Design and simulation of speed controller using acdc buck boost converter for dc motor drive with soft

starter
Subhajit Samanta1, Tanya Tanesha1, Vijayakumar D2
1

Final Year Student, School of Electrical Engineering, VIT University, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India

2.

Associate Professor, School of Electrical Engineering, VIT University, India

disadvantage such as harmonic currents and invariable dc voltage levels. There
are other methods such as the controlled bridge rectifiers used for dc motor

Abstract-In this paper a model is developed to run a separately

excited direct current (d.c) motor using a single phase
alternating current (a.c) source by converting the a.c source into
variable d.c source using a buck-boost converter. Main problem
d.c motor drive is the starting current due this insulation may
damage and also efficiency will decrease so that here in this
paper it is solved by using soft starter. The variable Pulse Width
Modulation (PWM) is used to regulate the voltage at the end of
ac dc buck boost converter. Here the speed of the d.c motor is
also controlled using a speed controller which is connected to the
soft starter. Thus a MATLAB simulink model is developed
where speed of the d.c motor is controlled using a soft starter.
PWM based rectifiers are efficiently employed in low to medium
power applications. Since the ac-dc buck boost converter can
produce voltages higher or lower than the supply voltages, they
are most useful in variable dc drives. In a traditional dc motor
system a resistor starter is used to monitor the armature current
of the motor. This is because initially armature current is high
which damages the motor. Instead of a three point starter, a
MOSFET based soft starter is used to limit the starting current.
And also a PI controller is used to control the speed of the dc
motor. This controller calculates the reference current based on
the reference speed of the motor and feeds it into the soft starter.
As a result in this Simulink model of a separately excited dc
motor runs on a single phase a.c source with better control. The
main advantage is that the motor becomes independent of the
input voltage level as it can be adjusted. The speed of the d.c
motor can also be controlled. The circuit becomes small with less
switching and copper losses and the armature current can also
be controlled because of the soft starter.
Keywords- ac-dc buck-boost converter, soft-starter, PI controller, d.c motor,
variable PWM technique

I. INTRODUCTION
Normally an ac source is converted into a dc source using a bridge rectifier and
a large filter capacitor used to remove the ripples. This method has having some

978-1-4673-6150-7/13/$31.00 2013 IEEE

drive which requires number of switching circuits. To remove these short

comings Pulse Width Modulation based switching devices are used. Here a
buck-boost converter with a single switching device is used to produce variable
voltage levels. This makes the converter circuit compact and simple. Based on
the duty cycle ratio formula a system can be developed which gives pulses to
the switching device based on the reference output voltage.
It is also known that when a dc motor is started the initial armature current is
very high. This is because of the absence of the back emf in the motor. The
back emf is directly proportional to the speed of the motor. Such high armature
current can cause insulation failure as well as motor damage as well as reduce
the life of the motor. The traditional solution would be to use a resistance
initially to limit the current and then slowly removing the resistance from the
circuit once the current stabilizes. This method has the disadvantage of energy
waste at each start-up maneuver although there will be a control over the
armature current. Also the limit of the armature current will depend on the
source voltage and the net resistance of the armature circuit. To overcome these
problems power electronics circuitry can be used here. A chopper circuit is
used in which hysteresis control is used. Hysteresis control maintains the
current between two pre-set threshold values.
The speed of the dc motor is proportional to the back emf which is proportional
to the armature current of the motor. Based on this knowledge if the armature
current is controlled then the speed of the dc motor can be also controlled.
Using a PI controller the reference voltage is converted into reference current
which is fed to the soft starter to limit the armature current.
In this paper a stage by stage construction of the complete and simulink model
is developed. First the ac-dc buck-boost converter is designed and its
performance is analysed. Later, the PWM method and the voltage control
method were designed and developed. The input and output characteristic are
discussed in details as follows as section in this paper. Based on literature
survey the soft starter for the dc motor is also designed to regulate inrush
current during the starting period. The soft starter is a MOSFET based
hysteresis current control system to d.c motor drive for low power application.
The speed controller is then designed based on the performance of the soft
starter. It is seen that the entire system uses only two switching devices and the
installation cost and energy loss is less compared to the traditional method.

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It is to be noted that the speed can be contrrolled from zero to the motor speed
which is achieved without the controller at that
t terminal voltage.

II. CIRCUIT DISCRIPTION AND PR

RINCIPLE OF
OPERATION
The Fig. 1 is shows the basic block diagram of the entire model of d.c motor
drive with ac-dc buck boost converter. The block diagraam is consists of a
bridge rectifier and it converts the sinusoidal signal into unnidirectional signal.
The bridge rectifier consists of four diodes, two in series annd the two series in
parallel. The rectifier gives full wave rectification andtthe filter capacitor
connected to the output is removes the voltage ripples, heence converting the
pulsating dc into a pure direct current. After this it will bee input of the buckboost converter which converts the constant dc signal intoo variable dc signal
required for the dc motor drive speed control. The convverter consists of a
switching device (here an IGBT is used), an inductor, a cappacitor and a diode.

Speed
control

a.c
source

bridge
rectifier
with filter
capacitor

buck-boost
converter

soft starter

Thus, the rated voltage of the motor is takeen as the reference or desired output
voltage of the buck-boost converter.

III. THEORETICAL CONCEPTS

C

A. Pulse width modulation:

For a uniform pulse width modulation tecchnique, a saw tooth waveform vc
having a constant switching frequency fs ,is compared with a constant
waveform vr ,which acts as a dc referencce signal with variable waveform.
Based on the amplitude of vr the width of th
he pulse changes. In other words the
amplitude of vr decides the Ton (on time)and
d Toff (off time) of the switch of the
buck boost converter. Here when vr is greateer than vc the gate pulse is high, and
when vr is lesser than vc ,gate pulse is low. Mathematically let u(t) be the gate
function so

dcmotor

Pwm
generator

c,

(1)

(2)

The width of the gate pulse (Ton) is varied by

y changing vr .

Fig1. Block diagram of the proposed model

The PWM signal given to the gate of the switch in the buuck-boost converter,
controls the amplitude of the output voltage. The inductoor act as an energy
storing device when the switch is closed and acts as a sourcee to the motor when
the switch is open. The capacitor here acts as a filter to remove ripples in the
output waveform. The diode used , allows the current to flow
w from the motor to
the inductor and not vice versa ,thus maintaining the unidirrectional rotation of
the motor. The gate pulse generated is based on the rectifi
fied input voltage to
the converter and reference voltage.
Once the variable dc voltage is generated ,that voltage actss as input to the soft
starter. The soft starter is basically a switch (e.g. MOSFET, GTO) based starter
which uses hysteresis control for controlling the armature current. The
hysteresis controller comprises of a relay which gives one oor zero, based on the
comparison between the input value and threshold value oof the controller. In
this starter the armature current is compared with the referrence current. If the
difference between the armature current and reference curreent is more than the
upper limit of the hysteresis controller the switch turns off. W
When the difference
is lesser than the lower limit of the hysteresis controller tthe switch turns on,
thus closing the circuit. A smoothing inductor is connectted in series to the
switch . The inductor prevents sudden change of armaturre current when the
switch turns on and off. A diode is connected in parallel to the motor to bypass
any currents flowing in the reverse direction.
A speed controller is also used to control the speed of thee motor to a desired
level. A PI(Proportional-Integral) controller is used whicch takes the motor
speed as the input and gives a reference current as the outtput. This reference
current acts as reference for the soft starter to limit the curreent to that level. The
Proportional and integral are placed parallel to each other aand the sum of both
the proportional and integral is taken as the output.

Fig 2. pulse generation

A modification can be done such that the user
u can directly give the reference
voltage without having to calculate the duty
y cycle and knowing the relationship
between the duty cycle ratio and outpu
ut voltage and input voltage. The
relationship and modifications are discussed in the section of steady state
analysis of buck-boost converter.
B. Steady state analysis of buck-boost conveerter
The steady state analysis is done to get an equivalent circuit of the buck-boost
converter used for this model. There are threee modes of buck-boost converter.
i.

ii.

Charging mode- Here switch is closed, diode reverse biased, input

voltage appears across the inducctor. The inductor stores energy and
the motor and capacitor are isolated.
Discharging mode- Here switch is open, the diode is forward biased
and the inductor acts as source to
o the capacitor and motor.

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iii.

Mode 3 is same as mode 1. Here the capacitor accts as source for the
motor.
It is to be noted that since the switching frequency is vvery high, the input
voltage is assumed to be constant. The inductor voltage vl iss the source voltage
vin during charging mode, and output voltage vo during discharging mode. Let
D be chopper duty cycle. As a result vl can be expressed as

in

(3)

The inductor voltage is given as.

L

(4)

The inductor current producing the output current is causeed by input current
during charging mode. So
S

C. Design of soft starter

It is known that in a separately excited dc motor
m
the armature resistance Ra has
small value. The back emf Eb is directly pro
oportional to the flux created by the
field windings, and motor speed. The follow
wing equations will help in creating
a dynamic model of dc motor
f

(12)

(5)

It is observed that with

0.5 the system acts
a as buck converter and with
0.5 system acts as boost converter.

(6)

From equation (3) and (4) we get the relationship

(7)

f f a

f f

(13)

(14)

Substituting in the relationship we get

o
2

(8)

It is to be noted that the capacitor should be large enough too remove the ripples
from the output voltage. The transfer function for the outpput voltage to input
voltage is
o

(9)

Modifying this we get duty cycle ratio as

in/

in

(10)

When doing the modification for pulse generator this relattionship is used for
calculating Vr. Here instead of Vo Vref is used which is the desired output
voltage, and Vr(t) instead of D which is the duty cyclee ratio. So Vr(t) is
calculated as
r

in

in

ref

In separately excited dc motor ,If is constaant , so the speed is proportional to

load torque and armature current. By con
nnecting the motor terminals to the
supply without the starter the following grap
ph [1]is observed.
For the motor with parameters....
TABLE 1
Motor Parameters
PARAMETERS
VALUES
Armature resistance Ra
Field resistance Rf
Armature inductance La
Field inductance Lf
Inertial constant J

2.581
281.3
0.028H
156 H
0.02215N-(rad/sec)

(11)

Fig 5. Armature current without starter

It is observed that the armature current increeases up to 28 amps compared to the
rated current of 15.6 amps. Such a high vallue can definitely damage the motor
windings. So a starter is to be used which caan limit the armature current.

Fig. 3. Simulink diagram of pulse generator

Thus the equivalent dc circuit can be shown in figure .

A. Using a starting resistance

The most commonly used way of limiting th
he starting current is to use a starting
resistance. The introduction of the starter in
ncreases the net resistance value of
the circuit, since the starter is in series to the
t motor. As a result the armature
current value reduces to a limit which is not
n harmful to the motor. Once the
work of the starter is done the starter has to be gradually removed. The time
taken to slowly tap out the resistance, as well
w as the resistance values of the
starter is determined from the steady state
s
analysis of the motor. The
disadvantage of using a resistance starter iss the increase in settling time of the
current, as well as the energy loss through the resistor. Also the limiting value
cannot be changed in a commercial starteer and is always predetermined. In
other words it is an invariable current limiter.

Fig 4. Equivalent circuit for buck-boost converter

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(20)

a
a

(21)

Using Laplace transform we get

(22)

And
(23)
a
a
m
mature current and speed is needed,
Since only the relationship between the arm
thus the transfer function is

Figure 6.simulink diagram of three point starter

B. Using a starter chopping circuit

The alternate method of limiting the armature current is to use a chopping
circuit. The chopping circuit uses a switch ( in this m
model an Gate turn
on(GTO) is used ) . the functioning of the switch is controolled by a hysteresis
controller. The hysteresis controller determines the valuee of the gate pulse
which is to be used in the switch. The hysteresis controllerr consists of a relay
which compares the input signal with the threshold value w
which is also called
the hysteresis band(h band). In this controller a referrence current, iref
(maximum current allowed for the armature) is taken and compared with the
actual armature current, ia. The error current, ie=ia-iref
is then compared with the upper and lower threshold limitts of the relay. The
relay send the gate signal u(t) based on the conditions..

u(t)={1,
0,

(24)

Thus ,using this transfer function a speed controller can be developed which
takes motor speed as input and gives reference current as the output for the
controller. This current act as reference current for the soft starter which
controls the current hence the speed to that desired
d
level.
Here a proportional-integral(PI) controller is designed. the difference between
the reference speed ref and actual speed m is passed through a proportional
and integral controller connectd in parallel which has a gain value Kp and Ki
respectively. The two are connected in paraallel and summed up in order to get
the reference current.
The values of Kp and Ki are obtained by com
mparing the equations

e
e

(15)
.
(16)
(17)

hband can also be called the tolerance band.

Based on the reference current, the soft starter works . As a result the limiting
current can be changed as per the requirement of the user.

(25)

And eq (25) which gives the values

Kp=b/K andKi=j/K..
The controller can be further tuned by vaarying the values of Ki in order to
remove static errors.

Figure 8. Simulink diagram of PI controller

i acts as the current limit for the
Once the reference current is obtained , it
hysteresis controller.

Fig 7.simulink diagram of soft starter

D. Design of speed controller
In order to design the speed controller first it is needeed to establish the
relationship between speed, armature current, terminal volttage , back emf and
load torque.
The following equations governing a separately excited dc m
motor will establish
the relationships.
1.
The motor torque Tl is proportional to armature
2.
Current ia
Tl=Kia
(18) 3.
4.
Also the back emf ea is proportional to the motor speed m
5.
(19)
. m
a
6.
Using Newton and Kirchhoffs law we get

Thus the PI controller in combination with

h the hysteresis based Gto system
acts as the speed controller .
It is to be noted that the speed can be con
ntrolled from zero to the maximum
speed which can be obtained without the con
ntroller at that voltage level.

IV.

SIMULINK MODEL
M

The model has six main parts :

Rectifier and filter capacitor :
Pulse generator
Speed controller
Buck-boost converter
Soft starter
DC motor

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Designing of these parameters :

Parameter

TABLE VI
V
5. Soft startter:

TABLE II
.Rectifier and filter capacitor :
Value

Vin
F
1.Diodes for bridge rectifier
Ron
Vf
Rs
Cs
2. filter Capacitor
C

100 V
50 Hz
0.001
0.8 V
500
250 pF
1000
TABLE III
Pulse generator :

Vc ( sawtooth waveform)
Frequency (fs)
Output pulse
Vref

0-1 volts
2000 hz
1-high(on) 0-low(offf)
230V

TABLE IV
3.Speed controller:

Wref
Kp
Ki

100 RAD/SEC
1.6
50
TABLE V

1.GTO
Ron
Vf
Tf
Tt
2. Inductor ,L
3.Diode
Ron
Vf
Rs
Cs
4. hysteresis controller
Upper limit
Lower limit

0.05
1V
1s
1s
100 Mh
0.001

0.8 V
500
50 pF
+0.25
-0.25

\
TABLE VII
V
6 . D.C.Mo
otor:
=1750rpmRated power
5
Rated voltage
200V
V
Rated current
15.4 Amp
Rated speed
1750 rpm
Field voltage
300V
V
Ra
2.581
1
Rf
281.3
3
La
0.028
8H
Lf
156H
H
J
0.022
215 N-rad/sec
A comparative study is done to understaand the effectiveness of the entire
proposed model compared to a model without the speed controller, soft starter
and the voltage regulator and a model with resistance
r
starter.

V. SIMULATION RESULT
R

4. Buck-boost converter:

1.Ideal switch
Ron
Rs
2.Inductor,L
3.diode
Ron
Vf
Rs
Cs
4.Capacitor , C

The results of three models are compared

d,one being amodel of buck-boost
converter fed dc motor using uniform PW
WM technique, one using variable
PWM technique and soft starter and the last one eses speed controller

0.001
105
10Mh
0.001
0.8 V
500
250 pF
1000 uF

Fig 9. Speed,voltage,current from bottom to top for normal system without

starter and controller
Fig.9 show that the voltage and current take 1.2 seconds to completely stabilize.

1234

500

current of the system with the starter, wiithout the speed controller. Fig 15
shows the reference current, armature curreent, error current and the gate pulses
to the ideal switch in the soft starter.

at Vmax=200 volts

Fig16 shows the output voltage, speed ,currrent, gate pulses to the soft starter
using a speed controller

400
300
200
100
0
0.20

0.30

0.40

0.50

0.60

00.80

fig 10. Speed vs. duty cycle

The fig 10. shows that with increase in duty cycle the armaature voltage as well
as the motor speed increases.

s
Fig 12. speed and output voltage using soft starter

Fig 13. Armature current using soft starter

Fig11(a). Speed and voltage using resistor starter

Fig 11(b) armature current using 3 point starter

Fig 11 shows how the voltage, speed and current are varyying in time using a
three point starter. It is seen that the time taken to completely eliminate the
resistor and for the system to reach desired values is seven seeconds.
The proposed model is shown in fig 14. Here it is seen that tthe output voltage is
under damped and reaches steady state in less than 1 seconnd . The soft starter
limits the current to the reference current. Fig 12 and 13 shhows speed, voltage,

Fig 14. Simulink diagram of the entire modeel

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From the above simulation it is seen that thee ac source is converted to dc source
by buck-boost converter using single switch
h device. Also the output voltage is
easily obtainable. The user does not have to
o know about the relationship of the
duty cycle and voltage. The soft starter is proved to be a better current
controller than resistor starter as energy losss is less, the maximum current limit
can be set as per the user. The soft starter plays
p
a vital role in speed controller.
The speed controller gives the reference current which acts as the current limit
for the starter and thus maintaining the speed
d of the motor.

Fig 15. Error current ie, , Armature current ia, gate pulse to the GTO. It shows
the reaction of gate pulse and armature and error currrent in response to
armature current
Fig 17. rectified voltage vi, Duty cycle ratio vr ,gate pulse u(t)

REFEREN
NCES
[1].Nabil A. Ahmed, Modeling and simulaation of acdc buck-boost converter
fed dc motor with uniform PWM technique, Electric Power Systems Research
journal , issue 73,2005
[2]. S. Ben John Stephen, T. Ruban Devaprrakash, Improved Control Strategy
on Buck-Boost Converter Fed DC Motor, International Conference on Recent
Advancements in Electrical, Electronics and
d Control Engineering, 2011
[3]. Maamar Taleb, Matlab/Simulink Mod
dels for Typical Soft Starting Means
for a DC Motor, International Journal of Ellectrical & Computer Sciences, Vol:
11, No: 02, April 2011
[4]. M.U. AGU,Performance characteristiccs of armature controlled d.c motor
, Nigerian Journal of Technology, Vol. 16, No. 1, September 1995,
[5]. X. Lai, J. Guo,Y. Cao and W. Yu,A novel
n
digital soft-start circuit for dcdc switching regulator, proc. Of 6th internaational conference on ASICON 2005
vol-2,pg554-558,Oct 2005

Fig 16. Speed ,voltage, current, gate pulses to the gto of thhe dc motor for the
proposed model
For the proposed model the following observations are m
made. It is seen that
using a speed controller the motor speed is near constant at 100 rads/sec with 1
rad/sec deviation across it. The current never crosses thee maximum current
limit of 18 amps and is maintained at near reference ccurrent of 9 amps.
Accordingly the GTO is fired. thus the response of the circuuit is also less than 1
seconds. It is also seen that the duty cycle and gate pulsee to the buck-boost
converter varies as the input voltage as shown in fig 17.

[6] A. Mechi , S. funabiki,step up/down

n PWM ac-dc converter with one
switching device in IEE proc 1993,pg 35-4
43
[7] Sira Ramirez H, R Perez Romero
o,passivity based controllers for
stabilization of dc-dc power converters, AU
UTOMATICA,1997
[8] S.P Dewan,input and output filters for single
s
phase rectified power supply
, IEEE trans. Ind Appl IA-17(32), 1981 282
[9] S. A. Hamed,steady state modelin
ng of a a uniform pulse width
modulatedsingle phase ac-dcconverter fed
d dc motordrive,Eur. trans. Elec
Power Eng 3(5),1993,pg-379-386

VI. CONCLUSION

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