2010 Second International Conference on Communication Software and Networks

Modeling and Simulation of BLDC Motor

Using Soft Computing Techniques
Rakesh Saxena1 Yogesh Pahariya2 Aditya Tiwary3
1
Professor, Electrical Engineering Department, SGSITS, Indore, 2 Professor, Electrical & Electronics Engineering Department, IES,IPS
Academy, Indore, 3Lecturer, Electrical Engineering Department, SGSITS, Indore,

Abstract— In this paper a soft computing technique PSIM is used controlled and requires rotor position information for
for the performance simulation of the BLDC motor. With the help
proper commutations of current. The brushless DC
of its user friendly approach and some basic theories, the
corresponding PSIM models for the BLDC can easily be (BLDC) motor has been used in many applications such
constructed. The simulation results of BLDC motor performance as computer, automatic office machine, robots for
can critically evaluate under various input parameters in the PSIM automation [1], drives of many electronics and miniature
environment. The accuracy of this approach can also be verified by machine [2]. The BLDC motor has advantages of the DC
comparing the simulation results in PSIM with the response
obtained from the BLDC motor established results. motor such as simple control, high torque, high efficiency
and compactness. Also, brush maintenance is no longer
Index Terms— PMBLDC, PSIM, Simulation, Soft computing, required, and many problems resulting from mechanical
Modeling. wear of brushes and commutators are improved by
changing the position of rotor and stator in DC motor. To
I. INTRODUCTION alternate the function of brushes and commutator, the
The permanent magnet brushless dc (BLDC) motor is BLDC motor requires an inverter and a position sensor
gaining popularity being used in computer, aerospace, that detects rotor position for proper commutation of
military, automotive, industrial and household products current. The typical circuit diagram of BLDC motor with
because of its high torque, compactness, and high converter is shown in figure 1.
efficiency. The BLDC motor is inherently electronically

Figure – 1 BLDC motor with Converter circuit

PSIM is a simulation package specifically designed for

power electronics and motor controls with fast simulation II. PRINCIPLE AND CONSTRUCTION
and user friendly interface. It provides a powerful BLDC motors are a type of synchronous motor. This
simulation environment for power electronics, analog and means the magnetic field generated by the stator and the
digital control, magnetic, and motor drive system studies. magnetic field generated by the rotor rotates at the same
In addition, PSIM supports links to third-party software frequency. BLDC motors do not experience the “slip” that
like MATLAB through custom DLL blocks. is normally seen in induction motors. BLDC motors come
The PSIM simulation package consists of the circuit in single-phase, 2-phase and 3-phase configurations.
schematic program PSIM, the simulator engine, and the Corresponding to its type, the stator has the same number
waveform processing program SIMVIEW. The simulation of windings. The 3-phase motors are the most popular and
process is shown in figure -2. widely used [9].

978-0-7695-3961-4/10 $26.00 © 2010 IEEE 583

DOI 10.1109/ICCSN.2010.121
 Fig. 2. PSIM Simulation process

used to make permanent magnets. As the technology

A. Stator advances, rare earth alloy magnets are gaining popularity.
The stator of a BLDC motor consists of stacked steel The ferrite magnets are less expensive but they have the
laminations with windings placed in the slots that are disadvantage of low flux density for a given volume. In
axially cut along the inner periphery traditionally, the contrast, the alloy material has high magnetic density per
stator resembles that of an induction motor; however, the volume and enables the rotor to compress further for the
windings are distributed in a different manner as shown in same torque. Also, these alloy magnets improve the size-
figure 3. Most BLDC motors have three stator windings to-weight ratio and give higher torque for the same size
connected in star fashion. One or more coils are placed in motor using ferrite magnets. Some rotor constructions are
the slots and they are interconnected to make a winding. shown in figure 4.
Each of these windings is distributed over the stator
periphery to form an even numbers of poles. There are
two types of stator windings variants: trapezoidal and
sinusoidal motors. This differentiation is made on the
basis of the interconnection of coils in the stator windings
to give the different types of back Electromotive Force
(EMF).
B. Rotor

Figure 4 - Rotor constructions

C. Rotor Position Sensing

Unlike a brushed DC motor, the commutation
of a BLDC motor is controlled electronically. To rotate
the BLDC motor, the stator windings should be energized
in a sequence. Rotor position is sensed by Hall Effect
sensors embedded into the stator which gives the
sequence of phase energisation [3]. Most of BLDC
motors have three Hall sensors embedded into the stator
on the non-driving end of the motor. Whenever the rotor
Fig. 3 - BLDC Motor Stator magnetic poles pass near the Hall sensors, they give a
high or low signal, indicating the N or S pole is passing
The rotor is made of permanent magnet and can vary near the sensors. Based on the Combination of these three
from two to eight pole pairs with alternate North (N) and Hall sensor signals, the exact sequence of commutation
South (S) poles. Based on the required magnetic field can be determined [4, 5].
density in the rotor, the proper magnetic material is
chosen to make the rotor. Ferrite magnets are traditionally

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 III. MATHEMATICAL MODELING E b = k e _ b .ω m
Each active phase in ac motor is describe by a first
order differential equation. The general voltage equation E c = k e _ c .ω m
of one of active phases is given by, The coefficients ke_a, ke_b, and ke_c are dependent
n
dψ kx (θ , i x ) on the rotor angle θr. In this model, an ideal trapezoidal
v x = Ri x + ∑
k =1 dt waveform profile is assumed.
The mechanical equations are:
Where vx is the active phase voltage, R is the
phase resistance, ix is the phase current, θ is the rotor
position, ψ kx (θ , ix ) is the total flux linkage of the active
phase and n is the number of phases. [6,7]. The electrical
equivalent circuit of BLDC motor is shown in figure 5.
The equations of the 3-phase brushless dc where B is a coefficient, Tload is the load torque,
machine are: and P is the no. of poles. The coefficient B is calculated
from the moment of inertia J and the mechanical time
constant τmech as below:

IV. SIMULATION OF BLDC IN PSIM

A 3-phase brushless dc motor is taken in PSim for
simulation purpose with trapezoidal waveform back emf.
In figure 5, nodes a, b, and c are the stator winding
where va, vb, and vc are the phase voltages, ia, ib, terminals for Phase A, B, and C, respectively. The stator
and ic are the phase currents, R, L, and M are the stator windings are Y connected, and Node n is the neutral
phase resistance, self inductance, and mutual inductance, point. The shaft node is the connecting terminal for the
and Ea, Eb and Ec are the back emf of Phase A, B, and C, mechanical shaft. They are all power nodes and should be
respectively. The back emf voltages are a function of the connected to the power circuit. Node sa, sb, and sc are the
rotor mechanical speed ωm and the rotor electrical angle outputs of the built-in 6-pulse hall effect position sensors
θr, that is: for Phase A, B, and C, respectively. The sensor output is a
Ea = ke _ a .ω m bipolar commutation pulse (1, 0,and -1). The sensor

Fig. 5 - Simulation model of BLDC

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output nodes are all control nodes and should be Theta_0(deg.) 0
connected to the control circuit [8].
Theta_advance(deg.) 0
A hall effect position sensor consists of a set of hall
switches and a set of trigger magnets. The hall switch is a Conduction Pulse Width in degree 120
semiconductor switch (e.g. MOSFET or BJT) that opens Voltage rating in volts 300
or closes when the magnetic field is higher or lower than Current rating in A 10
a certain threshold value. It is based on the hall effect, Power rating in watts 3000
which generates an emf proportional to the flux-density Speed rating in rpm 10000
when the switch is carrying a current supplied by an
external source. It is common to detect the emf using a
signal conditioning circuit integrated with the hall switch The simulation process have three steps as shown in
or mounted very closely to it. This provides a TTL- figure 2. Complete simulation model of BLDC Motor
compatible pulse with sharp edges and high noise with converter and control circuit is shown in figure 5.
immunity for connection to the controller via a screened Simulation Model is consists of BLDC motor, six
cable. For a three-phase brushless dc motor, three hall IGBT’s, current probes, speed sensor, AND gates,
switches are spaced 120 electrical deg. apart and are Proportional Blocks, voltage probes (node to ground),
mounted on the stator frame. The set of trigger magnets comparator, Proportional-Integral Controller, 2nd order
can be a separate set of magnets, or it can use the rotor low pass filter etc.
magnets of the brushless motor. If the trigger magnets are
separate, they should have the matched pole spacing (with V. RESULTS
respect to the rotor magnets), and should be mounted on These results were obtain by running the SIMVIEW.
the shaft in close proximity to the hall switches. If the The results of other parameters like gate pulse, Hall Effect
trigger magnets use the rotor magnets of the machine, the sensor pulses also can be obtained by adding these
hall switches must be mounted close enough to the rotor parameters in SIMVIEW. The simulation waveforms
magnets, where they can be energized by the leakage flux show the start-up transient of the mechanical speed (in
at the appropriate rotor positions. rpm), developed torque Tem, and 3-phase input currents.
The figure 4 shows a brushless dc motor drive system The simulation is take place at reference speed of 7000
with speed feedback. The motor is fed by a 3-phase rpm and 0.25 Nm load torque and a DC voltage of 300V.
voltage source inverter. The outputs of the motor hall The result is shown in the figure 6, the speed starts from
effect position sensors are used as the gatings signals for 0rpm, it decreases upto t=2ms and starts increasing
the inverter, resulting a 6-pulse operation. The speed slowly. It increases upto 6500rpm at time t=8ms and then
control is achieved by modulating sensor commutation it becomes constant at 6500rpm at t=8ms. The speed
pulses (Vgs for Phase A in this case) with another high- always remains less than the reference speed of 7000rpm.
frequency pulses (Vgfb for Phase A). The high-frequency Therefore there is a error in speed of 500rpm with respect
pulse is generated from a dc current feedback loop. The to reference speed. Starting torque is almost 2.75 Nm.
DC voltage is applied to the BLDC motor which is Motor attains a constant torque of 1Nm at 5 ms.
converted into three phase AC by use of inverter. The The simulation is take place at reference speed of 7000
three phase inverter circuit consists of six IGBT’s which rpm and 0.01 Nm load torque and a DC voltage of 300V.
converts DC to AC .Three current probes are connected As shown in the figure 7, the speed starts from 0 rpm ,it
through each phase to obtain the wave form of the current decreases upto t=2ms and starts increasing slowly. It
in each phase. The outputs of the motor Hall Effect increases upto 7000 rpm at time t=8ms and then it
position sensors are used as the gatings signals for the becomes constant at 7000 rpm at t=8ms.The speed
inverter’s IGBT’s. remains the same as than of the reference speed of 7000
The table – 1 mentioned parameter of the BLDC rpm. Therefore there is no error in speed with respect to
motor [8]. reference speed.Starting torque is almost 2.65 Nm. Motor
Table - 1: BLDC MOTOR PARAMETER attains a constant torque of 0.75 Nm at 5 ms.
R(stator resistance) in ohms 11.9 The simulation is take place at reference speed of 400 rpm
L(stator self inductance) in H 0.00207 and 0.25 Nm load torque and a DC voltage of 300V. As
M(stator mutual inductance) in H 0.00069 shown in the figure 8, the speed starts from 0 rpm, it
decreases upto t=20ms and there after becomes nearly
Vpk/Krpm 32.3
constant -2000 rpm in simulation result. Switching torque
Vrpm/Krpm 22.9 is almost 0.89 Nm. At t=5ms the torque becomes 0.As the
No. of poles P 4 speed is negative and the torque is becoming zero so the
Moment of Inertia in Kg m2 7E-006 motor do not start.
Mech. Time constant in sec. 0.006

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 VI. CONCLUSION
PSim software is designed to provide a debugging,
diagnostic and demonstration tool for the development of
algorithms and applications in electric drives. The
modeling and analysis of BLDC is done for Psim The
simulation results of this paper has proposed the use of a
commercially available software package to study the
performance of BLDC motor. The PSIM simulation
provides good soft computing technique. The results of
simulation model gives help in building hardware with
expected results. The simulation saves time and
manpower in making hardware models at initial stages
and reduces the costing of the research work.

Figure 6 - speed 7000 rpm & load torque 0.25 Nm REFERENCES

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Figure 8 - Results at 400 rpm & 0.25 Nm

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