IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 55, NO.

1, JANUARY 2008 321

Sensorless Control of Single Switch-Based Switched

Reluctance Motor Drive Using Neural Network
Christopher A. Hudson, N. S. Lobo, Student Member, IEEE, and R. Krishnan, Fellow, IEEE

Abstract—Neural networks (NNs) have proven to be useful NN-based position estimation in SRMs has been in literature
in approximating nonlinear systems and in many applications, for some time [8], [9]. Nonlinear systems requiring a high
including motion control. Hitherto, NNs advocated in switched degree of control accuracy require higher order NNs to prop-
reluctance motor (SRM) control have a large number of neurons in
the hidden layer. This has impeded their real-time implementation erly approximate the system dynamics. Techniques for rotor
with DSPs, particularly at high rotational speeds, because of the position estimation and rotor position sensorless torque control
large number of operations required by the NN controller within in SRMs using NNs have been proposed and implemented at
a sampling interval. One of the ideal applications of NNs in SRM low speeds [1], [10], [11]. The main barrier to realization of a
control is in rotor position estimation using only current and/or sensorless SRM drive is the generation of a reliable flux linkage
voltage signals. Elimination of rotor position sensors is practically
mandatory for high-volume, high-speed, and low-cost applications estimate during operation [12], [13]. Flux linkage is derived
of SRMs, for example, in home appliances such as in vacuum from analytical techniques and other observation methods.
cleaners. In this paper, through simulation and analysis, it is Still, most position sensorless SRM control algorithms utilize
demonstrated that a minimal NN configuration is attainable to flux linkage because of its fundamental relationship to rotor
implement rotor position estimation in SRM drives. The NN is position. Sensorless control algorithms, which are described in
trained and implemented on an inexpensive DSP microcontroller.
NN training data, current, and flux linkage are obtained directly [12]–[14], attempt to accurately predict flux linkage. The flux
from the system during its operation. Furthermore, the chosen linkage estimator in this paper does not contain any hardware
method is implemented on a single-switch-converter-driven SRM integrators or lookup tables.
with two phases. This configuration of the motor drive is chosen Magnetic characteristics in SRMs are expressed by the re-
because it is believed that this is the lowest cost variable speed lationship among winding flux linkages versus phase winding
machine system available. Experimental verification of this motor
drive system is provided to demonstrate the viability of the pro- current versus rotor position. NNs utilizing flux linkage and
posed approach for the development of low-cost motor drives. current to train the NN to compute rotor position are described
in [15] and [16]. Conventional NNs require a large number of
Index Terms—Motor drives, neural networks (NNs), reluctance
motor. computations for position estimation due to the large number
of neurons in hidden layers (in much of the literature, it is not
uncommon to encounter 15–20 neurons in the hidden layer)
I. I NTRODUCTION that is required to model the SRM magnetic characteristics. The
proposed approach decreases the computational burden signifi-
I N RECENT years, neural networks (NNs) have found a
place in real-time control and system identification appli-
cations with the increase in microcontroller speed and
cantly by inserting a preprocessor in the NN. The preprocessor
generates a third input to the NN that is the product of the
capabilities. Current trends in control of variable speed motor phase current and flux linkage. It is shown that this approach
drive systems have shown that eliminating position sensors, reduces the total number of neurons in the NN. Consequently,
particularly in low-cost applications such as home appliances, the computational burden of the NN is decreased, as compared
is attractive to industry primarily because of cost and reliability to any other previous work, and a sensorless SRM drive for the
concerns [1]–[3]. A switched reluctance motor (SRM) with its intended application is accomplished.
low-cost structure having only steel on the rotor and stator, This paper also presents a novel technique for sensorless
and concentrated windings on the stator, makes it an ideal control of an SRM drive with a single-controllable-switch-
choice for low-cost applications like vacuum cleaners to high- based converter (SSC) using an NN. The intended market is
performance applications like flywheels [4]. The ability of NNs applications where absolute rotor position is not critical, such
to model nonlinear characteristics and compensate disturbances as low-cost appliances like vacuum cleaners. The drive system
and uncertainties makes it an ideal candidate for estimation of used in this paper consists of the SSC drive shown in Fig. 1 and
parameters in such systems [5]–[7]. two-phase SRM shown in Fig. 2 [17]. It has been demonstrated
that this converter can drive a two-phase SRM and provide four-
quadrant operation [18].
Manuscript received June 30, 2005; revised February 21, 2007. SRMs with different numbers of phases can also be con-
C. A. Hudson is with the Adaptive Technologies Inc., Blacksburg, VA 24060
USA (e-mail:[email protected]). trolled with the proposed sensorless control algorithm.
N. S. Lobo and R. Krishnan are with the Center for Rapid Transit Systems, This paper is organized as follows. Section II introduces the
The Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Virginia SRM and the converter topology used to illustrate the proposed
Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061 USA (e-mail:
[email protected]; [email protected]). sensorless method. Section III describes a conventional NN
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIE.2007.903965 structure, including its drawbacks. It also demonstrates the

0278-0046/$25.00 © 2008 IEEE

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322 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 55, NO. 1, JANUARY 2008

A. Motor Configuration
The SRM has eight stator poles with windings, four main
and four auxiliary. The auxiliary poles are shifted 45◦ from the
main poles. Only one set of diametrically opposite auxiliary
windings is utilized. Fig. 2 shows the motor and its winding
configuration. Additional information on magnetization char-
acteristics and performance is presented in [17]. The machine
is effectively utilized as a two-phase SRM, although the main
phase generates most of the torque in the machine. Auxiliary
windings provide starting torque and recover energy from the
main phase winding during the interval when controllable
switch S1 is OFF.
Fig. 1. Single-controllable-switch converter topology.
B. Derivation of System Equations
In this section, two sets of equations that model the behavior
of the motor in conjunction with the SSC are derived. Devices
are assumed to be ideal; hence, voltage drops and switching
transients are ignored. It is to be noted that the voltage drop
across the devices can be incorporated into the model if re-
quired, although the voltage drops are small compared to the
dc-link voltage. There are two modes of operation for the
converter, and they are detailed below.
1) Switch S1 ON

dλa
= Vdc − Ra ia (1)
dt
dλb
= Vc − Vdc − Rb ib (2)
dt
dVc ic
= (3)
dt C
ia ≥ 0, ib ≥ 0, ic = −ib (4)
dωm
J + B ωm = Te − Tl (5)
dt

Fig. 2. SRM configuration used for simulations and experimental
implementation.
ON, If ib > 0
D1 = OFF D2 =
OFF, If ib = 0.

derivation of a minimal NN structure and its performance. 2) Switch S1 OFF

Data collection methods and data verification are discussed in
Section IV. The performance of the NN is discussed in dλa
= Vdc − Vc − Ra ia (6)
Section V, with an analysis of the flux linkage estimation dt
error. Section VI details the sensorless control algorithm. Ex- dλb
= Vc − Vdc − Rb ib (7)
perimental results from the implementation of the sensorless dt
control algorithm are presented in Section VII. Conclusions are dVc (ic )
= (8)
summarized in Section VIII. dt C
ia ≥ 0, ib ≥ 0, ic = ia − ib (9)


ON, If ia > 0
II. M OTOR D RIVE S YSTEM AND M ODELING D1 =
OFF, If ia = 0


The basic building blocks and the system integration are ON, If ib > 0
D2 =
shown in Fig. 3. OFF, If ib = 0.
The sensorless system is closed-loop for both speed and
current. In position sensored systems, speed or rotor position J is the inertia of the rotor (in kilogram square meter), B is
is measured. However, in sensorless systems, the speed or rotor the friction coefficient of the motor and load, dt is the sample
position is not measured, but is estimated from the available period, ωm is the rotor speed (in radian per second), Vdc is
signals such as winding current and voltage. The controllers the dc-link voltage, and Ra and Rb are the resistances of the
used for both the speed and current loops are proportional plus main and auxiliary phase windings, respectively. λa and λb are
integral controllers. the flux linkages (in volt seconds) of the main and auxiliary
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HUDSON et al.: SENSORLESS CONTROL OF SINGLE SWITCH-BASED SRM DRIVE USING NN 323

Fig. 3. Block diagram for the motor drive system.

windings, respectively. ia , ib , and ic are the currents through

the main phase winding, auxiliary winding, and the capacitor,
respectively, and the current directions follow the convention
shown in Fig. 1. Vc is the voltage across the capacitor, and C is
the capacitance of the capacitor Cs . Te and Tl are the electro-
magnetic torque (Newton meter) and load torque, respectively.
D1 and D2 are switching states of the two diodes shown in the
SSC converter (Fig. 1).
The load dynamic equation for the case with S1 OFF is also
(5). The switching frequency of the converter is chosen to be
20 kHz. The sampling is set to occur once per switching cycle,
50 µs. The flux linkage, torque, speed, and position reflect an
average for the switching period. Since the sampled signals
have a larger time constant than a single sampling interval,
averaging over one pulsewidth modulation (PWM) period is
valid. Given the sampled nature of the system, the average flux Fig. 4. Conventional NN with one hidden layer.
linkages can be expressed as

λ̄ = λ̄ON + λ̄OFF III. NN S TRUCTURE


λ̄ON = d(Vdc − Ra I)dt (10) The Levenberg–Marquardt back propagation (LBMP) algo-
 rithm is used to train the NN with the main phase winding
current i and its flux linkage λ as inputs and rotor position θ
λ̄OFF = (1 − d)(Vdc − Vc − Ra I)dt (11)
as its output. The data used to train the initial NN are obtained
from finite element analysis (FEA). The LMBP algorithm is
where λ̄ is the average flux linkage during one PWM cycle, an optimal method used in training NNs since its convergence
λ̄ON is the average flux linkage during the S1 ON period, λ̄OFF is faster than conventional back-propagation methods [8], [16].
is the flux linkage during the S1 OFF period, d is the duty cycle The NN shown in Fig. 4 contains three layers: The input layer
of switch S1, and I is the sampled current from the main phase has three neurons, the hidden layer has six neurons, and a single
winding. Thus, the average flux linkage per sample period can neuron is present in the output layer. The sigmoidal squashing
be expressed by summing (10) and (11), and we get function is used in all neurons, except the neuron in the output
 layer, which uses a linear squashing function. The NN is trained
to an average squared error of 4.9 × 10−3 in 1000 epochs. This
λ̄ = [Vdc − (1 − d)Vc − Ra I] dt. (12)
NN requires 70 total operations and 31 µs to process on the
DSP. Implementing conventional multilayer NNs on DSPs with
In order to implement real-time integration of the flux linkage large number of neurons for SRM speed control is infeasible
estimator on a DSP, a periodic reset of the integrator must due to the computational time required to estimate the rotor
be maintained during operation. This limits the error due to position in one sampling interval. Therefore, an alternative NN
rounding, digitization, and its accumulation [19]. However, that could lend itself to fewer computational steps and a lower
the motor drive topology lends itself to recirculating current desired estimation error is necessary for the DSP control of
during the nonconduction periods, which, in turn, can produce SRM motors.
flux linkages that never go to zero. By using a nonzero initial A smaller NN could be implemented on a low-cost DSP. An
condition during flux linkage estimation, the benefits of reset- NN with a nonlinear preprocessor, in addition to conventional
ting the integration shown in (12) can be reaped during the inputs, is selected as it can incorporate nonlinearities to mirror
nonconduction intervals while maintaining integration accuracy the SRM’s magnetic characteristics. The preprocessor is a
by offsetting the initial integrand value of (12) at the start of the polynomial function of conventional inputs and incorporates
conduction interval. useful nonlinearities to the input of the NN [20].
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324 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 55, NO. 1, JANUARY 2008

Fig. 5. Proposed minimal NN with a preprocessor.

TABLE I
COMPARISON BETWEEN TRAINING AND COMPUTATION FOR THE
CONVENTIONAL NN AND PROPOSED MINIMAL NN

Fig. 6. Comparison between outputs of typical and reduced NNs with mea-
sured position for inputs obtained from experimentally captured magnetization
characteristics.

is chosen for final implementation as it reduces the computation

time by 58% without inordinately sacrificing the accuracy in
estimating the rotor position.

IV. T RAINING D ATA C OLLECTION AND T RAINING

The additional nonlinear input provides the ability to elim- Initially, the data obtained from FEA were used to train
inate the hidden layer from the conventional NN structure the NN. However, the experimental implementation of the NN
shown in Fig. 4. The preprocessor takes inputs main phase after training showed considerable error in the rotor position
current and flux linkage and produces a product of these two estimate. Switching transients, sampling error, and noise in-
variables. It is to be noted that the preprocessed inputs selected troduced during analog-to-digital conversion processes in the
for this research may not be suitable for all SRMs using NNs to experimental system result in erroneous estimation of the rotor
estimate the rotor position with phase current and flux linkage. position. As a result, the experimental motor data, which are
In this research, the product of flux linkage and current provides representatives of physical phenomena not accounted for by
the lowest mean error. The design and benefit of a preprocessor the simulations and FEA, have to be constructed. Therefore,
has to be evaluated by simulation prior to experimental imple- the experimental system is executed in the position sensored
mentation. The preprocessor method of reducing the NN size mode, while the flux linkage estimation algorithm is exercised
is also shown to successfully work in [21]. Together with the on the DSP to estimate the flux linkage and store rotor position,
preprocessor output, the inputs to the NN increase from two to current, and flux linkage during operation. Rotor position is
three even though the third input, which is the output of the derived from Hall effect sensors that are mounted on the motor
preprocessor, is a dependent input. The resulting NN structure to indicate 0◦ and 45◦ in the conduction interval. 0◦ is the
is shown in Fig. 5. position where the rotor is completely unaligned with respect
The number of computational steps required to process the to the main stator poles, and 45◦ is the position where the rotor
proposed reduced NN structure is 33, including the computa- poles are fully aligned with the main stator poles. It is assumed
tions done by the preprocessor. This is significantly lower than that the rotor speed is constant in the 45◦ interval between the
the conventional NN which requires 80 total computations to pulses from the Hall effect sensors. The NN that would be
estimate the rotor position. This facilitates the implementation trained with this experimentally captured data would negate the
of the proposed NN on a microcontroller with a sampling effects of noise, sampling, and estimation errors. Experimental
frequency of 20 kHz. The conventional NN, as shown in Fig. 4, data are collected for current levels between 0.75 and 3 A,
requires a larger interval between samplings (100 µs) in order to at both startup (acceleration from standstill) and commanded
process the NN to estimate position and execute the necessary speed. These current levels provide an operating range between
control algorithms. Training the reduced NN with FEA data 100 and 2000 r/min. A total of 2000 data points is randomly
yields approximately the same rms error as the conventional selected from the captured magnetization characteristics and
NN. A comparison of the rms error and computation time for used for training. A similar method to record operational data
each of the two NNs is given in Table I. The microcontroller from the SRM and its use in training a higher order NN for
computation time given in Table I is the actual time taken to sensorless control is explained in [16]. Training both typical
execute the NN (including the preprocessor for the proposed and reduced NNs using the new data yields an rms error
minimal NN) on the DSP. The proposed minimal NN structure of 5 × 10−3 .
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HUDSON et al.: SENSORLESS CONTROL OF SINGLE SWITCH-BASED SRM DRIVE USING NN 325

TABLE II
COMPARISON BETWEEN SPEED AND INTERRUPT CYCLE COUNT

starting is similar to the one described in [22]. When the motor

is at standstill, switch S1 is turned ON for a preset period of time
to induce a large current pulse in the main phase winding. This
current, along with the current through the auxiliary winding
after switch S1 is turned OFF , creates a small torque and causes
Fig. 7. Comparison between rotor position estimated by the NN and measured the rotor to move. A second voltage pulse is applied to the main
rotor position from the experimental system. winding in order to insure that the motor builds up sufficient
speed for speed control to be performed.
Once the two pulses are applied, a small current is injected
into the main phase via PWM pulses to detect the position
of minimum inductance. The inductance is measured by the
microcontroller at every sampling interval, and the minimum
inductance value is stored. The microcontroller continues to
measure inductance and compare it to the value of the min-
imum inductance obtained in order to detect the unaligned
position with respect to the main phase. Once the minimum
inductance is detected for the second time, the sensorless speed
control algorithm is executed, and the motor is driven to the
desired speed.
Fig. 8. Error between the measured and estimated rotor positions from the
reduced NN during open-loop speed experimental implementation. B. Sensorless Speed Control Algorithm

V. NN E RROR A NALYSIS When the starting algorithm determines the unaligned po-
sition, the sensorless speed control algorithm becomes opera-
Random samples from the experimentally captured mag- tional. 22.5◦ is the position in the motoring region, which is
netization data that are not part of the training set are used equidistant from the unaligned (0◦ ) position and the aligned po-
to compare the performance of the two trained NNs. This is sition (45◦ ). Three timers are the crux of the sensorless control
done to analyze the interpolation capability of the trained NNs. algorithm. The three timers implemented count interrupt cycles
Fig. 6 shows the simulated performance of the conventional that occur every 50 µs.
and reduced NNs. The reduced NN is implemented on the 1) Timer 1—Speed Timer: This timer measures the interval
experimental system with the Hall effect position sensors to between two consecutive 22.5◦ positions from the NN. The time
evaluate its performance. The measured rotor position is com- interval is used to calculate the speed of the motor. It is assumed
pared to the estimated rotor position from the reduced NN, and that the speed is constant between two successive 22.5◦ angular
a comparison between the two is shown in Fig. 7. The error positions. The 22.5◦ position is chosen as a reference for the
during steady-state speed operation is approximately 1.3◦ even estimation of speed, because the NN estimates position with
though the mean error from training the NN over the entire the least error for the range of angles between 20◦ and 35◦ for
speed and current range is approximately 3◦ . This is expected the current (ia ) range used in the drive system. This timer is
since NNs perform poorly at low speeds due to integration and reset at every 22.5◦ position. In order to estimate the speed
sampling errors. of the motor, a relationship between the number of interrupt
The instantaneous error between the actual rotor position and cycles and speed was established. Table II shows comparison
the NN estimation is shown in Fig. 8. between the measured motor speed and the interrupt cycle
count from the DSP. By using these data, the speed estimator is
VI. P OSITION S ENSORLESS C ONTROL A LGORITHM derived to be
A. Sensorless Starting Method 15 700
ωm
. (13)
Interrupt Cycle Count
Since both the motor and the drive are targeted for low-cost
applications, it is necessary to implement an efficient sensorless 2) Timer 2—Commutation Timer: Once the speed is deter-
self-starting algorithm. The algorithm implemented for self- mined from timer 1, the time interval between the 22.5◦ position
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326 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 55, NO. 1, JANUARY 2008

Fig. 10. Closed-loop sensorless speed and current simulation results.

results is shown in Fig. 10. The NN calculates the rotor position

accurately, but is highly dependent on the accuracy of the flux
linkage estimate.
The simulation exhibits accurate results when compared to
the parameters that are measured from the closed-loop sensored
system. The current command was limited to 6 A due to limi-
tations in the dynamic range of the actual feedback electronics.
The current controller was tuned to allow it to achieve current
Fig. 9. Sensorless speed control algorithm flowchart.
command levels at high speeds. Therefore, some overshoot and
ringing are experienced at low speeds where lower inductance
and the angle of commutation is projected. This timer, once set, in the main winding is experienced for longer periods.
counts down until it reaches zero. When the timer reaches zero, It was discovered that an error could show up in the flux
the PWM current controller is disabled (S1 is turned OFF) since linkage estimate if long integration times are experienced, as
the rotor is in the negative torque region with respect to the discussed in [15]. This error was primarily due to sampling in-
main phase. accuracies. However, any computational error correction at this
3) Timer 3—Nonconduction Timer: The speed calculated by stage could result in a large number of additional computational
timer 1 is also used to determine the time interval between steps, which is not feasible for the targeted microcontrollers.
the commutation angle and the angle for excitation. Once the Thus, various integration methods were analyzed against trade-
commutation angle is reached, timer 3 begins to count down offs in processor sampling methods to determine the best way
until it reaches zero, which is when the current controller is to minimize the error. It was finally determined that the best
invoked to regulate the current through the main winding for overall performance could be gained using the standard back-
the motoring region. While timer 3 counts down, the switch S1 ward rectangular integration method. A high degree of consis-
remains OFF , and the current control loop is disabled. When tency is achieved in the flux linkage estimator during dynamic
timer 3 reaches zero, the PWM current controller is enabled, operation, by precisely tuning the input variable scales in the
and switch S1 is turned ON. If the NN determines that the rotor software. The flowchart describing the flux linkage integration
position is in the nonconduction region, the current controller is shown in Fig. 11. The scales of the sampled signals are kept
and switch S1 are turned OFF for a preset number of interrupt at ×100 to alleviate the rounding error as much as possible
cycles, allowing the motor to enter the motoring region. from the calculation; thus the division by 100 just prior to
The flowchart of the complete sensorless control system is integration.
shown in Fig. 9.
VII. E XPERIMENTAL R ESULTS
C. SRM Drive System Simulation
Results from the implementation of the reduced NN are
In the sensorless system implemented for simulations and shown in this section. The experimental system is designed
experimentation, no dynamic advanced angle excitations and with the TI TMS320LF2407A DSP controlling not only the
commutation angles are used. A set of closed-loop simulation motor drive but also processing all signal sampling, control,
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HUDSON et al.: SENSORLESS CONTROL OF SINGLE SWITCH-BASED SRM DRIVE USING NN 327

Fig. 13. Self-starting results without load: Main winding current and
motor speed.

Fig. 11. Flux linkage estimation DSP implementation.

Fig. 14. Motor speeding up from standstill without load. Speed command
is 1500 r/min.

The rotor position estimation has the least error in the 22.5◦
position. The measured position shown in Fig. 12 is assumed
to be linearly varying between the two pulses from the Hall
effect sensors. Fig. 8 shows the low instantaneous error between
the measured and estimated rotor positions from the open-loop
Fig. 12. Open-loop speed control experimental results with no load (closed-
loop current control).
experiments.
The execution of the sensorless starting method is shown
in Fig. 13. The current spikes indicate the two voltage pulses
estimation, and filtering. The processor is set to run at 15 MIPS applied which cause the rotor to rotate. The two pulses cause the
and samples the main phase current and voltage at 20 kHz. rotor to speed up to 125 r/min, after which the startup algorithm
The sampling is adjusted to occur both at the switch turn-ON that detects the position of the minimum inductance is invoked,
and turn-OFF instants. Thus, the samplings of the system states followed by the sensorless speed control algorithm being ex-
occur at the midpoint of ON and OFF times as required by the ecuted. It is to be noted that the startup algorithm, which
flux linkage estimator. Performing the sampling at switch turn- detects the minimum inductance, is not executed at 125 r/min
OFF provides the means to obtain the maximum current state in every case; rather, it is executed after a preset delay from
during the PWM cycle. the second self-starting pulse. The injected current is kept low
Fig. 12 shows the winding current, flux linkage estimate in order to prevent saturation in the motor iron and to prevent
from integration, and the estimated position from the proposed negative torque from slowing the rotor down. Fig. 14 shows the
reduced NN which are captured by the DSP during open-loop main phase current and motor accelerating from standstill to
experiments. With a 1-A current command, the rotor speed is 1500 r/min.
approximately 1500 r/min. The rotor position that is estimated The experimental data in Fig. 15, which are captured by
by the minimal NN correlates well with the simulation results. the DSP during sensorless operation, correlate well with the
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328 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 55, NO. 1, JANUARY 2008

Fig. 15. Closed-loop speed and current results captured by the DSP when motor is accelerating from standstill without load.

where absolute position accuracy and high efficiency are not a

requirement.

VIII. C ONCLUSION
Sensorless speed control of an SSC-based SRM drive with
an NN position estimator is demonstrated. The key conclusions
of this paper are given below.
1) Sensorless speed control for an SRM is realized, using the
most minimal NN with no hidden layer and a preproces-
sor with one output. This is the first time, in motor drives
literature, that this has successfully been demonstrated.
This has reduced the number of computations required to
Fig. 16. Main winding current and rotor speed with load. Speed command is estimate rotor position from an input set.
1500 r/min (closed-loop speed and current, experimental results). 2) The minimal NN was trained with the data obtained from
the sensored operation with Hall effect sensors and no
encoder.
simulations shown in Fig. 10. The results prove that the pro- 3) The proposed position sensorless controller is realized
posed reduced NN is estimating the rotor position with a low with an inexpensive DSP microcontroller, as a result of
error. The results also reveal a transient error in the estimation the reduced computational requirements and simplicity of
of speed as the motor accelerates and the current decreases. the proposed control algorithm.
Fig. 16 shows the result of a load being applied to the motor 4) In order for the controller to be viable in low-cost envi-
during steady operation (at 1500 r/min). Consequently, the ronments, such as in home appliances, a low-cost SRM
motor speed decreases, and the main winding current increases. drive with an SSC converter and a two-phase SRM was
This is expected since the load applied to the motor was large, used as a prototype to demonstrate the working of the
and the current controller was not able to drive a current larger proposed sensorless controller.
than 3 A into the main windings because advanced angle ex- 5) The proposed closed-loop speed sensorless SRM drive
citations were not used in the experimental system. Hence, the system was modeled, simulated, analyzed, designed,
motor was not able to speed up to the commanded speed even tested, and experimentally verified and correlated.
though the system has both speed and current closed-loop con-
trol. Sensorless control performs well at a speed of 600 r/min
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
with the applied load. On disengaging the load, the rotor speed
increases to the commanded value of 1500 r/min. The authors would like to thank Panaphase Technologies
The results from the experimental tests show that the sen- LLC., for providing the converter and motor used in this
sorless control algorithm with self-starting successfully esti- research. The authors would also like to thank Ansoft Corpo-
mates the position for speed control. The proposed sensorless ration for the finite element software and Texas Instruments for
control technique is well suited for low-cost applications providing the DSP platform.
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HUDSON et al.: SENSORLESS CONTROL OF SINGLE SWITCH-BASED SRM DRIVE USING NN 329

R EFERENCES Christopher A. Hudson received the B.S. and M.S.

degree in electrical engineering from the Bradley
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Blacksburg, in 1993 and 2005, respectively.
[2] M. Ehsani and B. Fahimi, “Elimination of position sensors in switched
He is currently with the Adaptive Technologies,
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Inc., Blacksburg, where he develops acoustic noise
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of brushless permanent-magnet machines,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron.,
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[4] R. Cardenas, R. Pena, M. Perez, J. Clare, G. Asher, and P. Wheeler,
“Power smoothing using a flywheel driven by a switched reluctance
machine,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 53, no. 4, pp. 1086–1093,
Jun. 2006.
[5] H. Hu and P. Y. Woo, “Fuzzy supervisory sliding-mode and neural- N. S. Lobo (S’01) received the B.S. and M.S.
network control for robotic manipulators,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., degrees in electrical engineering from the Bradley
vol. 53, no. 3, pp. 929–940, Jun. 2006. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
[6] J. Park, G. Venayagamoorthy, and R. Harley, “MLP/RBF neural- Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University,
networks-based online global model identification of synchronous gen- Blacksburg, in 2002 and 2005, respectively, where
erator,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 52, no. 6, pp. 1685–1695, he is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree in
Dec. 2005. electrical engineering.
[7] C. Lin and C. Hsu, “Recurrent-neural-network-based adaptive- His research interests include the design of linear
backstepping control for induction servomotors,” IEEE Trans. Ind. and rotary switched reluctance and ac machines, and
Electron., vol. 52, no. 6, pp. 1677–1684, Dec. 2005. power electronics and their controls.
[8] H. S. Ooi and T. C. Green, “Simulation of neural networks to sensorless
control of switched reluctance motor,” in Proc. IEEE Power Electron.
Variable Speed Drives, Sep. 1998, pp. 281–286.
[9] D. S. Reay and B. W. Williams, “Sensorless position detection using
neural networks for the control of switched reluctance motors,” in Proc.
IEEE Int. Conf. Control Appl., Aug. 1999, vol. 2, pp. 1073–1077. R. Krishnan (S’81–M’82–SM’95–F’01) received
[10] D. S. Reay, T. C. Green, and B. W. Williams, “Application of associative the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from
memory neural networks to the control of a switched reluctance motor,” Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Canada.
in Proc. IEEE IECON, Nov. 1993, vol. 1, pp. 200–206. He was a consultant for more than 18 companies in
[11] C. Elmas, S. Sagiroglu, I. Colak, and G. Bal, “Nonlinear modeling of the US. He has developed and delivered short courses
a switched reluctance drive based on neural networks,” in Proc. IEEE for the industry on vector-controlled induction motor
Electrotech. Conf., Apr. 1994, vol. 2, pp. 809–812. drives, permanent magnet synchronous and brushless
[12] G. Gallegos-Lopez, P. C. Kjaer, and T. J. E. Miller, “High-grade position dc motor drives, switched reluctance motor drives,
estimation for srm drives using flux linkage/current correction model,” and linear electric motor drives. He is the founder of
IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. 35, no. 4, pp. 859–869, Jul./Aug. 1999. two start-up companies in the US due to his inven-
[13] E. Mese and D. A. Torrey, “An approach for sensorless position estimation tions that constituted founding technologies in linear
for switched reluctance motors using artificial neural networks,” IEEE and rotating switched reluctance motor drives technologies, respectively. He
Trans. Power Electron., vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 66–75, Jan. 2002. served as the founding Chief Technical Officer for some time to both companies
[14] W.-S. Baik, M.-H. Kim, N.-H. Kim, and D.-H. Kim, “Position sensor- and the Chairman of the Board of Directors for one. One of the companies that
less control system of srm using neural network,” in Proc. IEEE PESC, he founded (Panaphase Technologies, LLC) has been acquired by DeltaGee
Jun. 2004, vol. 5, pp. 3471–3475. recently. He is the holder of three US patents, and many are pending in
[15] E. Mese and D. A. Torrey, “Sensorless position estimation for variable- the US, Europe, and other countries. His inventions have been prominently
reluctance machines using artificial neural networks,” in Proc. IEEE IAS, featured in public media, including radio, TV, and newspapers such as The Wall
Oct. 1997, vol. 1, pp. 540–547. Street Journal. He directs the Center for Rapid Transit Systems, the Bradley
[16] T. Lachman, T. R. Mohamad, and S. P. Teo, “Sensorless position esti- Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic
mation of switched reluctance motors using artificial neural networks,” Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, pursuing unique safe
in Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Robot., Intell. Syst. Signal Process., Oct. 2003, high-speed energy-efficient personal electric transit solutions. He is a Professor
vol. 1, pp. 220–225. of electrical and computer engineering at Virginia Tech. He is the author of
[17] R. Krishnan, A. M. Staley, and K. Sitapati, “A novel single-phase switched Electric Motor Drives (Prentice Hall, 2001), its Chinese translation (Pearson
reluctance motor drive system,” in Proc. IEEE IECON, Nov. 2001, vol. 2, Education Taiwan, 2002), Indian edition (Prentice Hall of India, 2002), and
pp. 1488–1493. International edition (Prentice Hall International Edition, 2001) and Switched
[18] R. Krishnan, S. Park, and K. Ha, “Theory and operation of a four-quadrant Reluctance Motor Drives (CRC Press, 2001, 1st ed.) and Switched Reluctance
switched reluctance motor drive with a single controllable switch—The Motor Drives (CRC Press, 2003, 2nd ed.). He is a coeditor of Control in Power
lowest cost four-quadrant brushless motor drive,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl., Electronics (Academic Press, 2002), which received the Best Book Award from
vol. 41, no. 4, pp. 1047–1055, Jul./Aug. 2005. the Ministry of Education and Sport, Poland, in 2003. His research interests are
[19] A. D. Cheok and N. Ertugrul, “High robustness and reliability of fuzzy analysis, design and innovations in electric motor drives, electric machines, and
logic based position estimation for sensorless switched reluctance mo- power converters for motor drives and applied control.
tor drives,” IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 319–334, Dr. Krishnan is a Distinguished Lecturer and elected Senior AdCom Member
Mar. 2000. of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society (IES). He also served as the Vice
[20] B. Widrow and M. A. Lehr, “30 years of adaptive neural networks: President for Publications from 2002 to 2005. He served as the General Chair
Perceptron, madaline, and backpropagation,” Proc. IEEE, vol. 78, no. 9, of the 2003 IEEE Industrial Electronics Conference Roanoke, VA, USA, and as
pp. 1415–1442, Sep. 1990. one of three General Cochairs of the IEEE IES’ International Conference, on
[21] H. S. Lim, D. G. Roberson, N. S. Lobo, and R. Krishnan, “Novel Industrial Technology (ICIT), Mumbai, India, in 2006. He has delivered many
flux linkage control of switched reluctance motor drives using observer keynote speeches in IEEE conferences. He is a recipient of five Best Paper Prize
and neural network-based correction methods,” in Proc. IEEE IECON, Awards from the IEEE Industry Applications Society Industrial Drives com-
Nov. 2005, pp. 1431–1436. mittee. In addition, he received the first prize from the IEEE TRANSACTIONS
[22] J. Bu and L. Xu, “Eliminating starting hesitation for reliable sensorless ON I NDUSTRY A PPLICATIONS for his paper. He is the recipient of the IEEE
control of switched reluctance motors,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. 37, IES’s Dr. Eugene-Mittelmann Achievement Award for Outstanding Technical
no. 1, pp. 59–66, Jan./Feb. 2001. Contributions to the Field of Industrial Electronics.

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