IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 25, NO.
9, SEPTEMBER 2010
Position Sensorless Control Based on Coordinate
Transformation for Brushless DC Motor Drives
Yuanyuan Wu, Zhiquan Deng, Xiaolin Wang, Xing Ling, and Xin Cao
Abstract—This paper presents a novel method for sensorless
brushless dc (BLDC) motor drives. Based on the characteristics
of the back electromotive force (EMF), the rotor position signals
would be constructed. It is intended to construct these signals,
which make the phase difference between the constructed signals
and the back EMFs controllable. Then, the rotor-position error
can be compensated by controlling the phase-difference angle in
real time. In this paper, the rotor-position-detection error is an-
alyzed. Using the TMS320F2812 chip as a control core, some ex-
periments have been carried out on the prototype, which is the
surface-mounted permanent magnet BLDC motor, and the exper-
imental results verify the analysis and demonstrate advantages of
the proposed sensorless-control method.
Index Terms—Brushless dc (BLDC) motor, compensate, coordi-
nate transform, rotor-position-detection error, sensorless.
I. INTRODUCTION
ERMANENT magnet (PM) brushless dc (BLDC) motor is
P increasingly being used in various areas such as automo-
tive, computer, industrial, and household products, etc., and its
market is rapidly growing. This is mainly due to its high effi-
ciency, high torque, ease of control, and lower maintenance [1].
The three-phase wye-connected BLDC motors are usually
supplied with a six-step 2π/3 inverter, and for assuring the nor-
mal system operation, the rotor position signals are necessary.
Traditionally, a rotor position sensor such as hall element is used
for detecting the rotor position in BLDC motor due to its simplic-
ity and low cost. However, the rotor position sensors show some
disadvantages from the standpoint of total system cost, size, and
reliability [2]. Consequently, for eliminating these sensors from
the motor, many research workers have attempted to control the
speed of BLDC motors without rotor position sensors or speed
sensors [3]–[15]. In the past, the detection of the freewheel-
ing diodes conduction [3], the back electromotive force (EMF)
voltage sensing [4], [5], the third harmonic detection [6], the
flux estimation [7], and the intelligent control [8]–[10] had been
applied to the BLDC drives. In the past decade, many novel
sensorless drive solutions have also emerged—for example, the
Manuscript received December 5, 2009; revised February 3, 2010, March
17, 2010, and March 21, 2010; accepted April 2, 2010. Date of current version
September 17, 2010. This work was supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China under Grant 50507008 and by the Program for New Cen-
tury Excellent Talents in University, China. Recommended for publication by
Associate Editor J. Olorunfemi.
The authors are with the Aero-Power Sci-Tech Center, College of Au-
tomation Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics,
Nanjing 210016, China (e-mail: william.com@163.com; dzq@nuaa.edu.cn;
wangxl@nuaa.edu.cn; lingxingwym@126.com; cxxc118@nuaa.edu.cn).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPEL.2010.2048126
0885-8993/$26.00 © 2010 IEEE
2365
direct back EMF detection method [11], [12], the method using
the symmetric terminal voltage [13], the method based on the
physically insightful speed-independent function of flux link-
age [14], and the line-to-line back EMF calculation [15]. How-
ever, the sensorless drive based on the back EMF is widely used
at present. Invariably, the error in the estimation of position
leads to the torque ripples and reduction in the average torque;
hence, it may decrease the torque/ampere ratio. This, in turn,
causes a decrease of the motor efficiency [16]. Lee and Lee
had concluded that the amount of position error is related to ro-
tor saliency, load, and motor-speed variation in [17]. Shen and
Tseng had mainly analyzed the rotor-position-detection error
caused by the armature reaction field in the terminal-voltage
method (TVM) and the phase-voltage method (PVM) [18].
For obtaining the accurate commutation instant, some posi-
tion error compensation methods have also been presented
[2], [18]–[20].
In this paper, taking a surface-mounted PM (SPM) BLDC
motor as the research object, of which the air-gap flux has a
trapezoidal shape, a new sensorless-control method is proposed.
It is based on coordinate transformation. In order to compensate
the rotor-position-detection error and obtain the commutation
sequences, two coordinates are defined, which are named as
“a” and “b.” For compensating the error, the angle β, which is
between “b” coordinate and “a” coordinate, respectively, is con-
trolled in real time, and the zero-crossing instants of constructed
position signals that are the projections on “b” coordinate from
“a” coordinate, are just the phase commutation instants. The
proposed method only needs two-phase terminal voltage sig-
nals, not to simulate the neutral voltage of the motor, and the
detection error could be compensated in real time. Consequently,
it is more suitable for the wide speed range.
The organization of this paper is as follows. First, the conven-
tional sensorless methods, the position error analysis, and the
position error compensation methods are presented in Section II.
Next, the proposed sensorless-control drive is described in de-
tail in Section III. The experimental results are given to verify
the effectiveness of the proposed sensorless-control method in
Section IV. Finally, some concluding remarks are given in
Section V.
II. REVIEW OF THE TRADITIONAL SENSORLESS METHOD
Generally, there are three parts for sensorless BLDC motor
drives, which are the inverter, the back EMF detection circuit,
and the control unit, respectively, as shown in Fig. 1. In this
section, , the error compensation methods are reviewed, and the
rotor-position-detection error is analyzed.
2366
Fig. 1. (a) Phase-voltage method drive system. (b) Terminal-voltage method drive system.
A. Traditional Sensorless-Control Methods
As shown in Fig. 1(a), the back EMF zero-crossing detec-
tion circuit is composed of four parts, including the resistance
network, the dividing voltage circuit, the first-order low-pass
filters, and the comparators in the PVM. R2 , R3 , and R4 con-
stitute the resistance network which is used for simulating the
motor neutral point voltage if the neutral wire of the BLDC mo-
tor is not available. R0 and R1 constitute the dividing voltage
circuit, which is used to reduce the terminal voltage so that the
signal sampled is between +15 and –15 V if the comparators
are supplied by the +15 V power source. The voltage dividers
and the capacitances constitute the low-pass filters. The filters
mainly has two functions as follows: 1) eliminating the chopped
pulses caused by the pulsewidth modulation (PWM) operation,
appearing along with the back EMF, and 2) making the back
EMF delay by π/6 electrical radians at the rated speed, in order
to obtain the commutation timing. The comparators are used for
generating the rotor-position pulse signals, by comparing Ua ,
Ub , and Uc to Un . If Ua is greater than Un , then the compara-
tor outputs high level, else the comparator outputs low level,
which is expressed as Sa in Fig. 1. At the rising edge of Sa , the
MOSFET T1 should be ON, and the MOSFET T5 should be OFF.
At the falling edge of Sa , the MOSFET T2 should be ON, and
the MOSFET T6 should be OFF. Similarly, according to the ris-
ing and falling edges of Sb and Sc , other commutation instants
could be obtained. Consequently, the BLDC motor could work
normally on the rated state.
In the TVM, for obtaining the commutation sequences, it
compares Ua , Ub , and Uc to Ud /2 that is different from the
PVM as shown in Fig. 1(b), and there is no resistance divider
for the filter. Its operation process is the same as PVM.
B. Analysis of the Rotor-Position-Detection Error
In a PM BLDC motor, the transient value of flux linkage
in each phase winding is directly related to the rotor position.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 25, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2010
However, the back EMF is due to the rate of change of flux
linkages, which is mainly excited by the PM on the surface
of the rotor; hence, the back EMF can be indirectly related
to the rotor position, and used for position sensorless control.
Nevertheless, in practical implementation, the two main sources
of error, e.g., the armature reaction field and the low-pass filter,
should be taken into account. For implementing the proposed
method, the TMS320F2812 chip is used. Its clock frequency
can be 150 MHz, and the control loop time is set to 20 µs so that
the error in the estimated position is negligible.
1) Error Caused by the Armature Reaction Field: The back
EMF consists of two components, one is the back EMF caused
by the PM excitation field, which can reflect the rotor position
accurately, and the other is the reaction EMF due to the ar-
mature reaction field, which is usually only around 10%–20%
of the magnitude of the open-circuit field [21] and may distort
the motor air-gap magnetic field excited by PM. The armature
reaction in interior PM BLDC motors is so strong that it can
distort the air-gap field remarkably [18], causing errors in the
detected rotor position. Nevertheless, the saliency effect is not
so significant if SPMs are employed on the rotor. Consequently,
the error caused by the armature reaction field is very small, and
could be neglected [18]. In this paper, the SPM BLDC motor is
considered for further discussion.
2) Error Caused by the Low-Pass Filters: Usually, the ter-
minal or phase voltages are used instead for sensorless control,
as the back EMF is difficult to be detected directly. The ter-
minal voltage is the combination of dc and harmonic compo-
nents generated by PWM operation. The magnitude of the dc
component varies directly with the duty of PWM, and the fre-
quencies of harmonic components are multiples of the carrier
frequency. For extracting the back EMF, there may be low-pass
filters to eliminate the chopped pulses from the terminal volt-
ages. The parameters of the filters would be usually designed
according to the rated rotation speed of the prototype. The rated
speed of the prototype adopted in this paper is 3000 r/min. The
WU et al.: POSITION SENSORLESS CONTROL BASED ON COORDINATE TRANSFORMATION FOR BRUSHLESS DC MOTOR DRIVES 2367

Fig. 2. (a) Commutation instant for the normal rotation. (b) Commutation instant for the reversing rotation.

phase-response function of the adopted low-pass filter is given

as (1)
R0 R1 Cω
α (ω) = tan−1 (1)
R0 + R1
where
R0 = 20 kΩ, R1 = 2 kΩ the divider resistors;
C = 0.47 µF the filter capacitor;
ω = 2πf the angular frequency and f is the fundamental
frequency.
The phase shift depends on the speed of the rotor. However,
the winding current should be commutated at π/6 (electrical
degrees) lagged behind back EMF zero-crossing point; hence,
the error due to filters under different speeds should be taken
into account. Fig. 2 shows the back EMF, the filtered terminal
voltage, and the commutation instant. The commutation instant
should be the time that lags behind the zero-crossing point of
the back EMF by π/6, e.g., the B point as shown in Fig. 2. The
filtered terminal voltage lags behind the back EMF by the angle Fig. 3. Coordinate transformation.
α, which could be calculated by (1), assuming that the position-
detection errors, due to the armature reaction, sampling, and the
uncertainty of the devices, are negligible. For the normal rota-
on the parameters of the BLDC motor, such as the back EMF co-
tion, the filter is usually designed to make the filtered terminal
efficient and the winding inductance. Another low-cost position
voltage lag behind the back EMF by π/6 at the rated speed, and
sensorless-control scheme [20] included a look-up-table-based
the commutation instant is just the zero-crossing point of the fil-
correction for the phase delay introduced by the filter. Cost
tered terminal voltage, but at the other speed, α is not π/6. If n
saving was achieved by significantly reducing the number of
(the rotation speed) is lower than nN (the rated speed), then α is
components in the position-sensing circuit. However, the afore-
smaller than π/6,else if n is higher than nN , then α is larger than
mentioned methods had the common characteristic that need a
π/6. As shown in Fig. 2(a), from 0 to nN , A point approaches to
timer to calculate the commutation instant, and they might be
B point, whereas it is further away from B point under reversion
based on the assumed condition that the rotation speed did not
rotation as shown in Fig. 2(b). Consequently, the commutation
change significantly over a certain period of time, causing the
instant should lag behind the zero-crossing point of the filtered
deterioration of the real-time capability of the control system.
terminal voltage by the angle β as expressed in (2)
π

 6 − α(ω), (for normal rotation) III. PROPOSED ARITHMETIC FOR SENSORLESS BLDC DRIVES
β= (2)

 π + α(ω), (for reversion rotation). A. Constructed Position Signals Based on
6 Coordinate Transformation
In this section, two coordinates are defined, which are named
C. Review of the Error Compensation Methods
as “a” and “b,” as shown in Fig. 3. The angle β is between
Sensorless commutation IC for BLDC motors [2] based on “b” coordinate and “a” coordinate, respectively. Ea , Eb , and Ec
the frequency-independent phase shifter [19], in which the posi- are the three-phase filtered-terminal voltages, which are defined
tion error could be compensated by decreasing the slew rate γd . in “a” coordinate. The projections on “b” coordinate from “a”
In [18], the period Td was calculated which depended strongly coordinate are defined as Ea
, Eb
, and Ec
.
2368 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 25, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2010

To begin with, the phase relationship between Ea and Ea

and the characteristics of Ea
will be analyzed. Then, Fourier
expansions for Ea , Eb , and Ec are given as (3)
 n=∞

Ea = Ud +

 an cos[nωt] + bn sin[nωt]

 2

 n =1



 n=∞    
Ud 2π 2π
Eb = + an cos n ωt + + bn sin n ωt +

 2 3 3

 n =1



 n=∞    

 Ud 2π 2π

 c
E = + an cos n ωt − + b n sin n ωt −
2 n =1
3 3
(3)
where Ud is the dc bus voltage.
The projections on “b” coordinate from “a” coordinate are
given in (4). The mathematical expression of Ea
, as given in
(5) is obtained by substituting (3) into (4). From (5), the char-
acteristics of Ea
can be seen as expressed in (6). From (6), the
characteristics of Ea
can be summarized as follows: 1) the dc
component is eliminated; 2) the 3nth harmonic is eliminated; Fig. 4. Proposed sensorless BLDC motor-drive system.
and 3) Ea
is just the fundamental wave if the fifth harmonic com-
ponent and other higher harmonic components can be neglected, The back EMF, which is trapezoidal, contains only odd har-
and the phase difference between Ea
and the fundamental com- monics. Therefore, the phase of Ea
is the same as the funda-
ponent of Ea is just the angle β, which can be controlled in real mental phase of Ea . The advantages of the proposed arithmetic
time. can be summarized as follows: 1) using the angle β, the rotor-
According to the three-phase symmetric relationship, Eb
and position-detection error could be compensated; 2) the neutral


Ec also have these characteristics point voltage in PVM and the Ud /2 in TVM are not needed.
    
2π 2π Because the dc component is eliminated by the coordinate trans-

 E

= E cos β + E cos − β + E cos + β

 a a b
3
c
3 form, the zero-crossing points of Ea
, Eb
, and Ec
can be used for



     commutation; and 3) it can be seen that the amplitude of Ea
is
 2π 2π 1.5 times the amplitude of the fundamental of Ea , which enables
Eb
= Eb cos β + Ec cos − β + Ea cos +β

 3 3 better estimation of the zero-crossing points than conventional



     methods [11], Ea
could be regarded as fundamental wave if the



 Ec = Ec cos β + Ea cos 2π − β + Eb cos 2π + β higher harmonics are neglected.
3 3
(4) B. Implementation of the New Scheme
  nπ 2 
2 cos β cos [nωt] sin 1) Hardware Implementation: The proposed sensorless
n
=∞
 3  BLDC motor drive system could be designed as shown in Fig. 4.
Ea
= an 
   

√ 2nπ In comparison with Fig. 1, the back EMF zero-crossing detec-
n =1 − 3 sin β sin sin [nωt] tion circuit is substituted by the back EMF sampling circuit,
3
√    which includes the low-pass filters, the sampling circuit, and
2nπ the regulation circuit. The filters are used for eliminating the
3 sin β sin cos [nωt]
 3  chopped pulse caused by the PWM operation. The sampling
+ bn 
 (5)
 nπ 2  circuit, which is galvanically isolated from the digital signal
+ 2 cos β sin [nωt] sin processor (DSP), would sample the filtered terminal voltage to
3

the regulation circuit, and the regulation circuit would scale
 E (0) = 0


a down the filtered terminal voltage between 0 and +3 V, which


 E
(1) = 3 (a1 cos[β + ωt] + b1 sin[β + ωt]) could be read by the DSP. Then, the proposed position sensor-
a
2 (6) less method could be implemented by programming in the DSP.


 E (3n) = 0

For simplifying the hardware circuit, the phase C terminal volt-

 a age is not sampled, which could be reconstructed by Ea and
......
Eb according to the three-phase symmetry property. It could be
where easily implemented by programming.
Ea
(0) the dc component of Ea
; 2) Program Implementation: The program flow of the pro-
Ea
(1) the fundamental component of Ea
; posed arithmetic is presented in Fig. 5(a). Since the back EMF
Ea
(3n) the 3nth (n = 1,2,3, . . .) harmonic components. is not generated at standstill, a proper starting procedure is
WU et al.: POSITION SENSORLESS CONTROL BASED ON COORDINATE TRANSFORMATION FOR BRUSHLESS DC MOTOR DRIVES
Fig. 5. (a) Program flow diagram. (b) Commutation logic decision diagram.
necessary. In this paper, an open loop ramping control scheme
is adopted to accelerate the motor to a certain speed level. Once
the motor reaches the speed at which the back EMF can be reli-
ably detected, the control mode will be changed from the open
loop ramping control to the proposed sensorless control. After
the starting process, the filtered terminal voltages, e.g., Ea and
Eb , are sampled in real time, and the other one Ec is constructed
by Ea and Eb . Then, the rotation speed ω can be computed out
by using traditional estimation method [2]. Furthermore, the
rotor-position-detection error, analyzed in Section II-B, would
be computed out. Finally, by computing the angle β, Ea
, Eb
,
and Ec
can be obtained by coordinate transformation, and the
commutation timings can be obtained from the zero-crossing
points of Ea
, Eb
, and Ec
.
The commutation logic decision is shown in Fig. 5(b). After
the commutation logic decision, the six PWM signals are trans-
mitted out for sensorless BLDC control by the control unit. The
polarity of the signals derived from the back EMF would reverse
when the motor rotates in the opposite direction; hence it only
needs to switch the β calculation mode as expressed in (2).
IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
The proposed arithmetic for sensorless BLDC motor drive
has been successfully implemented on the experimental BLDC
motor, and its specification is shown in Table I. The overall
system configuration of the proposed sensorless drive is shown
in Fig. 4.
Fig. 6(a) shows the course of the boosting velocity procedure
from 600 to 3000 r/min for verifying that the proposed sensor-
less control could well compensate the rotor-position-detection
error in real time over the speed range. As evidenced in Fig. 6(a),
the waveform of Ea
, which is constructed by coordinate trans-
2369
TABLE I
MOTOR PARAMETERS
formation, could be considered as the fundamental wave, and
no dc component, just as the aforementioned analysis.
Fig. 6(b) and (c) are, respectively, the enlarged views when
the rotation speeds are at 600 and 3000 r/min. Fig. 6(d) and
(e) are the views when the reversed rotation speed is 600 and
3000 r/min, respectively. Experimental results show that, from
600 to 3000 r/min, the compensation angle β becomes smaller,
because the zero-crossing point of the filtered terminal voltage is
closer to the commutation instant, however, the angle β becomes
bigger for the reversing rotation. It is because the zero-crossing
point of the filtered terminal voltage is further away from the
commutation instant, as analyzed in Section II-B2. After coor-
dinate transformation, it can be seen that the rising and falling
edges of Ha (the hall position signal of the phase A) is just
the moment, i.e., the zero-crossing point of Ea
over the speed
range, and the position error is compensated by Ea
. Eb
and Ec

can be similarly understood. Consequently, the commutation
can be realized according to the zero-crossing points of Ea
, Eb
,
and Ec
. Fig. 6(f)–(i) show A phase current waveforms and Ea

at 600, 3000, reversing 600, and reversing 3000 r/min, respec-
tively, while the proposed sensorless arithmetic was used. As
evidenced in the experimental results, the accurate commutation
2370
Fig. 6. (a) Comparing the reconstructed position signal to the hall signal over the speed range. (b) Angle β at 600 r/min. (c) Angle β at 3000 r/min. (d) Angle β
at 600 r/min for reversing. (e) Angle β at 3000 r/min for reversing. (f) and (g) Reconstructed position signals and the current of the phase A at 600 and 3000 r/min,
respectively. (h) and (i) Reconstructed position signals and the current of the phase A at 600 and 3000 r/min for reversing, respectively.
instant could be obtained by the zero-crossing points of Ea
, Eb
,
and Ec
over the speed range.
V. CONCLUSION
A novel arithmetic for sensorless BLDC motor drives has
been presented in this paper. The rotor-position signals, e.g.,
Ea
, Eb
, and Ec
, are constructed by the two-phase terminal
voltages, which can be used for commutation. The proposed
sensorless-control method has the following advantages: 1) it
only needs two-phase terminal voltage signals, without using the
neutral voltage signal of the motor and 2) in order to obtain the
commutation instants, the rotor-position-detection error could
be calculated in real time, and compensated by computing the
angle β, over the speed range. Experimental results verify the
analysis in Section III and demonstrate advantages (1) and (2).
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IEEE Trans. Magn., vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 136–142, Jan. 1993.
Xiaolin Wang was born in Sichuan, China, in 1976.
He received the B.S. degree in electrical engineer-
ing and the Ph.D. degree in power electronics and
electric motor drives from the Nanjing University
of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, China, in
1999 and 2004, respectively.
Since 2004, he has been with the Department of
Electrical Engineering, Nanjing University of Aero-
nautics and Astronautics, where he is currently a Vice
Professor at the Aero-Power Sci-Tech Center, College
of Automatic Engineering. His research interests in-
clude bearingless motor-drive systems and super high-speed electrical machines.
Xing Ling was born in Jiangsu, China, in 1986. He
received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering in
2009 from the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and
Astronautics, Nanjing, China, where he is currently
working toward the M.S. degree at the Aero-Power
Sci-Tech Center, College of Automatic Engineering.
His current research interests include the sensor-
less control for permanent magnet brushless dc motor
drives.

Xin Cao was born in Jiangsu, China, in 1981. He

Yuanyuan Wu was born in Anhui, China, in 1983.
He received the B.S. degree in electrical engi-
neering from the Anhui University of Technology,
Maanshan, China, in 2006. He is currently work-
ing toward the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineer-
ing from the Aero-Power Sci-Tech Center, College
of Automation Engineering, Nanjing University of
Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, China.
His current research interests include high-power
and high-speed permanent magnet brushless dc
motors.
received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical en-
gineering, in 2003 and 2006, respectively, from the
Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics,
Nanjing, China, where he is currently working toward
the Ph.D. degree at the Aero-Power Sci-Tech Center,
College of Automatic Engineering.
His current research interest includes bearingless
switched-reluctance motors.

Zhiquan Deng was born in Hubei, China, in 1969. He

received the B.S. degree in mechanical engineering
from the Xian Institute of Metallurgy and Construc-
tion Engineering (which has been known as Xian Uni-
versity of Architecture and Technology since 1994),
Xian, China, in 1990, and the M.S. and Ph.D. de-
grees in engineering machinery from the Northeast-
ern University, Shenyang, China, in 1993 and 1996,
respectively.
In 1996, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the
Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics,
Nanjing, China, where he became a faculty member in the Department of Electri-
cal Engineering in 1998. He is currently a Professor at the Aero-Power Sci-Tech
Center, College of Automation Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics
and Astronautics. His research interests include bearingless motor-drive sys-
tems, magnetic bearings, and super high-speed electrical machines.