IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 51, NO.

6, DECEMBER 2004 1329

Direct Torque and Frequency Control of

Double-Inverter-Fed Slip-Ring
Induction Motor Drive
Gautam Poddar and V. T. Ranganathan, Senior Member, IEEE

Abstract—A novel sensorless scheme for direct torque and fre- A more versatile configuration is one where both the stator
quency control of a double-inverter-fed slip-ring induction motor is and the rotor of a slip-ring machine are fed from variable-fre-
presented. The analysis of a double-inverter-fed induction motor is quency inverters. The resulting drive can operate in all four
given to derive the proposed controller. Various frequency profiles
are analyzed for a direct frequency controller. A novel frequency quadrants of the torque–speed plane [3]. The vector control
profile is suggested to make the sensorless drive operation reliable scheme proposed by Kawabata et al. uses two separate torque
and machine parameter independent at any rotor speed. Simula- current controllers for the stator and the rotor inverters. It
tion and experimental results are presented from a 50-hp drive, is shown in the present work that the torque components of
demonstrating that the drive can deliver full torque from 0 to 2-p.u. currents on the two sides are proportional to each other (5).
speed in either direction. Thus, double the rated power can be ex-
tracted from the motor without overloading it. Therefore, controlling them simultaneously but independently
can lead to instability problems. Practically, during transient
Index Terms—Double inverter, sensorless control, slip-ring
motor. operation, the condition given in (5) cannot be met by using
separate proportional–integral (PI) current controllers. Further-
more, the scheme requires operation of the inverters at very
NOMENCLATURE low fundamental frequency at some speeds of operation. It is
, Stator and rotor self inductances, respectively. also sensitive to machine parameters and exhibits excessive
Mutual inductance. overshoot in the torque component of current during reversal.
, Stator and rotor leakage factors. In [7], the authors of this paper demonstrated the sensorless
Total leakage factor. vector control operation of this double-inverter-fed slip-ring
, Stator and rotor resistances, respectively. drive with torque current control only from the stator side. A
Stator current vector in stationary reference frame. simple scalar control on the rotor side is proposed there.
Rotor current vector in rotor reference frame. No abnormal rise in machine currents is noticed during all
Stator voltage vector in stationary reference frame. transient operations. However, this sensorless vector control
Rotor voltage vector in rotor reference frame. scheme is dependent on the estimation of machine leakage
Stator supply frequency with respect to stationary parameters.
frame. In this paper, a new scheme for direct torque and frequency
Rotor supply frequency with respect to rotor frame. control of the double-inverter-fed slip-ring induction motor is
Rotor speed in electrical radians per second. proposed. The scheme takes into account the proportionality
between the torque current components on the two sides and
thereby avoids instability problems in current control. By using
I. INTRODUCTION novel frequency versus speed profiles for the two inverters,
it is ensured that the fundamental frequency of operation on
A grid-connected slip-ring induction motor with current
injection on the rotor side can be operated in supersyn-
chronous mode to produce up to two times the rated nominal
either side is always above a certain minimum value. This in
turn means that simple sensorless schemes can be used for
estimating the machine flux. The resulting control thus has very
power. The current injection can be achieved using either a
little dependence on machine parameters. However, a direct
cycloconverter [1] or back-to-back voltage-source inverters [2].
torque control (DTC) type of bang-bang control scheme does
The grid-connected machine, however, is not capable of speed
not ensure the constant inverter switching frequency unlike the
reversal without change of connections.
sensorless vector control scheme presented in [7]. The proposed
direct control scheme for torque and frequency enables fast
Manuscript received November 19, 2002; revised January 2, 2004. Abstract dynamic control over the speed range of 2 p.u., including
published on the Internet September 10, 2004. This work was supported by the
Ministry of Information Technology, Government of India. zero speed. Results from simulation as well as an experimental
G. Poddar is with the Power Electronics Group, Electronics Research and De- 50-hp drive are presented to demonstrate the performance of
velopment Centre of India, Trivandrum 695 033, India (e-mail: gautam@erdc- the scheme.
itvm.org). Since the full torque can be obtained up to twice rated speed,
V. T. Ranganathan is with the Electrical Engineering Department, Indian In-
stitute of Science, Bangalore 560 012, India (e-mail: [email protected]). the power output can be up to twice the rating of the machine.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIE.2004.837897 The drive is, therefore, an attractive alternative in high-power
0278-0046/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
1330 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 51, NO. 6, DECEMBER 2004

TABLE I
COMPARISON OF HIGH-POWER DRIVES USING VARIOUS MOTORS FOR A
TYPICAL 1-MW RATING

Fig. 2. Stator flux and rotor flux of the motor with respect to the rotor and the
stator.

grid. Otherwise, a simple diode rectifier can be the cost-effec-

tive alternative to the sophisticated front-end converter. Unlike
the grid-connected slip-ring motor drive with rotor-side control
scheme [2], the front-end converter is not essential here. Now,
the machine analysis is given to identify the control method suit-
able for this configuration.

A. Machine Torque and Torque Current

At any instant of time, the stator flux vector, rotor flux vector,
and the rotor position are shown in Fig. 2 with respect to the
stator axis. The equation of the stator flux in the stator coordinate
system is

(1)

The air-gap flux in the stator coordinate is

(2)
and the rotor flux equation in the rotor coordinates is

(3)
Fig. 1. Double-inverter-fed slip-ring induction motor drive.

The developed electromagnetic torque of the machine is

applications to other schemes with complex topologies such as
three-level inverters and cycloconverters. A comparison of high- (4)
power drives using various motors is given in Table I for a typ-
ical 1-MW rating to establish the advantage of this drive in terms Therefore, the torque is proportional to the vector product of two
of power ratings. The drives considered here are meant for vari- currents ( ). Now, both these currents are resolved along
able-speed operation down to zero speed, with speed reversal. the air-gap flux ( ) axis as shown in Fig. 3. The following
In applications where the speed range is limited and centered results are obtained:
around the synchronous speed, the grid-connected slip-ring in-
(5)
duction machine with rotor-side control [2] is the economical
solution. (6)

II. FUNDAMENTALS OF BASIC CONFIGURATION From the above equations, it is clear that the quadrature-axis
stator current generates the machine torque. The rotor
The configuration of a double-inverter-fed induction motor quadrature-axis current is developed automatically as the
drive is shown in Fig. 1. A three-phase insulated gate bipolar reflection of . Hence, the machine torque is required to be
transistor (IGBT) inverter feeds power to the slip-ring induc- controlled only from one side, for example, the stator side.
tion motor through its stator terminals. Another three-phase in- From (1), (3), and (4), the electromagnetic torque can be
verter feeds power to the same motor through its rotor termi- rewritten as
nals. Both the inverters have a common dc bus. This dc bus is
interfaced with the three-phase grid through a converter as in (7)
a conventional drive. If the regenerative braking is desired for
high-power drives, then a front-end converter may be chosen be- The above equation shows that the electromagnetic torque is
tween dc bus and the grid to deliver the regenerative power to the also the cross product of the stator and rotor fluxes, i.e., the
PODDAR AND RANGANATHAN: DOUBLE-INVERTER-FED SLIP-RING INDUCTION MOTOR DRIVE 1331

The above equations show that there are changes in values of

-axis fluxes from no load to full load. This leads to changes
in , , and [see (8), (13), and (14)]. However, for prac-
tical machines, the leakage factors and are very small.
Assuming rated constant flux magnitudes for and , the
variations of -axis flux magnitudes from no load to full load
will be less than 5%. Hence, the choice of and can de-
termine the magnetizing current and the sharing of magnetizing
current completely.

III. PROPOSED CONTROL METHOD

Fig. 3. Phasor diagram of machine fluxes and currents with air-gap flux
orientation. The block diagram of the proposed controller is shown in
Fig. 4.
product of , , and the sine of angle between two fluxes
A. Stator-Side Controller
(Fig. 2). Therefore, the controlled variations of the angle con-
trol the machine torque directly and the torque current indirectly. As mentioned earlier, there is a torque controller to control
the stator-side inverter. The algorithm is based on DTC [4]–[6].
B. Machine Fluxes and Sharing of Magnetizing Current In this method, the electromagnetic torque ( ) of the machine
The rotor flux magnitude ( ) and the stator flux magnitude is derived from the stator flux ( ) and the stator currents ( )
( ) control the air-gap flux magnitude ( ) as follows. as follows.
Applying air-gap flux orientation on machine flux (1)–(3), From (1) and (4), the machine torque can be rewritten as

(8) (16)
(9)
Now, from (1), and in the – frame of stationary
(10) coordinates are derived as follows:
(11)
(12)

Solving (9) and (10), we get

(13) (17)

(14) The stator voltages and in the – frame are calculated

based on the measurements of dc-bus voltage and the switching
From (8), it is seen that the air-gap flux magnitude ( ) is states of the inverter. To represent the switching state of the in-
constant as long as ( ) is constant. Equations (13) and verter (Fig. 5), the switching function for phase 1is defined
(14) state that and depend on -axis stator flux ( ) and as follows: when the upper switch of phase 1 is on
-axis rotor flux ( ) completely. At no load, -axis fluxes on and when the lower switch of phase 1 is on. Similar
both sides ( ) become zero [see (11) and (12))]. There- definitions can be made for phases 2 and 3. Now, the voltage
fore, at that condition, the stator flux magnitude equals the equations are
-axis flux and the rotor flux magnitude equals the -axis
flux . The proper values of and references can pro-
duce definite values of , , and the net magnetizing current
in the machine [see (8), (13), and (14)]. Thus, the selection (18)
of and references can control the sharing of magnetizing
current between the stator winding and the rotor winding of the The stator line currents are expressed in the frame as
machine. follows:
However, with load, the -axis fluxes ( ) on both sides
of the machine become nonzero. Now, if the stator and the rotor
fluxes ( , ) are kept constant, then using (11) and (12),
-axis fluxes can be written as (19)

Now, the stator flux angular velocity is obtained from the fol-
lowing equation:

(15) (20)
1332 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 51, NO. 6, DECEMBER 2004

Fig. 4. Overall block diagram of the controller.

Fig. 6. Different inverter voltage vectors and the flux path on – frame.
Fig. 5. Typical voltage-source inverter.

Therefore, the stator flux position is derived as To get the correct voltage vector at each instant, the following
method is adopted. The – plane is divided into six sectors. At
(21) every instant, is estimated using (21) to get the sector number
that contains the stator flux at that moment. For example, in
There are eight voltage vectors ( , Fig. 6 the stator flux lies on the sector number II and rotates
) available for the voltage-source inverter. in the anticlockwise direction. The rotor flux trails the stator
They are shown in Fig. 6 in the – stationary coordinate flux. If it is required to increase the torque, the stator flux has
system. Among them, there are six nonzero voltage vectors to be accelerated to increase the angle between the stator flux
( , ) and two zero voltage and the rotor flux as explained earlier [see (7)]. Therefore, the
vectors ( , ). When one of six active voltage vector or can be selected. Now, if the stator flux
voltage vectors is chosen for the inverter, then the end of magnitude has to be increased, then the voltage vector has
moves parallel to the voltage vector chosen. On the other to be selected for the inverter. Otherwise, has to be selected.
hand, the null vectors stop the flux, whenever they are applied Similarly, to decrease the torque, or can be selected.
to the inverter. By selecting appropriate voltage vector , the The flux magnitude error will decide the final voltage vector
end of rotates at the frequency along the zigzag line uniquely among those two voltage vectors. For other sectors the
shown in Fig. 6. However, the average locus of is circular, unique voltage vector can also be selected at each instant on the
as shown by the dotted line in Fig. 6. basis of torque error and the flux error.
PODDAR AND RANGANATHAN: DOUBLE-INVERTER-FED SLIP-RING INDUCTION MOTOR DRIVE 1333

control is required to control the sharing of magnetizing current

between the two sides.
A constant type pulsewidth-modulation (PWM) con-
troller is used to keep the rotor flux ( ) approximately con-
stant to its reference value. Here, also, (8), (13), and (14) are
used to determine the rotor flux reference, i.e., ratio. At
any particular rotor speed ( ), the constant -type PWM
controller directly controls the rotor flux angular velocity ( ).
The corresponding stator flux angular velocity ( ) has a unique
Fig. 7. Bang-bang torque control.
value conforming to (22). So, this method of rotor-side control
is termed as direct frequency control.
The null vector should be used here carefully. It stops the stator
flux andholdsthefluxmagnitudeconstant.Duringmotoringoper- C. Frequency Command Generation for Rotor-Side Controller
ation, the stator flux leads the rotor flux as shown in Fig. 6. During
this operation if the null vector is applied to the motor, the stator From (22) it can be seen that for any particular rotor speed
flux stops and the rotor flux continues to move toward the stator ( ), there are infinite combinations of stator flux frequency
flux. The torque angle (Fig. 2) starts collapsing, which reduces ( ) and the rotor flux frequency ( ) possible. Here, the rotor
the torque magnitude gradually. However, during regeneration, flux frequency is varied directly in open loop. Since the direct
the rotor flux leads the stator flux. Now, if the stator flux is stopped torque controller forces the stator flux to follow the rotor flux
using the null vector, the rotor flux moves away from the stator closely, the stator flux frequency is automatically established
flux. As a result, the torque angle starts increasing and the torque obeying (22). The direct rotor flux frequency command ( ) is
magnitude also increases gradually. chosen in such a way that the rotor flux and/or stator flux do
Finally, the stator-side controller is developed with the fol- not rotate at very low frequency at any rotor speed ( ). At very
lowing modules. It has a PI controller to control the rotor speed low rotor flux frequency, it is very difficult to maintain the rotor
( ) to the reference value ( ). The rotor speed is estimated flux constant by simply keeping the ratio constant. At
from the rotor frequency ( ) and the stator frequency ( ) as very low stator frequency, the DTC algorithm also fails due to
follows: the drifting of pure integrator and the inaccurate estimation of
stator resistance drop.
(22) Therefore, several rotor flux frequency command profiles are
developed to limit the lowest frequency on either side of the
The output of the speed controller is the torque reference ( ) motor to 12 Hz (for a 50-Hz machine) at all operating condi-
of the machine. Using (16), the actual machine torque ( ) is tions. One of these profiles is presented in this paper. This pro-
estimated and compared with the torque reference to get the posed rotor flux frequency command ( ) is shown as a func-
torque error. The stator flux magnitude reference ( ) can be tion of estimated rotor speed ( ) in Fig. 8. Fig. 9 shows the
chosen on the basis of rated flux of the machine and the sharing corresponding stator flux frequency. It is clear from Figs. 8 and
of magnetizing current by the stator-side inverter ((8), (13) and 9 that the stator flux and the rotor flux always rotate above
(14)). The stator flux magnitude ( ) is estimated from (17) and 25% of the rated frequency. As mentioned earlier, the stator
compared with the reference flux to estimate the flux error. As flux frequency is developed automatically by the torque control
mentioned earlier, the torque error and the flux error are the basis process, whereas the PWM controller develops the rotor flux
of selection of proper voltage vectors to reduce the errors. Thus, frequency directly.
the flux and the torque controllers are of the bang-bang type. There are some frequency-reference jumps around the rotor
To control the switching frequency of the inverter, there is speed 30 Hz. They do not lead to any current overshoots in the
a small flux band ( ) and a torque band ( ) as shown in motor as long as the stator-side current control (torque control)
Figs. 6 and 7. When the torque error and the flux error are within is very fast. This is ensured by the DTC on the stator side. For
those bands, there is no change in voltage vector selection for rotor speeds above 35 Hz, the rotor flux frequency command
the inverter. Whenever the error crosses the band, an updated follows the following equation:
voltage vector is applied to the motor to reduce the error. Thus, (23)
the actual torque and flux are made to follow the respective ref-
erence values. By setting the proper torque and flux error band- Below 30-Hz rotor speed, the rotor flux frequency command
width, the inverter switching frequency can be controlled within can follow either of two profiles as shown in Fig. 8. In one part
the safe limit of the switching devices. of the profile, the rotor flux frequency command is kept con-
stant at 47 Hz for a particular direction of rotor speed. In the
B. Rotor-Side Controller other direction of rotation, the rotor flux frequency command is
As mentioned earlier, the stator-side torque controller con- generated from the following equation:
trols the torque current on the rotor side. So, there is no need for (24)
a separate torque or torque current controller on the rotor side.
However, the rotor flux magnitude ( ) determines the sharing The rotor flux frequency command profile forms a hysterisis
of magnetizing current by the rotor-side inverter. Therefore, flux loop at low rotor speed.
1334 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 51, NO. 6, DECEMBER 2004

Now, from (22) and (23), it is seen that

(26)

the sign of and are the same, i.e., during motoring opera-
tion of the machine, both the stator inverter and the rotor inverter
feed the power to the machine. On the other hand, during regen-
eration, both inverters draw power from the machine and feed it
to the common dc bus. This is called supersynchronous opera-
tion of the machine.
Now, each 1-p.u. inverter is capable of producing rated torque
( ) at rated frequency ( ). When these inverters op-
erate at a condition conforming to (26), the net output power
developed from the machine is

Fig. 8. Rotor frequency command versus rotor speed. (27)

Therefore, the motor output power becomes twice the rated

power. This is a very attractive advantage of this drive for
high-power applications. At this condition, the rotor speed ( )
becomes twice the rated speed [see (26)].
For rotor speeds below 30 Hz, the rotor flux frequency and
the stator flux frequency have the same sign. However, their
magnitudes are different. Therefroe, from (25), it is clear that
and have the opposite sign. During motoring operation,
the stator-side inverter feeds power to the machine (25) when
. At this condition, the rotor-side inverter draws
power from the machine and feeds it back to the common dc
bus (25). The balance power is equal to the net output power
from the machine ( ). For any given load torque ,

Fig. 9. Stator frequency versus rotor speed. (28)

On the contrary, the stator-side inverter draws power in excess

A 5-Hz rotor speed band (from 30 to 35 Hz) is provided in from the machine and feeds it to the dc bus during regenera-
the rotor flux frequency command profile to avoid the rotor fre- tion when . At this condition, the rotor-side inverter
quency jittering during the frequency jumps. draws power from the dc bus and feeds it to the machine. The
The frequency profiles shown are interchangeable, i.e., the balance power is again equal to the net electrical power ( ) of
given stator flux frequency plot can be used as a rotor flux fre- the machine.
quency command. Then, the generated stator flux frequency plot Therefore, there is always a circulation of power from the
will be the present rotor flux frequency command. stator to the rotor through the machine or vice versa. This is
called the subsynchronous operation of the machine.
D. Power Flow From Stator and Rotor
IV. SIMULATION RESULTS
There are two definite operating regions for the frequency
profiles presented in this paper. One is for operation at rotor Simulation results based on direct torque and direct frequency
speeds below 30 Hz and the other is for operation at rotor speeds control are shown in Figs. 10 and 11. The results prove the feasi-
above 35 Hz. For rotor speeds above 35 Hz, the rotor flux fre- bility of the algorithm proposed here. They show the firm torque
quency and the stator flux frequency have equal magnitude, but and current control during the step change of the speed com-
opposite sign. Under this condition, the power flow from the mand. In Figs. 10 and 11, the currents shown are equivalent
stator and the rotor can be analyzed as follows. two-phase currents (i.e., 1.5 times actual three-phase currents).
Assume that the power fed from the stator-side inverter to the They also show the stable sensorless zero rotor speed opera-
machine is . The power fed from the rotor-side inverter to the tion with stator- and rotor-side inverters running at nonzero fre-
machine is and the output electrical power from the machine quency.
is . For any arbitrary constant load torque , and can
be written from (5) and (6) as V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
The experimental verification is carried out on a 50-hp slip-
ring induction motor. Both the stator and the rotor are fed by
(25) three-phase IGBT inverters. The average switching frequency
PODDAR AND RANGANATHAN: DOUBLE-INVERTER-FED SLIP-RING INDUCTION MOTOR DRIVE 1335

Fig. 10. Simulated operation during sudden speed reversal.

Fig. 11. Simulated operation during sudden torque reversal at zero speed.

of the inverters is 1.5 kHz. A common dc bus (600 V) supplies The program is written in assembly language. The control
power to both inverters. A digital-signal-processor (DSP)-based cycle time is set at 60 s. The stator-side inverter is controlled
controller carries out the control of the inverters. A 40-MHz by the DTC method. The rotor-side inverter is controlled by the
clock drives the processor. The program runs from the on-chip direct frequency control method. The experimental waveforms
RAM area. This DSP communicates with a supervisory micro- are shown in Figs. 12–18. Fig. 12 shows the torque waveform
controller through a dual-port RAM (DPRAM). There are two and the rotor speed waveform for a step change in speed ref-
LEM current sensors to measure the stator-side line currents and erence. It experimentally verifies that, even at 150% of rated
another set of two line current sensors for the rotor-side line cur- speed, the full torque of the machine is developed. This con-
rents. There is a voltage sensor to measure the dc-bus voltage. firms the extra power available from the machine due to the
The motor line voltages of the stator and the rotor terminals are proposed controller. Figs. 13 and 14 show the stator and the
estimated from this measured dc-bus voltage and the switching rotor current waveforms when the rotor speed is ramped up to
states of the inverters. twice the rated speed. Fig. 15 shows the machine current wave-
1336 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 51, NO. 6, DECEMBER 2004

Fig. 12. Experimental waveform of sudden speed reversal. 1 p:u: speed = Fig. 15. Experimental waveform of sudden rotor frequency jump at full load.
1500 r/min, 1 p:u: torque = 240 N 1 m. 1 p:u: frequency = 50 Hz, 1 p:u: current = 63:7 A (rms).

Fig. 13. Experimental waveform of stator current during speed transient. Fig. 16. Experimental phase plot of stator supply frequency versus rotor speed.
1 p:u: speed = 1500 r/min, 1 p:u: current = 63:7 A (rms). 1 p:u: frequency = 50 Hz.

Fig. 17. Experimental phase plot of rotor supply frequency vs. rotor speed.
Fig. 14. Experimental waveform of rotor current during speed transient. 1 p:u: frequency = 50 Hz.
1 p:u: speed = 1500 r/min, 1 p:u: current = 63:7 A (rms).

VI. CONCLUSION
form when there is an instant frequency transition (from 47 to 15
Hz). The smooth transition in current waveform ensures the re- A new control strategy has been proposed here for a doubly
liability of the proposed controller. Figs. 16 and 17 present the fed slip-ring induction motor. DTC is used on one side of the
experimentally generated frequency profiles of the stator- and slip-ring induction machine. Direct frequency control is applied
the rotor-side inverters. They confirm the automatically gener- on the other side of the same machine. The resulting control is
ated stator frequency profile presented in Fig. 9. Fig. 18 shows rugged and reliable. With the introduction of this controller, the
the steady-state full-load motor currents. doubly fed slip-ring induction machine runs up to double the
PODDAR AND RANGANATHAN: DOUBLE-INVERTER-FED SLIP-RING INDUCTION MOTOR DRIVE 1337

REFERENCES
[1] W. Leonhard, Control of Electrical Drives. Berlin, Germany:
Springer-Verlag, 1985.
[2] R. Datta, “Rotor side control of grid-connected wound rotor induction
machine and its application to wind power generation,” Ph.D. disserta-
tion, Dept. Elect. Eng., Indian Inst. Sci., Bangalore, India, 2000.
[3] Y. Kawabata, E. Ejiogu, and T. Kawabata, “Vector-controlled double-in-
verter-fed wound-rotor induction motor suitable for high-power drives,”
IEEE Trans. Ind. Applicat., vol. 35, pp. 1058–1066, Sept./Oct. 1999.
[4] I. Takahashi and T. Noguchi, “A new quick-response and high-efficiency
control strategy of an induction motor,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Applicat., vol.
IA-22, pp. 820–827, Sept./Oct. 1986.
[5] T. G. Habetler and D. M. Divan, “Control strategies for direct torque
control using discrete pulse modulation,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Applicat.,
vol. 27, pp. 893–901, Sept./Oct. 1991.
[6] P. Tiitinen, “The next generation motor control method, DTC, direct
torque control,” in Proc. PEDES’96, New Delhi, India, 1996, pp. 37–43.
Fig. 18. Experimental waveform of steady state machine currents at full load. [7] G. Poddar and V. T. Ranganathan, “Sensorless field-oriented control for
1 p:u: current = 63:7 A (rms). double-inverter-fed wound-rotor induction motor drive,” IEEE Trans.
Ind. Electron., vol. 51, pp. 1089–1096, Oct. 2004.

rated speed in either direction, without field-weakening opera-

tion. This, in turn, ensures full torque operation for the machine
up to double the rated speed and, hence, double the rated power
can be extracted from the machine. Because of direct torque and
flux control on either side of the machine, there are no current
transients in the machine during high dynamic operation.
The frequency profiles, proposed here, ensure that the fre- Gautam Poddar received the B.E. degree from
quency on either side of the doubly fed slip-ring induction ma- Bengal Engineering College, Calcutta University,
chine never goes below 12 Hz. Because of this feature, this con- Calcutta, India, in 1992, the M.Tech. degree from the
Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India, in
trol has very little dependence on machine parameters. Thus, the 1994, and the Ph.D. degree from the Indian Institute
stator and the rotor voltage estimation errors due to the dead- of Science, Bangalore, India, in 2002, all in electrical
band time of the inverter and the inaccurate estimation of stator engineering.
Since 1995, he has been with the Power Elec-
and rotor resistance drops have negligible effect on drive per- tronics Group, Electronics Research and Develop-
formances. Therefore, the reliability of the drive improves con- ment Centre of India, Trivandrum, India, where he is
siderably. This feature also ensures that high torque can be ob- working in the field of power electronics and drives.
His fields of interest are control of high-power drives, sensorless control of ac
tained without any thermal stress on any of the inverter legs for motors, and active power filters.
any rotor speed. Dr. Poddar was the recipient of an Indian National Academy of Engineers
The proposed controller estimates the rotor speed from the (INAE) Young Engineer Award in 2003.
motor model and performs the control operation. Therefore, it
eliminates the need for costly, unreliable position transducers
and makes the drive more rugged. This sensorless method is
very reliable even at zero rotor speed because of the rotor fre-
quency profile proposed in this paper.

APPENDIX
MACHINE PARAMETERS V. T. Ranganathan (M’86–SM’92) received the B.E.
and M.E. degrees in electrical engineering from the
The parameters of the tested machine are as follows: Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, and the
Ph.D. degree from Concordia University, Montreal,
rated power—50 hp; QC, Canada.
rated frequency—50 Hz; In 1984, he joined the Electrical Engineering De-
rated speed—1475 r/min; partment, Indian Institute of Science, where he is cur-
rently a Professor. His research interests are in the
stator voltage—400 V; area of power electronics and motor drives. He has
rotor voltage—325 V; published several papers in the areas of vector control
rated current—63.7 A; of ac drives, PWM techniques, split-phase induction
motor drives, and slip-ring induction motor control. He is also a Consultant to
; industry in the above areas and has participated in a number of projects.
; Prof. Ranganathan was the recipient of the Prize Paper Award of the Static
mH; Power Converter Committee of the IEEE Industry Applications Society, Tata
Rao Prize of the Institution of Engineers, India, CV Raman Young Scientist
; Award, VASVIK Award, and Bimal Bose Award. He is a Fellow of the Indian
. National Academy of Engineering and Institution of Engineers, India.