150 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 54, NO.

1, FEBRUARY 2007

Sensorless Control of Induction Motors by Reduced

Order Observer With MCA EXIN + Based Adaptive
Speed Estimation
Maurizio Cirrincione, Member, IEEE, Marcello Pucci, Member, IEEE, Giansalvo Cirrincione, Member, IEEE,
and Gérard-André Capolino, Fellow, IEEE

Abstract—This paper presents a sensorless technique for high- , Direct and quadrature components of
performance induction machine drives based on neural networks. the stator currents in the stator refer-
It proposes a reduced order speed observer where the speed is es- ence frame.
timated with a new generalized least-squares technique based on , Direct and quadrature components of
the minor component analysis (MCA) EXIN + neuron. With this
regard, the main original aspects of this work are the develop- the stator currents in the rotor-flux
ment of two original choices of the gain matrix of the observer, one oriented reference frame.
of which guarantees the poles of the observer to be fixed on one Space vector of the stator flux-link-
point of the negative real semi-axis in spite of rotor speed, and the ages in the stator reference frame.
adoption of a completely new speed estimation law based on the , Direct and quadrature component of
MCA EXIN + neuron. The methodology has been verified exper-
the stator flux linkage in the stator
imentally on a rotor flux oriented vector controlled drive and has
proven to work at very low operating speed at no-load and rated reference frame.
load (down to 3 rad/s corresponding to 28.6 rpm), to have good es- Space vector of the rotor flux-linkages
timation accuracy both in speed transient and in steady-state and in the stator reference frame.
to work correctly at zero-speed, at no-load, and at medium loads. A , Direct and quadrature component of
comparison with the classic full-order adaptive observer under the the rotor flux linkage in the stator ref-
same working conditions has proven that the proposed observer ex-
erence frame.
hibits a better performance in terms of lowest working speed and
zero-speed operation. Stator inductance.
Rotor inductance.
Index Terms—Field oriented control, induction machines, least- Total static magnetizing inductance.
squares (LS), neural networks, reduced order observer, sensorless
control. Resistance of a stator phase winding.
Resistance of a rotor phase winding.
Rotor time constant.
NOMENCLATURE Total leakage factor.
Number of pole pairs.
Space vector of the stator voltages in Angular rotor speed (in mechanical
the stator reference frame. angles).
, Direct and quadrature components of Angular rotor speed (in electrical an-
the stator voltages in the stator refer- gles per second).
ence frame. Sampling time of the control system.
Space vector of the stator currents in
the stator reference frame.
I. INTRODUCTION
O FAR, sensorless control of induction motors [1]–[3] has
Manuscript received June 15, 2005; revised October 28, 2005. Abstract pub-
lished on the Internet November 30, 2006. The work of G. Cirrincione has been
supported under a grant from ISSIA-CNR, Italy in the framework of the MIUR
project n. 211 entitled “Automazione della gestione intelligente della gener-
S been faced with two kinds of methods: those which employ
the dynamic model of the induction machine based on the funda-
azione distribuita di energia elettrica da fonti rinnovabili e non inquinanti e della mental spatial harmonic of the magnetomotive force (mmf) and
domanda di energia elettrica, anche con riferimento alle compatibilità interne e those based on the saliencies of the machine. Among the first,
ambientali, all’affidabilità e alla sicurezza.”
M. Cirrincione was with the ISSIA-CNR, Section of Palermo, Viale delle
the main ones are the open-loop speed estimators [4], MRAS
Scienze snc, 90128 Palermo, Italy. He is now with the Université de Technologie (model reference adaptive system) speed observers [5], even
de Belfort-Montbeliard (UTBM), 90010 Belfort Cedex, France (e-mail: m.cir- based on neural networks [6], [7], full-order Luenberger adaptive
rincione@ieee.org).
M. Pucci is with the ISSIA-CNR Section of Palermo, Institute on Intelli-
observers [8]–[11], also with neural networks [12], and reduced
gent Systems for the Automation, Viale delle Scienze snc, 90128 Palermo, Italy order speed observers [13]–[15]. Among the second, some are
(e-mail: marcello.pucci@ieee.org). based on continuous high-frequency signal injection [16]–[18]
G. Cirrincione and G.-A. Capolino are with the Department of Electrical En- and some on test vectors [19], [20]. This last kind of method-
gineering, University of Picardie-Jules Verne, 80039 Amiens, France (e-mail:
g.cirrincione@ieee.org; Gerard.Capolino@ieee.org). ologies, even if is very promising for position sensorless control
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIE.2006.888776 thanks to the capability of tracking saliencies, either the saturation
0278-0046/$25.00 © 2007 IEEE
CIRRINCIONE et al.: SENSORLESS CONTROL OF INDUCTION MOTORS BY REDUCED ORDER OBSERVER
of the main flux or the rotor slotting saliencies, is usually machine
dependant and sometimes requires a suitable machine design
(open or semi-closed rotor slots for rotor slotting tracking). This
is not the case for the first kind of techniques, among which the
full-order Luenberger observer gives very interesting perfor-
mances, even if with a significant computational requirement.
In this regard, an improvement of this observer based on total
least-squares (TLSs) speed estimation has been proposed by the
authors [12], which has shown a good performance in the speed
estimation during transients, at very low-speed (down to 0.5 rad/s
corresponding to 4.77 rpm) and at zero-speed. Moreover, its
stability features in regenerating mode at low-speed have been
analyzed theoretically and tested experimentally.
The main goal of this work is the design of an adaptive speed
observer, with a performance comparable to that obtainable with
the full-order Luenberger observer. This is achieved by a re-
duced-order rotor flux observer, which results in lower com-
plexity and computational burden. In fact, the reduced order ob-
server has to solve a problem of order two, while the full-order
observer of order four. Particularly, this paper presents a new
sensorless technique based on the reduced order observer, where
the speed is estimated on the basis of a new generalized least-
squares technique, the MCA EXIN + neuron. Moreover, this
work also deals with the development of two original choices
of the gain matrix of the observer, one of which ensures that
the poles of the observer be fixed on one point of the negative
real semi-axis, in spite of the variation of the speed of the motor,
with a consequent dynamic behavior of the flux estimation inde-
pendent of the rotor speed. The adoption of the completely new
speed estimation law, based on the MCA EXIN + neuron, en-
sures very low operating speed at no-load and rated load (down
to 3 rad/s corresponding to 28.6 rpm), good estimation accuracy
also in speed transient and correct zero-speed operation. Dif-
ferent from [13], which employs a combination of the reduced
order observer, used as reference model, and the simple current
model, used as adaptive model, to estimate the rotor speed, here
only the reduced order observer is employed, while the rotor
speed is estimated by the MCA EXIN + algorithm, just on the
basis of the stator voltage and current measurements and the es-
timated flux. It should be remarked that the MCA EXIN + sched-
uling is more powerful than the other existing techniques, even
least-squares based, in terms of smoother convergence transient,
shorter settling time, and better accuracy [21]. In addition, the
choice of MCA EXIN + neuron allows to take into consideration
the measurement flux modeling errors, which influence the ac-
curacy of the speed estimation, since it is inherently robust to the
this source of errors. This speed observer has been tested exper-
imentally in a rotor-flux-oriented field oriented control (FOC)
drive and compared with the classic full-order adaptive observer
of [8]. Also, this paper shows a complexity analysis of the pro-
posed methodology with respect to other observers, both classic
and based on neural networks.
II. LIMITS OF MODEL-BASED SENSORLESS TECHNIQUES
A. Open-Loop Integration
One of the main problems of some speed observers, when
adopted in high-performance drives, is the open-loop integration
151
in presence of DC biases. The speed observers suffering from
this problem are those which employ open-loop flux estimators,
e.g., open-loop speed estimators and those MRAS systems where
the reference model is an open-loop flux estimator [5]–[7], while
speed estimators employing closed-loop flux integration, like the
classic full-order adaptive observer [8], do not have this problem.
In particular, DC drifts are always present in the signal before it is
integrated, which causes the integrator to saturate with a resulting
inadmissible estimation error, and also after the integration
because of the initial conditions [22]. In general, low-pass (LP)
filters with very low cutoff frequency are used instead of pure
integrators; however, since they fail in low-frequency ranges,
close to their cutoff frequency, some alternative solutions have
been devised to overcome this problem, e.g., the integrator with
saturation feedback [22], the integrator based on cascaded LP
filters [23], [24], the integrator based on the offset vector estima-
tion and compensation of residual estimation error [4] and the
adaptive neural integrator [25]. With regard to the reduced order
adaptive observer, the problem of the DC drift in the integrand
signal exists only for those choices of the observer gain matrix
which transform, at certain working speeds of the machine, the
reduced order observer in an open-loop flux estimator, like the
current voltage model (CVM) in [26] which gives rise to a smooth
transition from the “current” to the “voltage” model according
to the increase of the rotor speed (see Section III). With such a
choice, below a certain speed and above another one, the observer
behaves like a simple open-loop estimator, and therefore suffers
from the mentioned problem. It is not the case of the proposed
gain matrix choice, which is described in Section III.
B. Inverter Nonlinearity
The power devices of an inverter present a finite voltage drop
in “on-state,” due to their forward nonlinear characteristics.
This voltage drop has to be taken into consideration at low-fre-
quency (low-voltage amplitude) where it becomes comparable
with the stator voltage itself, giving rise to distortion and dis-
continuities in the voltage waveform. Here, the compensation
method proposed by [4] has been employed. This technique is
based on modeling the forward characteristics of each power
device with a piecewise linear characteristics, with an average
threshold voltage and with an average differential resistance.
C. Machine Parameter Mismatch
A further source of error in flux estimation is the mismatch
of the stator and rotor resistances of the observer with their real
values because of the heating/cooling of the machine. The load
dependent variations of the winding temperature may lead up to
50% error in the modeled resistance. Stator and rotor resistances
should be, therefore, estimated online and tracked during the
operation of the drive. A great deal of online parameter estima-
tion algorithms have been devised [4], [8], requiring low com-
plexity and reduced computational burden when used in control
systems. In any case, it should be emphasized that steady-state
estimation of the rotor resistance cannot be performed in sen-
sorless drives, thus rotor resistance variations must be deduced
from stator resistance estimation. In the case under study, dif-
ferently from [13] where the allocation of the poles of the ob-
server has been chosen to minimize the sensitivity of the ob-
152 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 54, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2007
Fig. 1. Block diagram of the MCA EXIN + reduced order observer.
server to the rotor resistance variations, the gain matrix choice
has been chosen (see Section III) to make the dynamic of the
flux estimation constant, by fixing the position of the poles of
the observer in a precise point of the negative real semi-axis, in
spite of the variation of the speed of the motor, and therefore the
sensitivity to the rotor resistance variations has not been consid-
ered as a design criterion of the observer. No stator resistance
estimation algorithm [4] has been used, since the goal is to de-
velop one observer which is not too complex and computation-
ally cumbersome.
III. MCA EXIN + REDUCED ORDER OBSERVER
A. Reduced Order Observer Equations
The matrix equations of the reduced order flux observer, with
a voltage error used for corrective feedback are [13], [26], [27]
(1)
where
(2a)
(2b)
(2c)
(2d)
(2e)
where all space vectors are in the stator reference frame:
stator current vector,
stator voltage vector, rotor flux vector,
, , is the rotor speed, and
is the observer gain matrix. For the list of parameters, see the
Nomenclature.
The proposed MCA EXIN + reduced order observer is based
on the classical reduced order flux observer structure, while a
new speed estimation law is proposed, which is based on the
MCA EXIN + technique. Fig. 1 shows the block diagram of the
proposed reduced order observer, whose equations are described
in Section III-A. The rotor speed is estimated by a MCA EXIN
+ algorithm, on the basis of the estimated rotor flux linkage ,
as well as the measured stator voltage and current space vec-
tors . Moreover, since the gain matrix is time dependant, the
correction term which takes into consideration the time deriva-
tive of the gain matrix is also included in the scheme.
B. Proposed Choice of the Gain Matrix of the Observer
The choice of a suitable gain matrix of the observer has
been a problem largely faced in literature [13] and [26]–[34].
It is well-known [13] that the poles of the reduced order
observer are the couple of eigenvalues of the matrix
where
and .
This paper develops two new choices of the gain matrix and
proposes one of them as the most suitable for sensorless control.
The first, called choice 1, makes the observer poles amplitude
CIRRINCIONE et al.: SENSORLESS CONTROL OF INDUCTION MOTORS BY REDUCED ORDER OBSERVER
Fig. 2. Pole locus, amplitude versus speed,  versus speed and gain locus with the proposed gain matrix choice.
constant, the second, called fixed pole position (FPP) choice,
fixes the position of the poles, in spite of the rotor speed. The
FPP choice is proposed as the best for sensorless control for the
reasons explained beneath.
The FPP gain matrix choice permits the position of the poles
of the observer to be fixed on the negative part of the real semi-
axis at distance from the origin, according to the variation
of the rotor speed, to ensure the stability of the observer itself.
The proposed gain choice is obtained by imposing and
and gives
(3)
Correspondingly, the time derivative of the gain matrix to be
used in the observer scheme is
(4)
Fig. 2 shows the observer pole locus, the amplitude of poles
versus rotor speed, the damping factor versus rotor speed, and
gain locus ( versus ) as obtained with the FPP gain
matrix choice. It shows that this solution permits to keep the
dynamic of the flux estimation constant, because the amplitude
of the poles is the constant and the damping factor is always
equal to 1. This last feature is particularly important for sensor-
less control in high-speed range: in fact, most of the choices of
the matrix gain cause a low damping factor at high rotor speed,
which can easily cause instability phenomena. Actually, higher
values of the damping factor result in low sensitivity to esti-
mated speed perturbations or parameter variations.
153
C. Other Gain Matrix Choices
Fig. 3 shows the observer pole locus, the amplitude of poles
versus the rotor speed, and the damping factor versus the rotor
speed, obtained with five different gain choices of the matrix
gain; the first has been developed by the authors and the other
four have been proposed in literature.
1) Choice 1: A criterion for choosing the locus of the ob-
server poles is to make their amplitude constant with respect for
the rotor speed. This criterion leads either to the above proposed
solution if or, if , to a semicircle pole
locus with centre in the origin, with radius and lying in the
complex semiplane with negative real part. In this last case, the
position of the poles varies with the rotor speed and therefore to
avoid instability, a maximum rotor speed must be properly
chosen, in correspondence to which the poles of the observer lie
on the imaginary axis. The matrix gain choice which guarantees
this condition is the following:
(5)
This matrix gain is dependant on the rotor speed, and therefore
the observer requires the correction term . With such a
matrix gain choice, the poles are complex with a constant ampli-
tude , but with a damping factor which drastically decreases,
from 1 at zero-speed to about 0 at rated speed and above.
2) Choice 2: Proposes the following matrix gain choice [30]:
(6)
154 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 54, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2007

Fig. 3. Pole locus, amplitude versus speed, and  versus speed with five matrix gain choices.

With such a matrix gain choice, the poles of the observer are
imaginary with magnitude increasing with the rotor speed and
the damping factor drastically reducing at increasing speed,
from 1 at zero-speed to about 0 at rated speed and above. This
choice cancels the contribution of the stator current from the
observer (1). It has the advantage that the gain matrix is not
dependent on the rotor speed, and therefore is simpler than both
the FPP choice and the others; for the same reason, it does not
even require the correction term .
3) Choice 3: Proposes the following matrix gain choice [13]
(7)
This matrix gain is dependant on the rotor speed, and therefore
the observer requires the correction term . With such a
matrix gain choice, the poles of the observer are complex with
magnitude increasing with the speed and the damping factor
reducing at increasing speed, from 1 at zero-speed to about 0.7
at rated speed and above. However, in [13], it is claimed that
this matrix gain choice reduces the sensitivity of the observer to
rotor resistance variations.
4) Choice 4: Proposes also the following matrix gain choice
[30]:
(8)
This matrix gain is dependant on the rotor speed, and therefore
the observer requires the correction term . With such a
matrix gain choice, the poles of the observer are real and lie
on the negative real semi-axis with magnitude increasing with
the speed and a damping factor constant with rotor speed and
always equal to 1.
5) Choice 5: Proposes the following matrix gain choice [26]:
for
for
for
(9)
Assigned two threshold values and to the rotor speed,
the gain matrix has three different values. Below , no cor-
rection feedback is given to the observer and it behaves as the
simple “current” model of the induction machine, based on its
rotor equations. Above , the correction feedback given to the
observer is a constant multiplied with the identity matrix, and
it behaves as the simple “voltage” model of the induction ma-
chine, based on its stator equations. Between and , the
gain matrix linearly varies from the two limit conditions. For
this reason, it has been called current voltage model (CVM),
since it gives rise to a smooth transition from the “current”
to the “voltage” model according to the increase of the rotor
speed. With such a choice, the poles of the observer are com-
plex with magnitude first increasing and then decreasing with
the rotor speed, and a damping factor drastically reducing at
increasing speed, from 1 at zero-speed to about 0 at rated speed
and above. As mentioned above, however, this solution makes
the observer work as a simple open-loop estimator both at low
and high speeds, with the consequent dc drift integration prob-
lems. This is not the case neither of the FPP choice nor the other
four ones. See [26] for the choice of and .
CIRRINCIONE et al.: SENSORLESS CONTROL OF INDUCTION MOTORS BY REDUCED ORDER OBSERVER
TABLE I
ISSUES OF ALL MATRIX GAIN CHOICES
A slightly different approach is presented in [35], which
proposes an observer where the rotor flux is estimated as the
sum of a high-pass filtered and a LP filtered flux, estimated,
respectively, by the “voltage” and the “current” models. This
leads to a correction term which depends, differently from
the other choices above, on the difference between the two
estimated fluxes, which are subsequently processed by a PI
controller. The resulting observer presents a smooth transi-
tion between “current” and “voltage” model flux estimation
which is ruled by the closed-loop eigenvalues of the observer,
determined by the parameters of the PI controller. At rotor
speeds below the bandwidth of the observer, its sensitivity to
the parameters correspond to that of the “current” model, while
at high speeds its sensitivity corresponds to that of the “voltage
model.” In this sense, it behaves like choice 5.
Table I summarizes the features of all six choices, mainly fo-
cusing on the variation of the observer pole amplitude with the
rotor speed, the variation of the damping factor with the rotor
speed, the dependance on the matrix gain by the rotor speed,
and the DC drift integration problems. From the standpoint of
the pole amplitude variation, the FPP choice and choice 1 are
the best, since they permit the amplitude to be constant; choices
2, 4, and 5 permit a low variation of the pole amplitudes, while
choice 3 causes a high variation. As for the damping factor vari-
ation, the FPP choice and choice 4 are the best since they keep
always equal to 1; choice 3 permits a low decrease of at in-
creasing rotor speeds, while choices 1, 2, and 5 cause a strong
reduction of . As for the dependance of on the rotor speed,
all the choices except choice 2 suffer from this variation. As for
the DC drift integration problems, only choice 5 presents this
negative issue, especially at low and high rotor speeds.
For the above reasons, FPP choice for the gain matrix is the
best among the six presented here for sensorless control, and has
been therefore adopted in the following experimental tests.
IV. MCA EXIN + BASED SPEED ESTIMATION
The MCA EXIN + based speed estimation derives from a
modification of the complete state equations of the induction
motor [8], [12] so that it exploits the two first scalar equations
to estimate the rotor speed, as shown below in discrete form for
digital implementation, as shown in (10) at the bottom of the
page, is the sampling time of the control algorithm and is
155
Fig. 4. Schematics of the LSs techniques in the monodimensional case.
the current time sample. Note that the is applied on the stator
voltage space vector to mean that it is computed from the DC
link voltage considering the blanking time of the inverter and the
voltage drop on the power devices of the inverter on the basis of
the method proposed in [4]. The same symbol on the rotor flux
indicates the estimated flux.
This matrix equation, which can be written more generally
as , can be solved for by using LS techniques. In
particular, in literature there exist three LS techniques, i.e., the
ordinary least-squares (OLSs), the total least-squares (TLSs),
and the data least-squares (DLSs) which arise when errors are,
respectively, present only in or both in and in or only in
.
In classical OLSs, each element of is considered without
any error: therefore, all errors are confined to . However, this
hypothesis does not always correspond to the reality: modeling
errors, measurement errors, etc., can cause errors also in .
Therefore, in real-world applications, the employment of TLSs
would be very often better, as it takes also into consideration the
errors in the data matrix.
In the monodimensional case ( ), which is the case
under study, the resolution of the LS problem consists in deter-
mining the angular coefficient of the straight line of equation
. The LS technique solves this problem by calculating
the value of which minimizes the sum of squares of the dis-
tances among the elements , with , and the
line itself. Fig. 4 shows the difference among the OLS, TLS,
and DLS. OLS minimizes the sum of squares of the distances
in the direction (error only in the observation vector). TLS
minimizes the sum of squares in the direction orthogonal to the
line (for this reason, TLS is also called orthogonal regression),
(10)
156 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 54, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2007
while DLS minimizes the sum of squares in the direction (er-
rors only in the data matrix). In particular, it must be expected
that, in absence of noise, the results obtained with TLS are equal
to those obtained with OLS; however, in presence of increasing
noise, the performance of TLS remains higher than that of OLS,
as TLS is less sensitive to noise. For these reasons, the TLS algo-
rithm is particularly suitable for estimation processes in which
data are affected by noise or modeling errors; this is certainly the
case of speed estimation, where the estimated rotor flux, present
in , is affected both by modeling errors and noise. Therefore,
a TLS technique should be used instead of the OLSs technique.
The TLS EXIN neuron, which is the only neural network ca-
pable to solve a TLS problems recursively online, has been suc-
cessfully adopted in MRAS speed observers [6]. In this work, a
new generalized LS technique, the MCA EXIN + (minor com-
ponent analysis) neuron, is used for the first time to compute the
rotor speed. This technique is a further improvement of the TLS
EXIN neuron [36], [37] and is explained below.
A. The MCA EXIN + Neuron
is the linear regression problem under hand. In [38],
all LS problems have been generalized by using a parameter-
ized formulation (generalized TLS, GeTLS EXIN) of an error
function whose minimization yields the corresponding solution.
This error is given by
(11)
where represents the transpose and is equal to 0 for OLS, 0.5
for TLS, and 1 for DLS. The corresponding iterative algorithm
(GeTLS EXIN learning law), which computes the minimizer by
using an exact gradient technique, is given by
(12)
where
(13)
where is the learning rate, is the row of fed at in-
stant , and is the corresponding observation. The GeTLS
EXIN learning law becomes the TLS EXIN learning law for
equal to 0.5 [38]. The TLS EXIN problem can also be solved by
scheduling the value of the parameter in GeTLS EXIN, e.g., it
can vary linearly from 0 to 0.5, and then remains constant. This
scheduling improves the transient, the speed, and the accuracy
of the iterative technique [38]. [21] shows that a TLS problem
corresponds to a MCA problem and is equivalent to a particular
DLS problem. Indeed, define as the augmented ma-
trix built by appending the observation vector to the right of the
data matrix. In this case, the linear regression problem can be
reformulated as and can be solved as a homo-
geneous system ; the solution is given by the eigen-
vector associated to the smallest eigenvalue of (MCA).
This eigenvector can be found by minimizing the following error
function:
(14)
which is the Rayleigh quotient of . Hence, the TLS solu-
tion is found by normalizing in order to have the last com-
ponent equal to . Resuming, TLS can be solved by applying
MCA to the augmented matrix . [21] also proves the equiv-
alence between MCA and DLS in a very specific case. Indeed,
setting and (DLS) in (11) yields (14) with .
Hence, the MCA for the matrix is equivalent to the DLS of
the system composed of as the data matrix and of a null obser-
vation vector. In particular, TLS by using MCA can be solved
by using (12) and (13) with and with . The
advantage of this approach is the possibility of using the sched-
uling. This technique is the learning law of the MCA EXIN
+ neuron [21], which is an iterative algorithm from a numer-
ical point of view. It yields better results than other MCA iter-
ative techniques because of its smoother dynamics, faster con-
vergence, and better accuracy, which are the consequence of the
fact that the varying parameter drives toward the solution
in a smooth way. These features allow higher learning rates for
accelerating the convergence and smaller initial conditions (in
[21], it is proven that very low initial conditions speed up the
algorithm).
V. IMPLEMENTATION ISSUES
A. Control System
The MCA EXIN + reduced order observer has been tested
on a “voltage” rotor flux oriented vector control scheme [6], [7]
(Fig. 5). For control purposes, the estimated speed has been fed-
back to a PI speed controller and instantaneously compared with
the measured one to compute the speed error at each instant and
in each working condition. Inside the speed loop there is the
loop. On the direct axis, the voltage is controlled
at a constant value to make the drive automatically work in the
field-weakening region. Inside the loop are, respectively, the
rotor flux-linkage loop and the loop. The voltage source in-
verter (VSI) is driven by an asynchronous space vector modula-
tion algorithm with a switching frequency . The
phase voltages have been computed on the basis of the instan-
taneous measurement of the DC link voltage and the switching
state of the inverter. Moreover, the method proposed in [4] for
the compensation of the on-state voltage drops of the inverter de-
vices has been employed. In the case under study, the employed
IGBT modules, which are the Semikron SMK 50 GB 123, have
been modeled with a threshold voltage and with an
average differential resistance . Finally, the sam-
pling frequency of the acquired signals has been set to 10 kHz, at
which also all control loops work. For reproducibility reasons,
Table II shows all the parameters of the control system adopted
for the experimental implementation.
As for the integration of state (1) of the reduced order ob-
server in the discrete domain, the pure integrator in the con-
tinuous domain has been replaced by the following discrete
CIRRINCIONE et al.: SENSORLESS CONTROL OF INDUCTION MOTORS BY REDUCED ORDER OBSERVER 157

Fig. 5. Implemented FOC scheme.

TABLE II
PARAMETERS OF THE CONTROL SYSTEM

filter in the -domain . This is ob-

tained by the transform of the following discrete equation:

where is the integrator input at the current time sample

and is the corresponding integrator output. This formula Fig. 6. Error surfaces with  = 0 and  = 1 and the MCA EXIN + error
is the sum of a simple Euler integrator and an additional term trajectory versus x.
taking into consideration the values of the integrand variables
in two previous time steps; it guarantees a correct integration of
TABLE III
the state equations, and thus a correct flux estimation with the PARAMETERS OF THE INDUCTION MOTOR
adopted value of differently from the simple forward Euler
integrator .
With reference to the MCA EXIN + reduced order observer,
the only two parameters set by the user have been given the
following values: and (kept constant).
With reference to the parameter , the following scheduling has
been adopted: at each speed transient commanded by the con-
trol system, a linear variation of from 0 to 1 in 0.3 s has been
given. This scheduling has been implemented in software by a
discrete integrator with the constant value 1/0.3 in input, which
permits the output to get the value 1 in 0.3 s with linear law, and
whose output is reset to zero at each change of the reference
speed of the drive. With the above scheduling, the flatness of B. Experimental Setup
the OLS error surface around its minimum, which prevents the The employed test setup consists of the following [6], [7].
algorithm from being fast, is smoothly replaced by a ravine in • A three-phase induction motor with parameters shown in
the corresponding DLS error surface, which speeds up the con- Table III.
vergence to the solution [minimum of (14)] as well as its final • A frequency converter which consists of a three-phase
accuracy. Fig. 6 shows the error surfaces obtained with diode rectifier and a 7.5 kVA, three-phase VSI.
(OLS) and (DLS) and the MCA EXIN + error trajec- • A DC machine for loading the induction machine with pa-
tory versus the two components of with regard to the DLS rameters shown in Table IV.
error surface, obtained when a speed step reference from 0 to • An electronic AC-DC converter (three-phase diode recti-
150 rad/s has been given to the drive without load. It should be fier and a full-bridge DC-DC converter) for supplying the
remarked that the proposed speed observer does not need any DC machine of rated power 4 kVA.
LP filtering of the estimated speed to be fed back to the control • A dSPACE card (DS1103) with a PowerPC 604e at
system, with consequent higher bandwidth of the speed loop. 400 MHz and a floating-point DSP TMS320F240.
158 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 54, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2007
TABLE IV
PARAMETERS OF THE DC MACHINE
C. Hardware Choice
With regard to the hardware implementation of the pro-
posed sensorless control technique, a floating point DSP
(TMS320F240) has been employed, since its programming
needs a lower development time than a fixed point DSP. In
general, the choice between floating or fixed point DSPs is
highly dependent on the application at hand, its complexity, and
its cost reduction needs. For industry products, the production
volumes play a relevant role in this choice: for high volumes,
the lower cost of a fixed point DSP justifies the amount of
any nonrecurring engineering (NRE) cost [39], like control
software development, while for low volumes, the NRE cost
dominates and thereby floating point choice seems to be the
best, as it reduces the development costs. In the industrial
drives market, where high production volumes dominate, the
cost issue is important, and thus the potential implementation
of each technique on fixed point DSP is a real advantage.
The big difference between floating and fixed point DSPs is
the coding of the numbers. Fixed point chips, differently from
floating point ones, need a scaling factor to be managed by the
user. If all variables of the program are normalized between
and 1, not even the scaling factor is needed. Moreover, fixed
point DSPs are also capable of a finer resolution than fixed
point ones (of the same word length) because of the extra bits
in the mantissa. In drive control, the development of the en-
tire control system, including the observer, can be performed
by working in per-unit (p.u.), i.e., by dividing each values by
the corresponding base value: this assumption highly simpli-
fies the transport of the software from floating point to fixed
point format, exploiting also its better resolution. In addition
to this, many development tools have been recently proposed
to convert control software from floating point to fixed point
representation [39].
Some specific suggestions for the implementation on fixed
point DSPs of an MRAC speed controller for a FOC induction
motor drive with a LSs-based parameter estimator are given in
[40]. [40] explicitly addresses the difficulties associated with the
large dynamic range of the covariance matrix (used by the LSs
algorithm) with respect to the finite length of the DSP word. The
proposed solution is the adoption of a double-word fixed point
representation, which increases the dynamic range of the pro-
cessed data, and consequently reduces the rounding/truncation
errors, at the expense of higher execution time.
With regard to the proposed technique, the state equations of
the reduced order observer can be implemented in software by
simple operations (sums and multiplications/divisions) between
quantities in p.u. With specific regard to the MCA EXIN + algo-
rithm, any quantization error, which is larger in fixed point than
in floating point DSPs, can degradate its solution (typical of all
of gradient-based algorithms), with respect to the performance
achievable in infinite precision (see [36] for more details). This
kind of error accumulates in time without bound, leading in the
long run (ten of million of iterations) to an eventual overflow
(the so called numerical divergence). The source of this di-
vergence is both the analog-to-digital (A/D) conversion and the
finite word length used to store all internal algorithmic quanti-
ties. The degradation of the solution is proportional to the condi-
tioning of the input, i.e., to the eigenvalue spectrum of the input
autocorrelation matrix [36]. Decreasing the learning rate in
the infinite precision algorithm leads to improved performance.
Neverthless, this decrease increases the deviation from infinite
precision performance, while its increase magnifies numerical
errors, so a tradeoff is required [41]. A technique for avoiding
overflows caused by this kind of divergence, at the expense of
some increase of complexity and small degradation of the solu-
tion, is the technique called leakage (see [36] for its details).
Finally, the MCA EXIN + algorithm does not need partic-
ularly critical operations (the most complex operation is a dot
product between vectors of dimension two) and explicitly em-
ploys neither the covariance matrix [40] nor its inverse compu-
tation, as needed in some versions of the recursive least-squares
(RLSs). In any case, it should be remarked that, independently
of the DSP choice, the elements of data matrix and the obser-
vation vector (both bidimensional vectors) processed by the
MCA EXIN + algorithm must be properly scaled before pro-
cessing, so that the estimated will result in a quantity ranging
between and 1, otherwise, the effect of the parameter in
(11) is null. This intrinsic algorithm demand further facilitates
the potential conversion of the software into fixed point format.
D. Computational Complexity
From the computational point of view, the MCA EXIN + re-
duced order observer has been compared here with some neural
network-based observers, in particular, the TLS EXIN full-order
observer [12] and the TLS EXIN MRAS observer with adap-
tive neural integrator [6], and with the classic full-order ob-
server [8]. This comparison has been done on the basis of the
number of floating operations (flops) needed by each algorithm
for every iteration. The comparison is shown in Table V. If the
correction term is not adopted in the proposed observer,
the most demanding observer is the TLS EXIN full-order ob-
server which requires 126 flops + 3 IF-THEN instructions and
then there is the MCA EXIN + reduced order speed observer
with 120 flops + 4 IF-THEN instructions. If the correction term
is adopted, the proposed observer is the most complex,
with 147 flops + 4 IF-THEN instructions. However, a series of
experimental tests performed with and without this term have
shown that the MCA EXIN + reduced order observer can be im-
plemented either without the without a significant wors-
ening of the performance of the flux and speed estimation. Then,
there is the TLS EXIN MRAS observer with the adaptive neural
integrator which requires 87 flops + 3 IF-THEN instructions,
and finally the classic full-order observer requiring 76 flops.
However, it should be remarked that both the TLS EXIN
full-order observer in [12] and the classic full-order observer in
[8] are implemented with a matrix gain correction term which
is null, i.e., without any feedback term. The adoption of such a
term would require the product of a (2 4) matrix for a (4 1)
CIRRINCIONE et al.: SENSORLESS CONTROL OF INDUCTION MOTORS BY REDUCED ORDER OBSERVER 159

TABLE V
COMPLEXITY OF THE PROPOSED OBSERVER COMPARED WITH OTHERS IN LITERATURE

Fig. 7. Reference, estimated, and measured speed during a 50–0–50 rad/s test at no-load (experimental).

vector, where the gain matrix could be either constant or variable
with the speed of the machine in dependence on the desired ob-
server dynamics, and thus would highly increase the complexity
of both observers. It can be concluded that with in all
cases the reduced order observer requires fewer flops than the
full-order ones. In any case, the total flops of the different ob-
servers is of the same order.
VI. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
The proposed MCA EXIN + reduced order observer has been
verified in simulation and experimentally on a test setup (see
appendix). Moreover the results obtained experimentally have
been compared with those obtained with the full-order classic
adaptive observer proposed in [8]. The parameters of the full-
order classic observer are exactly the same as those suggested
in [8]. Note also that in the full-order classic observer no com-
pensation of the inverter nonlinearity has been considered. On
the other hand, the parameter estimation method of [8] has been
adopted in the full-order classic observer only. Simulations have
been performed in Matlab®–Simulink®. With regard to the ex-
perimental tests the speed observer as well as the whole control
algorithm have been implemented by software on the DSP of
the dSPACE 1103.
160
Fig. 8. Reference, estimated, and measured speed during a set of speed step references (experimental).
A. Dynamic Performances
As a first test, the drive has been operated at the constant
speed of 50 rad/s at no-load, then a zero step reference has been
given and the drive has been operated at zero-speed for almost
2 s, and then a step speed reference of 50 rad/s at no-load has
been given. Fig. 7 shows the waveforms of the reference, esti-
mated (used in the feedback loop), and measured speed during
this test. It shows that the measured speed and the estimated one
both follow correctly the reference, even at zero-speed.
Subsequently, the transient behavior of the observer at very
low speeds has been tested. First, the drive has been given a set
of speed step references at very low speed, ranging from 3 rad/s
(28.65 rpm) to 6 rad/s (57.29 rpm). Fig. 8 shows the wave-
forms of the reference, estimated and measured speed during
this test, and Table VI shows the 3 dB bandwidth of the speed
loop versus the reference speed of the drive. Both Fig. 8 and
Table VI show a very good dynamic behavior of the drive with
a bandwidth which, however, decreases from 69.3 rad/s at the
reference speed of 6 rad/s to 12.3 rad/s at 3 rad/s. This con-
sideration is confirmed by Fig. 9 which shows the reference,
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 54, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2007
TABLE VI
BANDWIDTH OF THE SPEED LOOP VERSUS THE REFERENCE
SPEED (EXPERIMENTAL)
estimated, and measured speed during a set of speed reversal,
respectively, from 3 to , from 4 to , from 5
to , and from 6 to . These last figures show
that the drive is able to perform a speed reversal also at very low
speeds, i.e., in very challenging conditions. However, it should
be noted that the lower the speed reference, the higher the time
needed for the speed reversal, as expected, because of the reduc-
tion of the speed bandwidth of the observer at decreasing speed
references, which is typical of all observers.
B. Low-Speed Limits
In this test, the drive has been operated at a constant very
low-speed (3 rad/s corresponding to 28.65 rpm), at no-load and
rated load. Fig. 10 shows the reference, estimated, and measured
speed during these tests. It shows that the steady-state speed
CIRRINCIONE et al.: SENSORLESS CONTROL OF INDUCTION MOTORS BY REDUCED ORDER OBSERVER 161

Fig. 9. Reference, estimated, and measured speed during a set of speed reversal (experimental).

Fig. 10. Reference, estimated, and measured speed during a constant speed of 3 rad/s at no-load and rated load with the MCA EXIN + reduced order observer
(experimental).
162 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 54, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2007

Fig. 11. Reference, estimated and measured speed during a constant speed of 4 rad/s at no-load and rated load with the classic full-order observer (experimental).

Fig. 12. Reference, measured , estimated speed, and load torque at the constant speed reference of 30 rad/s with two consecutive load torque steps of 65 Nm
(experimental).

estimation error is very low, equal to 2.45% at no-load and to when giving a constant reference speed of 4 rad/s (38.19 rpm),
7.67% with rated load. For comparison reasons, the test has been at no-load and at rated load for the classic full-order observer. It,
also performed with the full-order classic observer [8]: Fig. 11 therefore, shows that the mean estimation error is about 30% at
shows the reference, estimated, and measured speed, obtained no-load and 30.5% at rated load. The comparison shows a better
CIRRINCIONE et al.: SENSORLESS CONTROL OF INDUCTION MOTORS BY REDUCED ORDER OBSERVER 163

Fig. 13. (a) Reference, estimated, measured speed, and position at zero-speed at no-load (experimental). (b) Reference, estimated, measured speed, and position
at zero-speed with 5 Nm load torque (experimental).

accuracy in the speed estimation of the MCA EXIN + reduced
order observer than the one the classic full-order adaptive ob-
server, even at a higher reference speed (4 rad/s against 3 rad/s).
Below 2 rad/s, however, the speed accuracy estimation of the
MCA EXIN + reduced order observer drastically reduces.
C. Rejection to Load Perturbations
In this test, to verify the robustness of the speed response of
the proposed observer to a sudden torque perturbation, the drive
has been operated at the constant speed of 30 rad/s and two
subsequent load torque square waveforms of amplitude
have been applied. Fig. 12 shows the reference, measured, and
estimated speed during this test, as well as the applied load
torque, created by the torque of a controlled DC machine. These
figures show that the drive response occurs immediately when
the torque steps are given. Moreover, even during the speed tran-
sient caused by the torque step, the estimated speed follows the
real one very well.
164
Fig. 14. Reference, estimated, measured speed, and speed estimation error during zero-speed operation at no-load with the classic full-order observer (experiment).
D. Zero-Speed Operation
Finally, to test the zero-speed operation capability of the ob-
server, the drive has been operated for 60 s fully magnetized at
zero-speed with no-load. Fig. 13(a), which shows the reference,
estimated, measured speed and position during this test shows
the zero-speed capability of this observer, and highlights a not
perceptible movement of the rotor during this test, which is con-
firmed from the graph of the measured position. The same kind
of test has been performed at the constant load torque of 5 Nm.
Fig. 13(b) shows the reference, estimated, measured speed and
position during this test, and highlights that the measured speed
is in average close to zero and the rotor has an undesired angular
movement of 2 rad, achieved in 60 s with a constant applied
load torque of 5 Nm. This is the ultimate working condition at
zero-speed. Above 5 Nm load torque, the rotor begins to move
and instability occurs. For comparison reasons, Fig. 14 shows
the reference, estimated, measured speed, and the instantaneous
speed estimation error obtained with the classic full-order ob-
server [8] at zero-speed with no-load. The classic observer at
almost 15 s after the magnetization of the machine, has an un-
stable behavior and the machine eventually runs at 45 rad/s
with a mean speed estimation error of 13.74 rad/s. The com-
parison shows a better accuracy in the speed estimation of the
MCA EXIN + reduced order observer than the classic full-order
adaptive observer, which has an unstable behavior after a few
seconds.
VII. CONCLUSION
This paper presents a new sensorless technique which is based
on a reduced order observer where the speed is estimated by
a new neural LSs-based technique, the MCA EXIN + neuron.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 54, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2007
This work deals with those sensorless techniques of induction
machine drives based on the fundamental harmonic of the mmf.
In particular, it is in the framework of previous LSs based sen-
sorless techniques developed by the authors. However, the target
of this work is the design of an observer with performances com-
parable to those obtainable with the full-order Luenberger ob-
server, but with lower computational burden. The main original
aspects of this work are the following: 1) the development of two
original choices of a gain matrix of the observer, one of which
(the FPP choice) ensures the poles of the observer to be fixed on
one point of the real axis, in spite of the variation of the speed
of the motor, with a resulting dynamic behavior of the flux es-
timation of the observer independent of the rotor speed and 2)
the adoption of a completely new speed estimation law based
on the MCA EXIN + neuron, which guarantees lower operating
speed at no-load and rated load, good estimation accuracy also
in speed transient and correct zero-speed operation. The choice
of the MCA EXIN + neuron allows the observer to take into
consideration the measurement flux modeling errors, which in-
fluence the accuracy of the speed estimation.
A suitable test setup has been developed for the experimental
assessment of the methodology. An experimental compar-
ison with the classic full-order observer has shown that the
MCA EXIN + reduced order observer can work correctly
down to 3 rad/s (28.65 rpm), while the classic full-order ob-
server presents a worse speed estimation accuracy at 4 rad/s
(38.19 rpm). Moreover, the MCA EXIN + reduced order
observer works properly at zero-speed without load and with
medium/low loads, whereas the classic full-order observer has
not the same performance, at least with the observer tuning
proposed in [8].
CIRRINCIONE et al.: SENSORLESS CONTROL OF INDUCTION MOTORS BY REDUCED ORDER OBSERVER
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Maurizio Cirrincione (M’03) received the Laurea
degree in electrical engineering from the Politecnico
of Turin, Turin, Italy, in 1991 and the Ph.D. degree
in electrical engineering from the University of
Palermo, Palermo, Italy.
From 1996 to 2005, he has been a Researcher at
the Section of Palermo, ISSIA-CNR (Institute on
Intelligent Systems for the Automation), Palermo.
Since 2005, he has been a Full Professor of Con-
trol Systems at the Technological University of
Belfort-Montbéliard, France His current research
interests are neural networks for modeling and control, system identification,
intelligent control, electrical machines, and drives.
Dr. Cirrincione was awarded the prize “E.R.Caianiello” for the Best Italian
Ph.D. Thesis on neural networks.
166 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 54, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2007
Marcello Pucci (M’03) received the Laurea degree
and Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the
University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy, in 1997 and
2002, respectively.
In 2000, he was a host student at the Institut of
Automatic Control, Technical University of Braun-
schweig, Germany, working in the field of control of
AC machines. Since 2001, he has been a Researcher
at the Section of Palermo, ISSIA-CNR (Institute on
Intelligent Systems for the Automation), Palermo.
His current research interests are electrical machines,
control, diagnosis and identification techniques of electrical drives, intelligent
control, and power converters.
Giansalvo Cirrincione (M’03) received the Laurea
degree in electrical engineering from the Politec-
nico of Turin, Turin, Italy, in 1991 and the Ph.D
degree from the Laboratoire d’Informatique et
Signaux (LIS) de l’Institut National Polytechnique
de Grenoble (INPG), Grenoble, France, in 1998.
He was a Postdoctoral at the Department of Sig-
nals, identification, system theory and automation
(SISTA), Leuven University, Leuven, Belgium,
in 1999 and since 2000, he has been an Assistant
Professor at the University of Picardie-Jules Verne,
Amiens, France. Since 2005, he has been Visiting Professor at the Section of
Palermo, ISSIA-CNR (Institute on Intelligent Systems for the Automation),
Palermo, Italy. His current research interests are neural networks, data analysis,
computer vision, brain models, and system identification.
Gérard-André Capolino (A’77–M’82–SM’89–
F’02) received the B.Sc. degree in electrical en-
gineering from Ecole Supérieure d’Ingénieurs de
Marseille, Marseille, France, in 1974, the M.Sc.
degree from Ecole Supérieure d’Electricité, Paris,
France, in 1975, the Ph.D. degree from the University
Aix-Marseille I, Marseille, in 1978, and the D.Sc.
degree from the Institut National Polytechnique de
Grenoble, Grenoble, France, in 1987.
In 1978, he joined the University of Yaoundé
(Cameroon) as an Associate Professor and Head
of the Department of Electrical Engineering. From 1981 to 1994, he has
been Associate Professor at the University of Dijon, Dijon, France, and the
Mediterranean Institute of Technology, Marseille, where he was founder and
Director of the Modeling and Control Systems Laboratory. From 1983 to
1985, he was Visiting Professor at the University of Tunis, Tunisia. From 1987
to 1989, he was the Scientific Advisor of the Technicatome SA Company,
Aix-en-Provence, France. In 1994, he joined the University of Picardie “Jules
Verne,” Amiens, France, as a Full Professor, Head of the Department of
Electrical Engineering (1995–1998), and Director of the Energy Conversion
and Intelligent Systems Laboratory (1996–2000). He is now Director of the
Graduate School in Electrical Engineering, University of Picardie “Jules
Verne.” In 1995, he was a Fellow European Union Distinguished Professor
of Electrical Engineering at Polytechnic University of Catalunya, Barcelona,
Spain. Since 1999, he has been the Director of the Open European Labora-
tory on Electrical Machines (OELEM), a network of excellence between 50
partners from the European Union. He has published more than 250 papers
in scientific journals and conference proceedings since 1975. He has been the
Advisor of 13 Ph.D. and numerous M.Sc. students. In 1990, he has founded
the European Community Group for teaching electromagnetic transients and
he has coauthored the book Simulation & CAD for Electrical Machines, Power
Electronics and Drives (ERASMUS Program Edition). His research interests
are electrical machines, electrical drives power electronics, and control systems
related to power electrical engineering.
Prof. Capolino is the Chairman of the France Chapter of the IEEE Power
Electronics, Industrial Electronics and Industry Applications Societies and the
Vice-Chairman of the IEEE France Section. He is also member of the AdCom
of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society. He is the co-founder of the IEEE
International Symposium for Diagnostics of Electrical Machines Power Elec-
tronics and Drives (IEEE-SDEMPED) that was held for the first time in 1997.
He is a member of steering committees for several high reputation international
conferences. Since November 1999, he has been Associate Editor of the IEEE
TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS.