Sensorless Control of PMSM using SMC and Sensor Fault Detection Observer

In this article is presented a type of sensorless control system for a PMSM using a Sliding Mode Control (SMC) type controller, which replaces the PI-type controller of a PMSM rotor speed control loop, and the speed is estimated using a Sliding Mode Observer (SMO) type observer. For the detection of the faults from power supply lines given by current sensors of the PMSM, the Fault Detection Observer (FDO) type observer is used. The equations of the SMC-type controller, of the SMO-type observer, and of the fault detection observer, as well as their implementation in Matlab/Simulink graphical programming environment are presented in this article. Following the numerical simulations, the special performances of the SMC-type controller are presented, but also as compared to the PI speed controller in the classic Field Oriented Control (FOC) type structure. The FDO-type observer has a good response time and works with good results even under the conditions where uniformly distributed disturbances act on the system. The future papers will approach the methods of implementation in real time in embedded system of the SMC control and of the described observers.