IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 50, NO.

4, JULY/AUGUST 2014

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A Space-Vector-Modulated Sensorless Direct-Torque

Control for Direct-Drive PMSG Wind Turbines
Zhe Zhang, Student Member, IEEE, Yue Zhao, Student Member, IEEE,
Wei Qiao, Senior Member, IEEE, and Liyan Qu, Member, IEEE

AbstractThis paper proposes a space-vector modulation

(SVM)-based direct-torque control (DTC) scheme for a permanentmagnet synchronous generator (PMSG) used in a variable-speed
direct-drive wind power generation system. A quasi-sliding-mode
observer that uses a relatively low sampling frequency, e.g., 5 or
10 kHz, is proposed to estimate the rotor position and stator flux
linkage based on the current model of the PMSG over a wide
operating range. The optimal torque command is directly obtained
from the estimated rotor speed for the DTC by which the maximum power point tracking control of the wind turbine generator is
achieved without the need for wind speed or rotor position sensors.
Compared with the conventional DTC, the proposed SVM-DTC
achieves a fixed switching frequency and greatly reduces the flux
and torque ripples, while retaining the fast dynamic response of
the system. The effectiveness of the proposed SVM-DTC scheme
is verified by simulation studies on a 1.5-MW PMSG wind turbine
and is further verified by experimental results on a 2.4-kW PMSG
with a 10-kHz sampling frequency.
Index TermsDirect-drive wind turbine, direct-torque control
(DTC), maximum power point tracking (MPPT), permanentmagnet synchronous generator (PMSG), quasi-sliding-mode
observer (QSMO), space-vector modulation (SVM).

I. I NTRODUCTION

HE increasing concerns on the energy crisis as well

as environmental pollutions have significantly promoted
the utilization of wind energy over the last two decades.
Among different wind power generation systems, variablespeed wind turbine generators (WTGs) have attracted great
interests because of their high energy production efficiency
and low torque spikes [1]. In such systems, the WTGs can be
operated in the maximum power point tracking (MPPT) mode
to capture the maximum wind energy by adjusting the shaft
speed. Permanent-magnet synchronous generators (PMSGs)
have been found to be suitable for variable-speed wind power
generation systems due to their advantages, such as high power
density, high efficiency, and high reliability. Furthermore, a
Manuscript received July 7, 2013; accepted December 12, 2013. Date of
publication January 2, 2014; date of current version July 15, 2014. Paper 2013IACC-468, presented at the 2012 IEEE Industry Applications Society Annual
Meeting, Las Vegas, NV, USA, October 711, and approved for publication
in the IEEE T RANSACTIONS ON I NDUSTRY A PPLICATIONS by the Industrial
Automation and Control Committee of the IEEE Industry Applications Society.
This work was supported in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation under
Grant ECCS-0901218 and CAREER Award ECCS-0954938.
The authors are with the Power and Energy Systems Laboratory, Department of Electrical Engineering, University of NebraskaLincoln, Lincoln, NE
68588-0511 USA (e-mail: zhang.zhe@huskers.unl.edu; yue.zhao@huskers.
unl.edu; wqiao@engr.unl.edu; lqu2@unl.edu).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIA.2013.2296618

PMSG with a high number of poles can be directly connected to

a wind turbine without the use of a gearbox, which significantly
reduces the construction, operation, and maintenance costs of
the WTG system [2], [3]. These benefits have made the directdrive PMSG-based WTGs the most popular configuration in
multi-MW offshore applications [4].
Typically, the control systems of the PMSGs adopted a
decoupled current control method executed in a synchronized
rotating dq reference frame. The performance of such currentregulated vector control highly relies on the accuracy of the
rotor position information. To generate accurate decoupled
current signals with Park transformation, a precise electromechanical position sensor is indispensable [5]. In the last few
decades, a direct-torque control (DTC) method was proposed
[6] and naturally introduced to the permanent-magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) drive systems [7], [8] to remove
the dependence of the control system upon rotor position and
machine parameters. In the DTC, the inverter and the machine
are conceived as a whole so that the stator voltage vectors
can be selected directly according to the differences between
the reference and actual torques and stator flux linkages. This
method not only removes the need for complicated computation
of reference frame transformation and high dependence of
the decoupled current control on machine parameters but also
achieves a faster torque response. Additionally, the great effort
made by researchers has driven the DTC to be widely used in
high-performance servo systems [9]. For example, ABB has
launched corresponding industrial products [10].
The core of the conventional DTC scheme includes two hysteresis comparators and a switching table (ST). Despite the fact
that the ST-DTC is easy to execute, its weakness of inconstant
switching frequency along with relatively high ripples in the
flux and torque is apparent. For a WTG, irregular torque ripples
will cause overstress on the shaft, reduce the turbine lifespan,
and produce much acoustic noise [11]. Many researchers have
tried various approaches to solve these problems [12], [13].
An effective technique is to integrate space-vector modulation
(SVM) into the DTC. On the other hand, the performance of a
DTC system is closely related to the stator flux linkage since
both control variables, i.e., torque and flux, are obtained from
the stator flux linkage. In the conventional DTC scheme, the
stator flux linkage is usually obtained by integrating the statorinduced voltage. However, many factors, such as dc-bus voltage
fluctuation and stator resistance variation, will deteriorate the
performance of the integrator as errors will accumulate. Although these impacts could be compensated as addressed in
[14], the algorithms are too complicated to be implemented

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where is the air density, Ar is the area swept by the blades, v

is the wind speed, CP is the turbine power coefficient, t is the
turbine shaft or generator rotor speed for a direct-drive WTG,
and is the tip-speed ratio, which is defined by
=

t R
v

(2)

where R is the radius of the wind turbine rotor plane.

Fig. 1. Configuration of a direct-drive PMSG wind turbine connected to a
power grid.

in practical systems. In [15], a sliding-mode observer was

developed to estimate the rotor position for sensorless control
of PMSMs. A stator flux observer using the sliding-mode
approach was further developed in [14], which has the merits
of high robustness and simple implementation. However, in
order to achieve the sliding mode, a high sampling frequency
(e.g., 20 kHz) [17] or oversampling [18] is needed, which
will consume much computing resource that is usually limited
in a practical system implementation. The chattering problem
associated with the use of sign switching functions is another
major issue that needs to be carefully handled in a sliding-mode
observer.
This paper proposes an improved SVM-based DTC scheme
for direct-drive PMSG wind turbines, where the MPPT control
is realized without the measurements of wind speed or generator rotor position, leading to a position/speed sensorless control
for the WTG systems. The optimal torque command generated
by the MPPT algorithm can be directly applied to the DTC
system, which eliminates the commonly adopted outer speed
control loop in the vector control systems. To minimize CPU
loading in the practical system implementation, a quasi-slidingmode stator-flux observer is proposed, which uses a lower
sampling frequency, normally lower than 10 kHz, to achieve
high-accuracy stator flux observation over a wide speed range
of the PMSG. By adopting the proposed DTC scheme, the flux
and torque ripples are reduced while using a fixed and lower
switching frequency and retaining the fast dynamic response
of the system, when compared with the conventional DTC
scheme. The proposed DTC scheme is validated by simulation
for a 1.5-MW direct-drive PMSG wind turbine and experimental results for a 2.4-kW direct-drive PMSG wind turbine.

B. Modeling of the PMSG

The dynamic equations of a three-phase PMSG can be written in a synchronously rotating dq reference frame as
d
q = vsq Rs isq e d
dt

(3)

d
d = vsd Rs isd + e q
dt

(4)

where vsq and vsd are the q- and d-axis stator terminal voltages,
respectively; isq and isd are the q- and d-axis stator currents,
respectively; Rs is the resistance of the stator windings; e
is the electrical angular velocity of the rotor; and q and d
are the q- and d-axis flux linkages of the PMSG, respectively,
given by
q = Lq isq

(5)

d = Ld isd + m

(6)

where Lq and Ld are the q- and d-axis inductances of the

PMSG, respectively, and m is the flux linkage generated by
the permanent magnets. The electromagnetic torque Te can be
calculated by
Te =

3 p |s |
[2|m |Lq sin + |s |(Ld Lq ) sin 2] (7)
4 Ld Lq

where p is the number of pole pairs; |s | and |m | are the

magnitudes of the stator and rotor flux linkages, respectively;
and is called the torque angle. For a nonsalient-pole PMSG,
Ld = Lq = Ls . Then, the electromagnetic torque can be simplified as

II. D IRECT-D RIVE PMSG W IND T URBINE S YSTEM

The configuration of a direct-drive PMSG wind turbine is
shown in Fig. 1, where the wind turbine is connected to the
PMSG directly. The electrical power generated by the PMSG
is transmitted to a power grid and/or supplied to a load via a
variable-frequency converter, which consists of a machine-side
converter (MSC) and a grid-side converter (GSC) connected
back-to-back via a dc link.

Te =

(8)

C. Modeling of the Shaft System

As the wind turbine is connected to the PMSG directly, the
shaft system of the WTG can be represented by a one-mass
model. The motion equation is then given by

A. Wind Turbine Aerodynamic Model

The mechanical power that a wind turbine extracts from wind
is given by
1
(1)
Pm = Ar v3 Cp () = f (v , t )
2

3 p
|s ||m | sin .
2 Ls

2H

Pm
dt
Pe
=
+
Dt
dt
t
t

(9)

where 2H is the total inertia constant of the WTG, and D is the

damping coefficient.

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2333

where is = [is , is ]T is the stator current vector in the

stationary reference frame. Therefore, the desired stator voltage
vector can be obtained in a discrete-time form with the informa

tion of the incremental flux linkage vector ds [k]. Thus,

us [k] =

Fig. 2. Schematic of the proposed SVM-DTC for a direct-drive PMSG wind

turbine.

Fig. 3.

Block diagram of the RVVC algorithm.

III. P ROPOSED SVM-BASED DTC

The schematic of the proposed SVM-DTC for a nonsalientpole PMSG WTG is shown in Fig. 2, where T and |s | are
the reference torque and stator flux magnitude, respectively;


T and us = [us , us ]T are the esti

s = [s , s ]
mated stator flux linkage vector and the resultant stator voltage
space vector in the stationary reference frame, respectively;
t are the estimated electrical angular rotor position
and re and
and rotor speed, respectively. In Fig. 2, it can be seen that
the proposed SVM-DTC scheme retains the advantages of the
conventional DTC, such as no coordinate transformation, no
current control, etc. However, instead of adopting a switching
table and hysteresis comparators, a reference voltage vector
calculator (RVVC) is designed to determine the desired voltage

vector
u . The detailed analysis is given below.
According to (8), the reference torque angle in a discretetime form can be written as


2 Ls
Te [k]

1
[k] = sin
.
(10)
3 p |s [k]| |m |
Combining (10) with the magnitude of the desired stator flux

linkage, the desired voltage space vector

u [k] can be calculated, as shown in Fig. 3, where Ts is the sampling period;

[k] and s [k] are the reference stator flux vector and the
corresponding stator flux angle in the stationary reference

frame, respectively; and d [k] is the incremental stator flux

linkage vector. The reference stator flux angle s [k] can be
obtained from the following equation:
s [k] = [k] + re [k] +
e [k]Ts

(11)

where the effect of the rotor speed is taken into consideration

by adding the term
e [k]Ts to compensate for the rotor position
increment when the PMSG operates at a high speed.
It is well known that the stator voltages of an electric machine
can be expressed as
us = Rsis +

d 
s
dt

(12)

s [k]
 [k]

s
+ Rsis [k].
Ts

(13)

With knowledge of
us [k], proper switching signals can
be generated by the SVM module to achieve fast and accurate
torque and flux linkage control. Since the reference torque angle
for the next time interval is directly acquired, the calculated
voltage vector can compensate for the torque and flux errors
instantaneously. However, the maximum magnitude Vm of the
voltage vector that
can be provided by the three-phase bridge
inverter is Vdc / 3, where Vdc is the dc-bus voltage. Once the

us [k] should
magnitude of
us [k] exceeds Vm , the values of


be modified as us [k] as follows:

Vm
us [k]
us [k] =
us [k]2 +us [k]2
(14)
Vm
us [k] =
us [k].
2
2
us [k] +us [k]

In this way, sinusoidal output voltages can be obtained within

the physical limitation of the inverter.
IV. PMSG S TATOR F LUX AND ROTOR
P OSITION E STIMATION
The information of the PMSG rotor position re and stas is essential to the SVM-DTC
tor flux linkage vector
system. In this paper, a discrete-time quasi-sliding-mode observer (QSMO) is designed to estimate the rotor position and
stator flux based on the current model of the PMSG, which
gains high estimation precision, strong robustness to load and
speed changes, and mitigation of the chattering problem at the
same time.
The dynamic equations of a PMSG in the stationary
coordinates can be expressed as
d
is = A is + B (us e )
dt

(15)

where
e is the back electromotive force (EMF) vector, and




Rs /Ls
1/Ls
0
0
A=
, B=
0
Rs /Ls
0
1/Ls
 


e
sin(re )
e = = Ke e
e
cos(re )
where Ke is a back EMF constant. Thus, a quasi-sliding-mode
current estimator can be designed as follows:
d
 )
is = A is + B (us l Z
dt
 = sat(is is , Z0 )
Z

(16)
(17)

where is is the estimated value of is , l is the switching

 is the switching signal vector, and a saturation
gain, Z

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Furthermore, considering the large time constant of the mechanical dynamics of the system, the rotor speed can be easily
calculated from the estimated rotor position by using a movingaverage algorithm [21].
V. MPPT C ONTROL W ITHOUT W IND
S PEED M EASUREMENT

Fig. 4. Block diagram of the QSMO-based PMSG rotor position and stator
flux estimation algorithm.

switching function sat(x, Z0 ) is adopted to generate the switching signals, which can mitigate the output chattering problem
of the commonly used sign switching function [19]. The block
diagram of the QSMO is shown in Fig. 4. The saturation
switching function is defined as

if x > Z0
Z0 ,
if |x| Z0
(18)
sat(x, Z0 ) = x,
Z0 , if x < Z0
where Z0 is the width of the boundary layer. Subtracting (16)
from (15), the following equations can be obtained:
d 
 e ).
(is is ) = A (is is ) + B (l Z
dt
(19)


Let S = is is , (19) can be expressed as

 = A S
 B e + l B Z
 .
S

The objective of the MPPT in a WTG is to automatically

catch the maximum power point (MPP) via adjusting the tipspeed ratio given in (2). For the proposed SVM-DTC scheme,
the electromagnetic torque is directly controlled so that using
the optimal torque command will remove the outer speed control loop in the vector control scheme. In this paper, the optimal
torque MPPT algorithm used in [22] is adopted. According to
(2), when the wind turbine is operated at the MPP, the ratio of
the optimal shaft speed to the wind speed becomes a constant,
which satisfies
opt
t_opt
=
v
R

where opt is the optimal tip-speed ratio, and t_opt is the

optimal shaft speed when opt is reached. The mechanical
torque of the turbine shaft has the form of

(20)

To ensure that the error S converges to zero, the following

constraints of the QSMO should be satisfied [19]:

|e | < lZ < 2 R Z |e |

0
0

Ts
Ld
(21)
Z0 > 2|e |

Tm =

2
e
1
c
=
= 2

sL + 2sL + 1
s2 + 2sc + c2
Z

(22)

where sL = s/c , and c is the cutoff frequency of the filter,

which is properly adapted according to the rotor speed [20].
Finally, the rotor position can be obtained as
e /
e ) re .
re = tan1 (
The phase angle delay caused by the filter is


2
e c
1
re = tan
.
c2
e2

(23)

(24)

With the estimated rotor position, the stator flux can be

estimated according to the PMSG current model as
s = Ls is + m cos(re )
s = Ls is + m sin(re ).

(25)

Pm
.
t

(27)

Substituting (1) and (26) into (27), the optimal torque Topt can
be expressed as a quadratic function of the optimal shaft speed
t_opt , i.e.,

2Ld fs R

where fs is the sampling frequency, and |e | is the magnitude

of the -axis back EMF component. A second-order discretetime low-pass Butterworth filter is then designed to extract the

e , e ]T from the output Z
back EMF components e = [
of the switching function. The transfer function of the filter has
the form of

(26)

Topt = Kopt t2_opt

(28)

where
Kopt =

Ar Cp_opt R3
2 3opt

(29)

where Cp_opt is the optimal power coefficient of the wind

turbine corresponding to the optimal tip-speed ratio opt . Replacing t_opt with the real shaft (rotor) speed t , the electromagnetic torque generated by the PMSG can be expressed as
Te = Kopt t2 .

(30)

Equation (30) describes the optimal torque-rotor speed characteristic over the entire operational wind speed conditions of
the wind turbine. Therefore, if the actual rotor speed t is less
than the optimal rotor speed t_opt , the mechanical torque Tm
will be larger than the electromagnetic torque Te , leading to the
acceleration of the wind turbine. In contrast, the wind turbine
will decelerate when the actual rotor speed t exceeds the optimal rotor speed t_opt . The equilibrium point where the system
will eventually settle down is the MPP. Therefore, (30) can
be directly utilized to determine the optimal electromagnetic
torque command for the DTC system to achieve the MPPT
control of the WTG without measuring the wind speed.

ZHANG et al.: SPACE-VECTOR-MODULATED SENSORLESS DTC FOR DIRECT-DRIVE PMSG WIND TURBINES

Fig. 5.

2335

A 30-s wind speed profile used in the simulation.

Fig. 7. - and -axis stator flux estimation errors.

Fig. 6.

Estimation errors of rotor position and speed.

VI. S IMULATION R ESULTS

Simulation studies are carried out in MATLAB/Simulink
to validate the proposed SVM-DTC scheme for a 1.5-MW
direct-drive, low-speed, and multipole PMSG wind turbine. The
parameters of the WTG system are given as follows [23]. For
the wind turbine, the radius of the blades is R = 37 m, the air
density is = 1.17 kg/m3 , the equivalent damping coefficient
is D = 0.001, and the turbine power coefficient Cp () is evaluated as the form of
CP =

1
( 1.616) exp(0.2542 )
2

(31)

where CP reaches the maximum value when is 5.55. For

the PMSG, the rated power is 1.5 MW, Rs = 0.0032 , Ld =
Lq = 3.1 mH, the flux linkage is m = 7.8 V s, the number
of pole pairs is p = 40, and the equivalent momentum of
inertia of the direct-drive PMSG WTG is J = 4.6 105 kg m2 .
The observer and the controller are executed every 100 s,
which is typically equal to one PWM control cycle in practical
applications.
A randomly generated 30-s wind speed profile with a mean
value of 9 m/s and variations in the range of 1 m/s is
used in the simulation, as shown in Fig. 5. In the simulation,
the MSC of the PMSG is connected to a 2-kV dc link. The
stator flux reference is set as 7.8 V s, and Kopt is calculated
as 3.5783 105 . The estimation errors of the PMSG rotor
position (in electrical degree) and rotor speed are shown in
Fig. 6. The estimation errors of the - and -axis PMSG

Fig. 8. Dynamic responses of rotor speed and electromagnetic torque during

wind speed variations.

stator flux linkages are shown in Fig. 7. It can be seen that

during the electromechanical transients when the rotor speed
and load change, the outputs of the proposed stator flux and
rotor position estimation algorithm achieved high accuracy
when they are used in the closed-loop control. The errors of the
estimated rotor position, rotor speed, and stator flux linkages
are within 0.3 electrical degrees, 0.03 rpm, and 0.03 V s,
respectively, which are no more than 0.09%, 0.2%, and 0.4% of
their corresponding maximum values.
Fig. 8 illustrates the dynamic responses of the rotor speed and
electromagnetic torque of the WTG during the wind speed variations. By using (30) to generate the optimal torque reference
in the proposed SVM-DTC, the electromagnetic torque of the
direct-drive PMSG is controlled directly and quickly such that
the rotor speed closely follows the wind speed to achieve the
optimal tip-speed ratio. This guarantees the maximum energy
extraction from the wind. The locus of the tip-speed ratio
during the wind speed variations is shown in Fig. 9. Without
the measurement of the wind speed, the actual tip-speed ratio
is around the optimal value opt = 5.55 within a range of
[0.15, 0.15] during the 30-s simulation, which verifies the
effectiveness of the MPPT.
Figs. 10 and 11 compare the electromagnetic torque and
stator flux linkage responses of the PMSG when using the

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TABLE I
PARAMETERS OF THE PMSG

Fig. 9. Actual tip-speed ratio and its optimal value during wind speed
variations.
Fig. 12.

Fig. 10. Electromagnetic torque and stator flux at 15 rpm using the proposed
DTC, fs = 10 kHz.

Schematic representation of the experimental system setup.

0.005 V s (0.07% of the rated stator flux), respectively. The

rotating speed of the PMSG is 15 rpm. The torque command is
50 kN m at the beginning, is decreased to 100 kN m at
0.04 s, and then increased to 75 kN m at 0.65 s. Both torque
command variations are step changes. As shown in Fig. 10, the
peak-to-peak torque ripple is always less than 1 kN m (0.12%
of the rated torque) when using the proposed DTC. However,
when using the conventional DTC, the peak-to-peak torque
ripple is random and unpredictable and is usually larger than
5 kN m (see Fig. 11). Therefore, the proposed SVM-DTC,
which uses only one fourth of the switching frequency in the
conventional DTC, can significantly reduce the torque ripple
by more than 80%. Similarly, the stator flux linkage in Fig. 10
is almost constant with invisible ripples. The distortions of the
stator flux at 0.04 and 0.65 s are caused by the large transients
of the stator currents due to the step torque changes at the
moments. However, the magnitudes of the stator flux transients
are less than 0.03 V s, and they decay within three switching
cycles. However, when the traditional DTC is adopted, the
stator flux always oscillates with a peak-to-peak ripple of
0.066 V s.
VII. E XPERIMENTAL R ESULTS
A. Experimental Setup

Fig. 11. Electromagnetic torque and stator flux at 15 rpm using the conventional DTC, fs = 40 kHz.

SVM-DTC and the conventional three-level hysteresis DTC.

To make the mean switching frequency of the conventional
DTC be equal to that of the proposed SVM-DTC, the sampling
period of the conventional DTC algorithm is set as 25 s
(40 kHz). The bandwidths of the torque and stator flux hysteresis controllers are 100 N m (0.012% of the rated torque) and

Experimental studies are performed on a 2.4-kW PMSG

used in a practical direct-drive WTG (Skystream 3.7) to further
validate the proposed SVM-DTC scheme. The rotating speed
of the WTG ranges from 50 to 300 rpm. The parameters of
the PMSG are listed in Table I. Since the difference between
Ld and Lq is small (Ld /Lq = 0.956), the average value of the
two inductances (0.89 mH) is used as the stator inductance
Ls in the proposed control scheme. Fig. 12 illustrates the
schematic representation of the experimental system setup, and
the real experimental system setup is shown in Fig. 13. A speedadjustable PMSM (same as the PMSG) drive is employed to
emulate the dynamics of the wind turbine to drive the PMSG
directly. The ac power generated by the PMSG is converted
to dc power by a three-phase insulated-gate bipolar transistor

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2337

Fig. 14. Comparison of measured and estimated rotor positions at 60 rpm.

Fig. 13. Experimental system setup.

(IGBT) converter (i.e., the MSC). A dc electronic load is

connected in parallel with a dc source to consume the power
generated by the PMSG. The function of the dc source is to
stabilize the dc-terminal voltage of the MSC. The rotor position
is measured from an absolute encoder with 8192 steps per revolution for comparison purposes. The overall control algorithm is
implemented in a dSPACE 1005 real-time control system with
the sampling period of 100 s. All of the experimental results
are recorded using the ControlDesk interfaced with dSPACE
1005 and a desktop computer (PC).

Fig. 15. Comparison of measured and estimated rotor positions at 300 rpm.

B. Evaluation of Rotor Position and Stator Flux Estimation

The proposed quasi-sliding-mode rotor position and stator
flux observer is first evaluated by connecting the stator windings
of the PMSG directly to a three-phase Y-connection resistive
load. The resistance of each phase is 35 . The estimated and
measured rotor positions when the PMSG is operated at 60
and 300 rpm are compared in Figs. 14 and 15, respectively. In
these two figures, the measured rotor position (180 electrical
degrees/div) is read from the encoder, the estimated rotor position (180 electrical degrees/div) is obtained from the QSMObased estimation algorithm, and the position estimation errors
(9 electrical degrees/div) are also plotted. These results show
that the waveforms of the estimated and measured rotor positions are on top of each other, and the position estimation errors
are always within [1.5, 1.5] electrical degrees for constant
rotor speed operations.
The performance of the proposed QSMO-based rotor position and stator flux estimation algorithm is also evaluated
under variable-speed conditions. A randomly generated speed
command ranging from 30 to 300 rpm is used as the speed
command for the speed-adjustable drive. Each speed value

Fig. 16. Measured and estimated rotor speeds during the variable-speed
operation.

lasts for 7 s, and the accelerating/decelerating rate of the rotor

speed is set at 30 rpm/s. Fig. 16 compares the measured and
estimated rotor speeds. Fig. 17 shows the rotor speed and
position estimation errors. The results reveal that the estimated
rotor speed well tracks the measured speed, and the estimation
error is always within [2, 2] rpm. The precision of the
estimated rotor speed is better when it exceeds 150 rpm, where
the speed estimation error is less than 0.5 rpm. On the other
side, the position estimation error varies with the rotor speed.
There are offsets in the position estimation error during the

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Fig. 19. Responses of stator flux linkages at 50 rpm using (top) the conventional DTC and (bottom) the SVM-DTC.
Fig. 17. Rotor speed and position estimation errors during variable-speed
operation.

Fig. 18. Estimated - and -axis stator fluxes s and s .

accelerating/decelerating processes when larger speed variations occur. However, the position estimation errors are always
less than 4 electrical degrees, which demonstrates the robustness of the QSMO to speed variations.
The estimated - and -axis stator fluxes s and s are
plotted in Fig. 18. The results demonstrate that small distortion
and good regulation of the stator flux are achieved by using the
propose estimation algorithm.
C. Performance of the Proposed SVM-DTC
Both the proposed SVM-DTC and the conventional DTC are
applied for torque control of the PMSG. The dc-bus voltage of
the MSC is 150 V. The bandwidths of the conventional DTC
are set as 1 N m and 0.0005 V s, respectively. Figs. 19 and
20 compare the responses of the stator flux linkages and electromagnetic torques when using the proposed SVM-DTC and
the conventional DTC, where the PMSG is operated at 50 rpm,
and the flux and torque commands are set as 0.2532 V s and
2 N m, respectively. When the conventional DTC is used, the
average and peak-to-peak stator flux ripples are 0.0012 V s and
0.0016 V s, respectively, and the peak-to-peak torque ripple
is more than 5 N m. In contrast, when using the proposed
SVM-DTC, the average and peak-to-peak stator flux ripples
are reduced to 0.0002 V s and 0.0003 V s, respectively, and

Fig. 20. Responses of electromagnetic torques at 50 rpm using (top) the

conventional DTC and (bottom) the SVM-DTC.

the peak-to-peak torque ripple is greatly reduced to less than

1 N m.
Then, the rotor position and stator flux estimated by the
proposed QSMO are used as variables in the proposed SVMDTC scheme, thereby removing the need for a mechanical
encoder and realizing the rotor position sensorless control of
the WTG. To mitigate the IGBT dead-time effect of the inverter
on the performance of the QSMO, the algorithm in [24] is
adopted to compensate for the voltage loss caused by the IGBT
dead-time effect. During the test, the rotor speed is kept at
180 rpm, and the stator flux reference is 0.2532 V s. The
torque command is 5 N m at the beginning, then linearly
decreased to 30 N m from 5 to 5.7 s, and finally linearly
increased to 15 N m from 10 to 10.3 s. The dynamic responses of the torque and the stator flux are plotted in Fig. 21.
When the estimated rotor position and stator flux are used in
the SVM-DTC, the system remains stable, and the advantages
of the fast dynamic response and lower torque and flux ripples
are preserved.
The rotor position and speed estimation errors are shown
in Fig. 22. Similar to the experimental results in Fig. 17 in
which the measured rotor position is used, when the estimated
quantities are used in the closed-loop control scheme, the
rotor position estimation error is mostly less than 3 electrical

ZHANG et al.: SPACE-VECTOR-MODULATED SENSORLESS DTC FOR DIRECT-DRIVE PMSG WIND TURBINES

2339

Fig. 21. Dynamic responses of electromagnetic torque and stator flux during
torque ramp changes.
Fig. 23. Wind speed profile and the tip-speed ratio when the MPPT control is
applied.

Fig. 22. Rotor position and speed estimation errors during torque ramp
changes.

degrees, and the speed estimation error is always within [1, 1]

rpm. The stability of the QSMO is maintained during the
torque ramp changes. Since the estimated rotor speed is directly
obtained from the output of the QSMO, the divergence will not
occur as long as the estimated rotor position remains stable.
In this test, the wind speed profile in Fig. 5 is reduced by
3 m/s to match the operating range of the test PMSG. The
resulting wind speed varies in the range of [5.4, 7] m/s, as
shown in Fig. 23. According to the wind speed profile, the
optimal rotor speed profile is determined from (26) and used by
the synchronous drive as the reference to control the PMSM to
emulate the wind turbine dynamics under the given wind speed
profile. The optimal torque reference is then obtained from (30)
for variable-speed and variable-torque operation of the PMSG,
where the value of Kopt is calculated as 0.375. As shown in
Fig. 23, the tip-speed ratio follows the optimal tip-speed ratio
closely with a small deviation of 0.13. Compared with the
results in Fig. 9 for a simulated WTG with a larger inertia, the
test WTG responds much faster to track its optimal tip-speed
ratio.
As shown in Fig. 24, the estimated rotor speed and electromagnetic torque of the PMSG using the proposed sensorless
SVM-DTC follow the trend of the wind speed variation closely

Fig. 24. Estimated rotor speed and electromagnetic torque.

Fig. 25. Estimation errors of rotor position and speed.

and quickly. Although the estimated rotor speed has highfrequency oscillations, the torque ripples are still restricted
within 3 N m (3.75% of the rated torque). The estimation
errors of the rotor position and speed are shown in Fig. 25.
The position estimation errors are mostly within 3 electrical

2340

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 50, NO. 4, JULY/AUGUST 2014

degrees, and the rotor speed estimation errors do not exceed

1 rpm. The whole system demonstrates a satisfactory dynamic
performance when the estimated rotor position, rotor speed,
and stator flux are used, which proves the effectiveness of the
proposed method.

VIII. C ONCLUSION
This paper has proposed a sensorless MPPT SVM-DTC for
direct-drive PMSG wind turbines. A QSMO, which can be
operated with a relatively low sampling frequency, has been
designed to estimate the stator flux linkage and rotor position
with satisfactory accuracy. The QSMO is robust to the variations of rotor speed and electromagnetic torque for a wide
operating range in the WTG applications. The resultant SVMDTC-regulated PMSG wind turbine can achieve fast torque
response, relatively low flux and torque ripples, and maximum
power extraction without using any wind speed or rotor position
measurements. The effectiveness of the proposed SVM-DTC
has been demonstrated by simulation and experimental results
for direct-drive PMSG wind turbines.

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Zhe Zhang (S10) received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Xian Jiaotong University,
Xian, China, in 2010. He is currently working
toward the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering
at the University of NebraskaLincoln, Lincoln,
NE, USA.
His current research interests include control of
wind energy conversion systems, power electronics,
and motor drives.

Yue Zhao (S10) received the B.S. degree in

electrical engineering from Beijing University
of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Beijing, China,
in 2010, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical
engineering from the University of Nebraska
Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USA, in 2014.
He was a Graduate Student Researcher in 2011
and 2012 and a summer product engineering intern
in 2013 with John Deere Electronic Solutions. His
current research interests include electric machines
and drives, power electronics, and control.
Mr. Zhao is a member of Eta Kappa Nu. He was a recipient of the Best Paper
Prize at the 2012 IEEE Transportation Electrification Conference and Expo.

ZHANG et al.: SPACE-VECTOR-MODULATED SENSORLESS DTC FOR DIRECT-DRIVE PMSG WIND TURBINES

Wei Qiao (S05M08SM12) received the B.Eng.

and M.Eng. degrees in electrical engineering
from Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, in
1997 and 2002, respectively, the M.S. degree in
high-performance computation for engineered systems from the SingaporeMIT Alliance (SMA),
Singapore, in 2003, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical
engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology,
Atlanta, GA, USA, in 2008.
Since August 2008, he has been with the University of NebraskaLincoln (UNL), Lincoln, NE, USA,
where he is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical
Engineering. He is the author or coauthor of three book chapters and more
than 130 papers published in refereed journals and international conference
proceedings. His research interests include renewable energy systems, smart
grids, microgrids, condition monitoring and fault diagnosis, energy storage
systems, power electronics, electric machines and drives, and computational
intelligence for electric power and energy systems.
Dr. Qiao is an Associate Editor of the IET Power Electronics and the IEEE
J OURNAL OF E MERGING AND S ELECTED T OPICS IN P OWER E LECTRONICS
and the Chair of the Sustainable Energy Sources Technical Thrust of the IEEE
Power Electronics Society (PELS). He was an Associate Editor of the IEEE
T RANSACTIONS ON I NDUSTRY A PPLICATIONS in 20102013. He was the recipient of a 2010 National Science Foundation CAREER Award, the 2010 IEEE
Industry Applications Society (IAS) Andrew W. Smith Outstanding Young
Member Award, the 2012 UNL College of Engineering Faculty Research and
Creative Activity Award, the 2011 UNL Harold and Esther Edgerton Junior
Faculty Award, and the 2011 UNL College of Engineering Edgerton Innovation
Award. He has received four best paper awards from the IEEE IAS, PES, and
PELS.

2341

Liyan Qu (S05M08) received the B.Eng. (with

the highest distinction) and M.Eng. degrees in
electrical engineering from Zhejiang University,
Hangzhou, China, in 1999 and 2002, respectively,
and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from
the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
Champaign, IL, USA, in 2007.
From 2007 to 2009, she was an Application Engineer with Ansoft Corporation. Since January 2010,
she has been with the University of Nebraska
Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USA, where she is currently
an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering. Her research interests include energy efficiency, renewable energy, numerical analysis
and computer-aided design of electric machinery and power electronic devices,
dynamics and control of electric machinery, permanent-magnet machines, and
magnetic materials.