Performance Improvement in BLDC Motor Drive Using Self-Tuning PID Controller

BLDC motors are dominating modern trend in industry to shift to use of highly efficient and compact permanent magnet motors for various applications. Moreover, electric vehicle industry has seen BLDC motors as most reliable and versatile motors for constantly changing industrial needs. However, dynamics of a BLDC motor are largely governed by its drive performance. Conventionally, PI and PID controllers have been used for decades for speed control of a BLDC motor which have a disadvantage that they need to be tuned or retuned for any change in operating point to derive optimal performance. Recent developments in control systems have made it possible to auto-tune PID controller to get optimal performance for various operating speeds. This paper proposes a self-tuning PID controller for control of BLDC motor for wide speed range. The speed performance of the drive is compared with traditional PID controller to prove its effectiveness using MATLAB based simulation study.