an example, the
grees, which is called commutation period. In order to regulate situation with T1 and T6 chopped is analyzed, where current flows
the conduction current so that the motor will faithfully follow into phase A and then out phase C. Since T1 and T6 are modulated
the given velocity or torque command, the power switches of the simultaneously, there are two cases, PWM ON time and PWM OFF
three-phase inverter are generally controlled via a high frequency time, for the different state of T1 and T6.
pulse width modulation signal. In this paper, for easily detecting
the back EMF ZCP, two side chopping mode (H_PWM–L_PWM Case 1: PWM ON time
scheme) is adopted. Fig. 3 illustrates the gating sequence of the
electronic switches’ waveforms in this typical PWM strategy in This case corresponds to the selected intervals when switches
which both the active switches in the lower half bridge and upper T1 and T6 are the only two active switches. Fig. 4 illustrates the
half bridge are modulated simultaneously [13]. equivalent circuit. If the conduction voltage caused by the power
switches and the diodes is negligible, then the terminal voltage
2.2. Proposed back EMF detection method can be obtained as
8
Since the neutral point of the BLDC motor is always not offered, < ua ¼ ud ¼ ria þ Lpia þ ea þ un
>
it is difficult to construct the terminal voltage Eq. (1) for one phase. ub ¼ eb þ un ð6Þ
>
:
Therefore, the line voltages are considered and may be determined uc ¼ 0 ¼ ric þ Lpic þ ec þ un
as
In this condition, from phase A and phase C and noting that
8
< uab ¼ rðia  ib Þ þ Lpðia  ib Þ þ ðea  eb Þ
> ea = ec = E and ia = ic = I, then the neutral voltage equals the half
ubc ¼ rðib  ic Þ þ Lpðib  ic Þ þ ðeb  ec Þ ð2Þ DC-link voltage, namely un ¼ 12 ud ¼ um . Accordingly, from phase A,
>
: its back EMF can be expressed as
uca ¼ rðic  ia Þ þ Lpðic  ia Þ þ ðec  ea Þ
ea ¼ ud  ria  Lpia  un ð7Þ
These line voltages can, however, be estimated without the
1
need for star point by taking the difference of terminal voltages Since un ¼ u
2 d
and ia > 0, one will have
measured with respect to the negative DC bus. Subtracting Eq. ud ud
(2)-2 from Eq. (2)-1 gives ea ¼ E ¼  ria  Lpia < ð8Þ
2 2
uabbc ¼ uab  ubc Since E < eb < E, then ud/2 < eb < ud/2. From Eq. (6)-2, we obtain
¼ rðia þ ic  2ib Þ þ Lpðia þ ic  2ib Þ þ ðea þ ec  2eb Þ ð3Þ 0 < ub < ud, this means that there is no current flowing in phase B
winding and there is not exits freewheeling current through the
Consider the interval when phases A and C are conducting and anti-parallel diode VD3 and VD4, ib = 0.
phase B is open as indicated by the shaded region in Fig. 2. In this Therefore, the back EMF in Eq. (5) can be simplified as
interval, phase A winding is connected to the +Udc of the DC supply, uabbc ubc  uab
phase C to the Udc of the DC supply and phase B is open. Therefore, eb ¼  ¼ ð9Þ
2 2
for a BLDC motor having three stator phase windings connected in
star, ea = ec and ia + ib + ic = 0. It can be seen from Fig. 2 (shaded re- Case 2: PWM OFF time
gion) that the back EMF in phases A and C are equal and opposite. This case corresponds to the selected intervals when switches
Therefore in that interval Eq. (3) may be simplified as T1 and T6 are PWM off, and the anti-parallel diode VD2 and VD5
work in freewheeling states. The terminal voltage can be obtained
uabbc ¼ 3rib  3Lpib  2eb ð4Þ according to the switching status of the power switches as
8
Rearranging,
< ua ¼ 0 ¼ ria þ Lpia þ ea þ un
>
uabbc 3rib 3Lpib ub ¼ eb þ un ð10Þ
eb ¼    ð5Þ >
:
2 2 2 uc ¼ ud ¼ ric þ Lpic þ ec þ un
Obviously, the back EMF value of phase B would be the linear sum- In this condition, from phase A and phase C and noting that
mation of the line voltage difference (uabbc) and the voltage drop on ea = ec = E and ia = ic = I, then the neutral voltage also equals to
the stator impedance (rib and Lpib). It is again evident from Fig. 2 the half DC-link voltage, un ¼ 12 ud ¼ um . From phase C, we also
that during this interval the back EMF eb transits from one polarity obtain
to another crossing zero. Thus, if the unexcited phase B current ib is
always equal to zero, there is no freewheeling current flowing in the ec ¼ ud  ric  Lpic  un ð11Þ
phase B winding, the voltage drop on the stator impedance will not Now that un ¼ 1
u ¼ um and ic > 0, one can obtain
2 d
exit, and the back EMF calculation of phase B will be simplified.In
ud ud
terms of the brushless DC motor, all three-phase windings generally ec ¼ E ¼  ric  Lpic < ð12Þ
have current flowing due to the armature inductance in the com- 2 2
mutation state, thus the current ib of unexcited phase B is not Since E < eb < E, then ud/2 < eb < ud/2, so we obtain 0 < ub < ud,
strictly equal to zero, as shown in Fig. 2 nearby this means that there is no current flowing in phase B winding
he = 90°, 150°, 270°, and 330°, and the voltage drop on the stator and there is not exits freewheeling current through the anti-parallel
1672 X.Z. Zhang, Y.N. Wang / Energy Conversion and Management 52 (2011) 1669–1676

(a) PWM ON state (b) PWM OFF state

Fig. 4. Different state of VT1 and VT6. (a) PWM ON state; and (b) PWM OFF state.

diode VD3 and VD4, ib = 0. Then, the back EMF in Eq. (5) can also be
simplified as Eq. (9).Therefore, from the above analysis, with
H_PWM–L_PWM scheme there exits no freewheeling current in
the unexcited phase winding during the un-commutated interval,
and the operation uab  ubc (uabbc) enables the detection of the back
EMF ZCP of the phase B. In Section 4, it will further prove that the
difference of line-to-line voltage waveforms is an inverted repre-
sentation of the back-EMF waveform. It may also be noted that
the subtraction operation provides a gain of two to the back-EMF
waveform, thus amplifying it. In this method, the maximum duty
ratio of PWM can reach 100% since the sensing circuit can work
whether T1 and T6 are ON or OFF.Similarly, the difference of line-
to-line voltage ubcca enables the detection of zero crossing of phase
C back-EMF when phases B and C back-EMF are equal and opposite.
The difference of line-to-line voltage ucaab waveform gives the zero
crossing of phase A back-EMF, where phases C and B have equal and
opposite back-EMF. Therefore the zero crossing instants of the
back-EMF waveforms may be estimated indirectly from measure-
ments of only the three terminal voltages of the motor. This is true
even for a small rotation of the rotor, as shown in Section 4.

(1) Block diagram of the overall system (2) Experimental equipment and its components

(3) Proposed back EMF detection circuit.

Fig. 5. The block diagram and prototype of sensorless BLDC motor control system.
 X.Z. Zhang, Y.N. Wang / Energy Conversion and Management 52 (2011) 1669–1676 1673

(a) Voltage difference ubc , uab and back EMF of phase B

(b) Zero crossing signal seb , rotor position signal sb and phase current ib

Fig. 6. Simulation waveforms at 100 rpm. (a) Voltage difference ubc, uab and back EMF of phase B; and (b) zero-crossing signal seb, rotor position signal sb and phase current ib.

3. System implementation and starting method
3.1. System structure
A prototype of sensorless BLDC motor control system is built in
the lab. Fig. 5-1 and -2 shows the functional diagram and its exper-
imental equipment, respectively. A DC motor is used as a mechan-
ical load of the BLDC motor. Ratings and parameters of the BLDC
motor are listed as power = 180 W; current = 0.94 A; volt-
age = 220 V; number of poles = 4. The power supply that the back
EMF detection circuit requires is from IGBT driving and protecting
circuits. The protection signal of IGBT driving and protecting circuit
is fed to DSP directly. A proportional–integral (PI) regulator is used
for current regulation. From the sensed terminal voltages and sub-
sequently their differences are determined. Indeed, only two line-
to-line voltages are needed, and the third line-to-line voltage is
determined according to uab + ubc + uca = 0. For simplicity, no speed
control loop is provided. The entire drive system is controlled by a
low-cost, fixed-point digital signal processor (DSP), dsPIC30F6010.
To ascertain the effectiveness of the scheme, there are two commu-
tation methods in Fig. 5. So, we can compare the commutation sig-
nals from the proposed technique and the HALL sensor. The carrier
frequency of the inverter is 16 kHz.
The detailed circuit of the proposed back EMF detection method
is shown in Fig. 5-3. It is noted that the power supplies the driving
and protecting circuit used are also provided to the back EMF sens-
ing circuit, so no extra power supplies are needed. Comparators are
used to amplify the back EMF signals and to compare the line-to-
line voltage differences. The output signal of each phase back
EMF detection circuit is sent to analogy Multiplexer. Under the ac-
tion of DSP, Multiplexer selects which signal to be used according
to which phase is the open phase. The PWM signal from DSP is
used as the clock signal of D-type Flip-Flop, which will latch the
output of Multiplexer. To mask the abnormal level-shift of open
phase voltage, the first output samples of Multiplexer is discarded
by appling a customized delay, which produced in GAL once a new
phase commutation occurs, to Flip-Flop at the beginning of the
commutation interval. Then, the output of Flip-Flop is the detected
back EMF zero-crossing signal.
3.2. Starting procedure
As the amplitude of back EMF is proportional to the rotor speed,
it is impossible to detect the back EMF ZCP when the motor is at
standstill. Therefore, a suitable starting procedure is necessary to
the sensorless BLDC motor drive. In this control system, the start-
ing procedure is divided into three stages [2,14,15]. In stage 1, two
phases of the motor are energized for enough time; the rotor will
be locked into a predefined position. In stage 2, a commutation sig-
nal advancing the switching pattern by 120 electrical degrees will
be applied to the motor, and then, the frequency of the commuta-
tion signals is increasing gradually when the rotor rotates up by
the adding currents. In stage 3, the operation mode of the motor
1674 X.Z. Zhang, Y.N. Wang / Energy Conversion and Management 52 (2011) 1669–1676

(a) Voltage difference ubc , uab and back EMF of phase B

(b) Zero crossing signal seb , rotor position signal sb and phase current ib

Fig. 7. Simulation waveforms at 1000 rpm. (a) Voltage difference ubc, uab and back EMF of phase B; and (b) zero-crossing signal seb, rotor position signal sb and phase current ib.

is changed to self-controlled mode when the speed of the rotor
reaches a certain value, that is to say, the back EMF value reaches
a detectable level.
4. Simulation and experimental results
To verify the feasibility of the proposed method, computer sim-
ulations are first realized by MATLAB/SIMULIN software [16]. The
four poles motor parameters used for simulation and hardware
implementation are given as R = 2.875 X, Lm = 1.6 mH, Ls = 8.5 mH.
Figs. 6a and 7a show the simulated back-EMF waveform of phase B
and the line-to-line voltage difference uab, ubc at speed reference
100 rpm and 1000 rpm, respectively. The corresponding back
EMF zero-crossings signal Seb, the calculated rotor position signal
Scb and phase B current ib are depicted in Figs. 6b and 7b, respec-
tively. It can be seen that the plots validate Eq. (9) in the region
of zero crossing of the back EMF, and there exits no freewheeling
current in unexcited phase B. Therefore we conclude that the
method of detection of zero crossings of line-to-line voltage differ-
ence, as described in the previous section, is valid for a wide speed

ubc Seb

Scb
uab

eb Shb

ib

(a) Voltage difference ubc , uab and back (b) Zero crossing signal seb , calculated rotor position
EMF of phase B signal scb , Hall signal shb and phase current ib
Fig. 8. Experimental results at 100 rpm. (a) Voltage difference ubc, uab and back EMF of phase B; and (b) zero-crossing signal seb, calculated rotor position signal scb, Hall signal
shb and phase current ib.
 X.Z. Zhang, Y.N. Wang / Energy Conversion and Management 52 (2011) 1669–1676
ubc
uab
eb
(a) Voltage difference ubc , uab and back
EMF of phase B
Fig. 9. Experimental results at 1000 rpm. (a) Voltage difference ubc, uab and back EMF of phase B; and (b) zero-crossing signal seb, calculated rotor position signal scb, Hall
signal shb and phase current ib.
ib
Scb
Fig. 10. B-Phase current, calculated commutation signal at 98% duty cycle.
Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3
ib
Scb
Shb
Fig. 11. Starting process of BLDC motors with three stages. (From top to bottom:
phase current, commutation signal after time shift, ZCP signal of phase B).
range.Figs. 8 and 9 present the experimental results for two speed
references, which are 100 rpm and 1000 rpm, respectively. At
100 rpm, Fig. 8a illustrates the measured line-to-line voltage dif-
ferences for ubc and uab, and the calculated back EMF signal by
using the proposed method. Fig. 8b shows the corresponding ZCP
of back EMF Seb, calculated rotor position Scb, measured Hall signal
Shband the current of phase B. It is clear that each trigger edge of
ZCP signal corresponds to 60°, 120°, 180°, 240°, 300°, 360° rotor
position of back EMF of the unconducting phase. At 1000 rpm,
Fig. 9 gives the experimental results of our sensorless method. As
shown in Figs. 8 and 9, the calculated commutation signals coin-
cide with those determined by HALL sensor. The experimental
waveforms of phase A in Figs. 8 and 9 show a good agreement with
the waveforms of simulation in Figs. 6 and 7. It can be observed
that the estimated rotor position is in agreement with what is mea-
sured directly by the position sensor. These experimental results
therefore confirm those obtained in simulation.
To validate the system performance at high duty ratio, Fig. 10
shows the phase current and the estimated rotor position at 98%
duty cycle. From this waveform, it can be seen that the commuta-
1675
Seb
Scb
Shb
ib
(b) Zero crossing signal seb , calculated rotor position
signal scb , Hall signal shb and phase current ib
tion instant happens at trigger edge of phase current. Thus, the
commutation process works well both in PWM on time and
PWM off time even in high duty ratio. Compared with sensorless
methods in [9,11,12], which can only work either in PWM off time
or low PWM duty ratio, the proposed method exhibits better
performance.
Fig. 11 shows the current waveform and commutation signals of
the experimental BLDCM drive implemented using the propose
technique starting form standstill (stage 1) to closed-loop opera-
tion. It can be seen that the stage 2 lasts four electric cycles to as-
sure the rotor aligning with the rotating magnetic field. When the
input voltage is higher than, that is, if the back EMF is high enough
for the detection circuit, the sensorless commutation signals will
be sent to the commutation table and the motor is changed to
the self commutation mode (stage 3). Moreover, the starting proce-
dure from standstill to closed-loop operation is smooth and has no
serious distortion of phase current.
Experimental results show that the proposed method is feasible
and efficient. With this sensorless method based on line-to-line
back EMF, the motor can run smoothly in a wide speed range.
5. Conclusion
Unlike conventional back EMF based sensorless commutation
methods which focus on detection of the ZCP of the motor terminal
to neutral voltage, a novel sensorless commutation method based
on the difference of line-to-line voltage is proposed in this study.
Both theoretical analysis and experimental results verify that satis-
factory performance can be achieved with the proposed sensorless
commutation method. Compared with the existing solutions, the
proposed method has several improvements or characteristics,
including the followings.
1. The neutral voltage is not required in the proposed method,
only the three motor terminal voltages need to be detected.
2. With H_PWM–L_PWM scheme, it is proved that there exits no
freewheeling current in the unexcited phase winding during
the un-commutated interval, thus, the estimated ZCP is reliable
and accurate. The process of estimating ZCP is implemented by
the detection circuit, and so this method does not need position
sensor.
3. Since the amplitude of the line-to-line voltage is significantly
larger than the phase voltage, even a small back EMF can be
effectively detected. Namely, a lower open loop starting speed
can be achieved.
4. The maximum duty ratio of PWM can reach 100% since the
sensing circuit can work whether the switches are PWM ON
or PWM OFF.
1676 X.Z. Zhang, Y.N. Wang / Energy Conversion and Management 52 (2011) 1669–1676
5. The special PWM scheme, H_PWM–L_PWM, is used in this
method, which will result in higher switch losses when com-
pared with the conventional single-bridge modulated PWM
scheme. Torque ripple in this method is bigger than that in
the conventional method in which PWM scheme is H_PWM–
L_ON or L_PWM–H_ON.
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to the anonymous reviewers and to the
National Natural Science Foundation of China Key Program for
supporting this work through research Grant NSFC-60835004
and Hunan Natural Science Foundation through research Grant
JJ076111.
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