Reduction in Harmonics of BLDC Motor Drive Using Controlled LC Filter

Abstract

Brushless DC (BLDC) motor drives have witnessed an increasing demand in recent times for various industrial applications. One of the main advantage of these motors is that they can be controlled in a wide frequency range. Harmonic mitigation plays a vital role in improving the drive performance and further increases the longevity of motor. There are methods which reduce the harmonic distortion but these are limited to a narrow frequency band. This article deals with a novel filter mechanism by introducing a servo controlled inductor instead of fixed LC filters to improve the THD of the drive. The proposed strategy is advantageous over wide frequency range and hence over complete speed range of BLDC motor drives and is verified via simulations using MATLAB/Simulink and experimented on a laboratory setup of a 3 kW, 48 V, 8 pole pair, 400 Hz BLDC motor and a three-phase IGBT-based inverter. TI’s DSP TMS320F2812 is used as a central controller to implement the control algorithm. Results presented in this article validate the effectiveness of the proposed strategy.

Keywords:

• BLDC motor
• speed control
• controlled inductor filter
• harmonic compensation

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Parag Suresh Chaudhari

Parag S Chaudhari received the B.E. degree in Electrical Engineering in 1997 and M.E. degree in Control Systems in 2001 from Pune University, India. He is pursuing his Ph.D. in the area of advanced electrical drives from Pune University, India. He has over 7 years of experience in teaching and 14 years in research and development. He is currently working as a Senior Scientist in Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), Pune, India. He is working in the field of power electronics, control systems and electrical drives. He has published technical papers in various international conferences. He is a Member of Indian Society for Technical Education (ISTE) and Institution of Engineers (IE) India. His area of interest includes power electronics and electrical drives.

Sanjaykumar L. Patil

Prof. S L Patil received the B.E. degree in Electronics and Industrial Electronics Engineering in 1991 from the University of Pune, India and M. E in Instrumentation Engineering in 1994 from Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University. He received Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, India in 2009. During his outstanding academic career spanning 25 years, he has served in various Engineering Colleges. Presently he is Professor and Dean Student Affairs, College of Engineering, Pune. He has published several technical papers in national and international journals including IEEE. He was a member of the Board of studies of many Technical Institutions. He is also a member of professional societies like IEEE- Industrial Electronics society, Indian Society for Technical Education (ISTE) and Instrumentation Society of India (ISOI). His research area includes power electronics, power converters and non conventional energy.