Chinese Journal of Aeronautics, (2014),27(6): 1527–1537

Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics

& Beihang University
Chinese Journal of Aeronautics
[email protected]
www.sciencedirect.com

PI controller relay auto-tuning using delay

and phase margin in PMSM drives
Wang Lina a, Xiao Kun b,*
, Liliana de Lillo c, Lee Empringham c, Pat Wheeler c

a
School of Automation Science and Electrical Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100091, China
b
Material and Supervision Department, State Grid DC Project Construction Company Limited, Beijing 100052, China
c
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK

Received 13 October 2013; revised 29 June 2014; accepted 5 August 2014

Available online 18 October 2014

KEYWORDS Abstract This paper presents an auto-tuning method for a proportion plus integral (PI) controller
Auto-tuning; for permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) drives, which is supposed to be embedded in
EMA; electro-mechanical actuator (EMA) control module in aircraft. The method, based on a relay feed-
Matrix converters; back with variable delay time, explores different critical points of the system frequency response.
PI control; The Nyquist points of the plant can then be derived from the delay time and filter time constant.
PMSM The coefficients of the PI controller can then be obtained by calculation while shifting the Nyquist
point to a specific position to obtain the required phase margin. The major advantage of the auto-
tuning method is that it can provide a series of tuning results for different system bandwidths and
damping ratios, corresponding to the specification for delay time and phase margin. Simulation
and experimental results for the PMSM controller verify the performance of both the current loop
and the speed loop auto-tuning.
ª 2014 Production and hosting by Elsevier Ltd. on behalf of CSAA & BUAA.
Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.

1. Introduction elevators and applications in aircraft.1,2 A high-performance

PMSM drive generally requires an estimation of the motor
The permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) has parameters, such as armature inductance and resistance, as
received increasing acceptance in industrial applications, due well as moment of inertia of the whole system including the
to its features of high efficiency, low noise, high performance motor and the load. Any variation of parameters such as
and robustness. It plays a fundamental role in manufacturing the moment of inertia will affect and degrade the drive’s
automation, such as robotics, hybrid vehicles, electric scooters, performance.3 So it is important to have the correct value
while performing the motor control. It is not an easy task how-
ever to obtain a good estimation of all the required parameters
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 10 63416872.
in a motor drive system.
E-mail address: [email protected] (K. Xiao).
One of the most popular controllers is the proportional plus
Peer review under responsibility of Editorial Committee of CJA.
integral (PI) type, which is widely used in the field-orientated
control of PMSMs. Since it is often difficult to measure the
PMSM parameters, manipulation tuning is a frequently-used
Production and hosting by Elsevier way to determine the PI coefficient instead of theoretical

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cja.2014.10.019
1000-9361 ª 2014 Production and hosting by Elsevier Ltd. on behalf of CSAA & BUAA. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
1528 L. Wang et al.

calculations. It takes even experienced engineers time and

effort to regulate the PI coefficients to guarantee good
performance. As a result, there exists a growing demand for
auto-tuning of the PI controller, without knowing the varying
operating parameters. Auto-tuning is a powerful control
technique used to solve the above problem and is based on
Fig. 1 Simplified model of current loop of PMSM.
an adaptive estimation algorithm.4,5
During the past decades, the theory of auto-tuning has
developed in a variety of directions. The pioneering work whereas (  Lqxriq) for the d-axis current loop, where xr is
can be traced to the 1940s. Ziegler et al.6 tuning relations the mechanical rotating speed, Wf is the excitation flux, iq
and Cohen and Coon7 tuning rules are among the earliest is the q-axis current, and id is the d-axis current. The plant in
published methods. Since then, the subject has been extensively the current loop is finally simplified as a first-order system with
explored and it is still under investigation.8–10 The popularity the time constant Ls/Rs.19 In the practical servo system, the
of these controllers has led to research on tuning methods, power converter delays the current response at least one pulse
resulting in hundreds of publications on this topic. Tuning width modulation (PWM) period. It is neglected in Fig. 1 and
relations based on error criteria, as well as more recent considered as a part of the current loop transfer function Gc(s)
model-based tuning rules such as internal model control in the paper, and the delay could be tuned by means of the
(IMC) and direct synthesis,11 offer improvements over earlier method proposed.
tuning methods. Tuning rules also exist for unstable pro- The speed loop can be simplified as shown in Fig. 2. Gcl(s)
cesses12 as well as for tuning in the presence of plant-model represents the current closed loop transfer function including
mismatch. In Ref. 13 a sensorless vector-control design and the power converter, the dead-time and the PMSM current
tuning strategy is introduced based on state observer, phase- loop. TL represents the load torque, and x is the speed to be
locked loop, tracking controller, etc. Many developments have controlled while xref is the reference speed. Considering that
been reported to extend the relay auto-tuning method. It the time constant in the current loop is much smaller than
transpires that more accurate information on process dynam- the one in the speed loop, Gcl(s) is assumed to be 1 to simplify
ics can be obtained from the same relay test with the help of the analysis. This is not quite accurate for most system model-
new identification techniques and can be used to improve the ings. However in this paper, it is not based on an accurate
tuning of PI controllers.14–18 modeling and allows the simplification to assume it as a part
In this paper, an auto-tuning method based on relay of the plant. Then the plant in the speed loop can be assumed
feedback for both current loop and speed loop is presented. as a first-order system with the time constant J/B, where J is
By specifying the delay time and phase margin, the system the total inertia of PMSM, and B is the friction.
bandwidth and damping ratio can be regulated. Firstly, the
modeling of the PMSM and the PI controller is introduced, 2.2. PI calculation based on system bandwidth and damping ratio
which shows the connection of the PI controller settings and
system performance. Secondly, the proposed relay auto-tuning
The PI controller in the time domain has the expression as
strategy is presented. The changes in the delay time and the Z
phase margin cause a shifting of the plant’s Nyquist point to uðtÞ ¼ Kp eðtÞ þ Ki eðtÞdt ð1Þ
the position of the specific phase margin on the unit circle in
the s-domain, from which the tuning formulas are derived. where Kp and Ki are the proportional and the integral coeffi-
The qualitative analysis is illustrated and simulated, in order cients, respectively; e(t) is the error between the reference
to show the connection between the settings of the delay and the feedback signal.
time/phase margin and the system response. Finally, experi- In the s-domain, the PI controller will be expressed by
ments are carried out in a electro-mechanical actuator Eq. (2) as
(EMA) for PMSM and permanent-magnet flux-switching  
machine (PMFSM). In both cases an Indirect Matrix Con- Ki 1
PPI ðsÞ ¼ Kp þ ¼ Kp 1 þ ð2Þ
verter is implemented to drive the machines. The experimental s Ti s
results show the validity of the proposed auto-tuning method.
with Ti = Kp/Ki.
Considering that both the plants of the current loop and the
2. Modeling of the drive system speed loop are first-order systems, they can be represented in a
normalized form
2.1. Electrical and mechanical model of PMSM
k
PðsÞ ¼ ð3Þ
sþp
The control block diagram for the current loop and the speed
loop can be generally derived. The current loop of a PMSM
can be simplified as shown in Fig. 1. Where Ls is the induc-
tance of surface mounted PMSM; Rs is the resistance of sur-
face mounted PMSM; i is the current to be controlled and
iref is the reference current. Assume that Lq = Ld = Ls in a
surface mounted PMSM, where Lq is the q-axis inductance,
and Ld is the d-axis inductance. The back-electromotive force
(EMF) equals (Ldxrid + xrwf) for the q-axis current loop Fig. 2 Simplified model of speed loop of PMSM.
PI controller relay auto-tuning using delay and phase margin in PMSM drives 1529

where k and p are related to the electrical parameters (resis-

tance and inductance) and mechanical parameters (inertia
and friction).
Then the open-loop transfer function of the current loop
and the speed loop in Figs. 1 and 2 can be represented as
kðKp s þ Ki Þ
GðsÞ ¼ ð4Þ
sðs þ pÞ
The corresponding closed-loop transfer function is
kðKp s þ Ki Þ
UðsÞ ¼ ð5Þ
s2 þ ðp þ Kp kÞs þ Ki k
Thus the closed current loop and the closed speed loop Fig. 4 Oscillation curves of relay output and plant output.
transfer function are second-order systems, in which the
damping ratios 1 and system bandwidths xn are oscillation; xu is the frequency of the plant oscillation, defined
 as ultimate frequency.
21xn ¼ p þ Kp k
ð6Þ In the conventional tuning research, the PI coefficients are
x2n ¼ Ki k then calculated by the Ziegler–Nichols (Z-N) or other
If the electrical and mechanical parameters of a PMSM are improved tuning formulas.22–24 However, those tuning results
well-known, Kp and Ki can be immediately calculated from Eq. cannot always meet the tuning requirements. Research shows
(6). However, it is not an easy task to measure the parameters that the Z–N tuning formula is inadequate in some case and
of a PMSM. Moreover, the parameters change if the tempera- has to be completely revised9 because of the limitation of the
ture increases while a PMSM is operating. Also, the variation information recognized from only one critical point.
of the load inertia will degrade the drive’s performance. These
factors increase the difficulties of the theoretical calculation of 3.2. Proposed auto-tuning method
the PI coefficients. In this paper, the relay auto-tuning control
strategy is investigated to find a way to solve the problem The intrinsic idea of the method is to identify the Nyquist point
described above. of the plant for the auto-tuning. In Ref. 25, Mattavelli et al.
introduced an approach which employs a relay with hysteresis
3. Proposed auto-tuning scheme in the closed-loop to identify the Nyquist point. In this paper,
the proposed tuning method adds a delay and a filter into the
3.1. Basic issues of relay auto-tuning theory closed-loop so as to indirectly identify the Nyquist point by
adding a lag phase to the plant, shown in Fig. 5. The delay time
and the filter can be represented as ess and 1/(Tfs + 1),26 thus
The relay auto-tuning scheme focuses on the idea that most
the additional part of the transfer function is
systems oscillate under the relay control.20 Consider the closed
loop system in Fig. 3, the relay output u(t), the system refer- ess
FðsÞ ¼ ð8Þ
ence output yref(t) and the system output y(t) are shown in Tf s þ 1
Fig. 4, and the whole oscillating procedure is explained in where s is the delay time and Tf is the filter time constant.
Ref. 19. Eventually the output is driven to a steady oscillation The additional part F(s) brings the phase ua and the
state, which carries the information of the amplitude and the amplitude Aa into the frequency characteristic, which are
frequency of the cross-point between the plant Nyquist curve
and the negative real axis in the s-domain. The cross-point is ua ¼ sx  arctanðTf xÞ ð9Þ
defined as the critical point. 1
Aa ¼ qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ð10Þ
A describing function approximation is employed21 and the
1 þ ðTf xÞ2
ultimate gain Ku and the ultimate period Tu are derived as6
( It can be derived from Eqs. (9) and (10) that the additional
4u
Ku ¼ NðaÞ ¼ pa
ð7Þ phase is negative, which will cause the phase delay, and the
2p
Tu ¼ xu plant amplitude will be reduced.
The first step of the proposed method is to perform the
where N(a) is the describing function of the relay; u is the same oscillation experiment as Section 3.1. The ultimate period
amplitude of the relay output; a is the amplitude of the plant

Fig. 5 Block diagram of the proposed tuning method with delay

Fig. 3 Relay auto-tuning scheme. and filter.
1530 L. Wang et al.

Tu and the oscillation amplitude a are measured. The critical

point is then derived, which is on the new plant Nyquist curve
P1 ðsÞ ¼ FðsÞPðsÞ ð11Þ
The critical point contains the information of the plant P(s)
and the additional part F(s), and the phase and the amplitude
satisfy the equation
(
ua þ ux ¼ p
  ð12Þ
 1  pa
Aa Ax ¼ NðaÞ  ¼ 4u

where ux and Ax are the phase and the margin of the point on
plant Nyquist curve.
Considering Eqs. (9), (10) and (12), it is calculated that
(
ux ¼ p þ sx þ arctanðTf xÞ Fig. 6 Sketch of the proposed auto-tuning with delay and filter.
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ð13Þ
Ax ¼ pa
4u
1 þ ðTf xÞ2
the effect of Tf. And the difference of the phase of point
Bringing the ultimate frequency xu of the oscillation test B and Acrit is ua by the effect of s and Tf.
into the formula, the plant Nyquist point can be derived. xu (4) Shift ANyq to the tuned point with proper phase margin
represents the frequency of the Nyquist point. Amarg and calculate the PI coefficients from Eq. (16) with
Consequently, with the plug of the delay time in the relay the required phase margin.
oscillation, Nyquist point is indirectly located. Likewise, (5) Repeat steps (1)–(4) until the required system bandwidth
repeating the test with different delay time, more than one crit- and the damping ratio are obtained.
ical point can be identified. In this way, the proposed method
can get more information of the plant than conventional tun- Another discussion is the auto-tuning sequence for the cas-
ing method. cade controllers. The PMSM drive system consists of the speed
The second step is to shift the Nyquist point to the position loop and the inner current loop. According to Hang et al.’s
on the unit circle with the specification of the phase margin, research,27 the current loop performs the relay auto-tuning first
through which the PI coefficients are calculated. and the speed loop is then placed on relay feedback with the cur-
The phase and the amplitude of the PI controller are rent loop closed. Retuning of the current loop is not necessary if
8 the inner loop response is sufficiently faster than the outer loop.
< upi ¼ 0:5p þ arctanðTi xÞ
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi2ffi ð14Þ
: Api ¼ Kp 1þðTi xÞ 3.3. Definition and setting of the parameters
Ti x

The final effect of the PI controller is to provide the addi- (1) Filter time constant Tf
tional phase and the amplitude in order to shift the proper
Nyquist point to the required position. This is mathematically The employed first-order low-pass filter is
achieved by adding upi and multiplying Api to the Nyquist 1
point, to shift it to the position on the unit circle with a certain fðsÞ ¼ ð18Þ
Tf s þ 1
phase margin um.
 The filter is used to eliminate the high-frequency noise in
ux þ upi ¼ p þ um the feedback signal. The bandwidth of the filter must be nar-
ð15Þ
Api Ax ¼ 1 row enough to permit the oscillation recognition, but wide
Considering Eqs. ((13)–(15)), the PI coefficients can be enough to reserve the whole information of the critical point
derived as at a frequency higher than the main process dynamics. A good
compromise appears to be an automatic determination of Tf so
tanð0:5p þ um  sx  arctanðTf xÞÞ that the corresponding pole in the discrete filter implementa-
Ti ¼ ð16Þ
x tion is set to be a chosen real value pd, that is
4uTi x Ts
Kp ¼ rhffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
ih iffi ð17Þ Tf ¼  ð19Þ
pa 1 þ ðTf xÞ2 1 þ ðTi xÞ2 lg pd
where the value of pd adopted is 0.5 and Ts is the sampling
To sum up, the proposed auto-tuning is performed as time.
described in Fig. 6: In this case, the discrete filter implementation of Eq. (18)
employs the same equation in z-domain independent of Ts
(1) Start the tuning and carry out the relay oscillation test 0:1304ðz  1Þ
with a specific delay time. fðzÞ ¼ ð20Þ
z  0:7391
(2) Drive the plant to the steady state and obtain a and Tu,
locating the critical point Acrit. (2) Delay time s
(3) Calculate the Nyquist point ANyq from Eq. (13) with the
corresponding delay time and the filter time constant. B The transfer function of the delay is
point shows that the amplitude of ANyq is changed by sðsÞ ¼ ess ð21Þ
PI controller relay auto-tuning using delay and phase margin in PMSM drives 1531

The effect of the delay can be explained in both the real- the amplitude is, except that there may be a small area on
time domain and the s-domain. In the real-time domain, it the left side of line l where the jODj is longer than jPDj and this
delays a length of s and then output the set-point after the is the area containing the resonance frequency. Thus the
moment the feedback signal crosses zero. Obviously the longer bandwidth point, whose amplitude is 3 dB, is within the unit
the delay, the bigger the oscillation amplitude becomes, and circle and has a higher frequency than point D.
the slower the oscillation frequency goes, which means, a lower Therefore, the frequency of the recognized point can be
frequency Nyquist point is recognized. considered as a guarantee that the bandwidth is wider than
In the s-domain, the absolute value of ua is proportional to this. The delay time s can be changed until the frequency of
the delay time s in Eq. (9). The recognized Nyquist point goes the Nyquist point gets closed to the required system
counterclockwise on P(s) when ua increases, which means a bandwidth.
Nyquist point ANyq of bigger oscillation amplitude and slower
frequency is identified. This conclusion accords with the time- (3) Phase margin um
domain analysis above.
A further discussion is the relationship between Nyquist The phase margin of the system determines the stability of
point frequency and the system bandwidth xn. The bandwidth the dynamic performance. According to the control theory, the
is the frequency at which the transfer function has 3 dB bigger the phase margin, the bigger the system damping is, and
amplitude. Considering Eqs. (6) and (16), it is derived that the smaller overshot the step response is. It can be qualitatively
4kux analyzed in Fig. 7 as follows.
x2n ¼ rhffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
ih iffi ð22Þ The auto-tuning algorithm moves the recognized point to
pa 1 þ ðTf xÞ2 1 þ ðTb xÞ2 the position on unit circle. \POD is the phase margin. Con-
sider the case that \POD is 30, the division of jODj and
where Tb = KpTi. jPDj is bigger than the case when \POD is 60. It is obvious
This equation shows a connection between xn and the that the amplitude of the area of the natural frequency on
Nyquist point frequency. However, the relationship between the Nyquist curve turns bigger. It will be found in the simula-
these frequencies is not immediately evident as it is a transcen- tion that the amplitude Bode diagram gets bigger at the
dental equation. However it can be analyzed geometrically in frequency area near the natural frequency. Hence the system
the s-domain. has a bigger overshoot and a smaller damping ratio in this
Consider G(s) as the open-loop system transfer function case. The system response vibrates stronger but rises faster.
which includes the PI controller, the closed-loop system trans- The phase margin is mostly set between 30 and 60. The
fer function is bigger the phase margin, the more stable the system becomes
but a longer rising time is expected.
GðsÞ
UðsÞ ¼ ð23Þ
1 þ GðsÞ
4. Simulation and experimental results
As illustrated in Fig. 7, the amplitude of U(s) is the division
of the amplitudes of |G(s)| and |1 + G(s)|. |1 + G(s)| can be 4.1. Proposed auto-tuning method simulation results
further expressed as |G(s)  (1)|, which is the length of PD.
|G(s)| equals the length of OD. Thus the system transfer func- The auto-tuning method has been studied in Simulink in terms
tion is of the transfer function. Two groups of auto-tuning results
GðsÞ jODj have been analyzed under the variation of the delay time and
UðsÞ ¼ ¼ \PDO ð24Þ the phase margin respectively. Identification of the Nyquist
1 þ GðsÞ jPDj
curve verifies the correctness of the auto-tuning theory. The
Considering the case where the tuning phase margin is Bode diagram as well as the step response shows the influence
specified as 60, the length of jODj is equal to jPDj. Thus at on tuning result when the parameters change.
the frequency of the Nyquist point obtained in the oscillation The plant model in the simulation is the first-order model
test, the amplitude of U(s) is 1. Also, it is obvious that the which includes the dead time
higher frequency of the point on Nyquist curve, the smaller
k
PðsÞ ¼ ð25Þ
sþp
where p and k are the parameters of the plant, which are set at
250 and 500, respectively.
First, five oscillation tests are carried out with five different
delay time. All the auto-tuning results are calculated when the
phase margin is 60. The data of auto-tuning results with
different delay time is shown in Table 1. The frequency of
the critical point, the amplitude and the phase of the Nyquist
point are listed. The frequency of the critical point is also the
frequency of the corresponding Nyquist point. The system
bandwidth xn is obtained by finding the 3 dB point in Bode
diagram. The damping ratio is calculated from Eq. (10). It can
be seen that with the increase of the delay time, the frequency
Fig. 7 Illustration of vector on Nyquist curve. of the Nyquist point identified gets smaller. The bandwidth
1532 L. Wang et al.

In order to prove the validity of the auto-tuning method,

Table 1 Tuning results with different delay time (um = 60).
those five identified Nyquist points are illustrated in contrast
s (ls) x (Hz) Ax ux (rad) xn (Hz) 1 Ki Kp with the actual Nyquist curve of the plant. The position of
80 781.25 0.1307 1.8293 886.9 2.416 1331 7.383 the Nyquist points (the red stars) are illustrated in Fig. 10 with
240 520.83 0.2052 1.6377 598.7 1.360 1606 4.373 the amplitude and the phase in Table 1, while the blue curve is
400 390.63 0.2757 1.5794 436.3 1.098 1388 3.157 the actual plant Nyquist curve from Eq. (25). It can be found
560 312.50 0.3491 1.5588 342.3 0.971 1164 2.463 that the identified Nyquist points go counterclockwise almost
720 271.74 0.4048 1.4842 300.9 0.817 1193 2.024 along the Nyquist curve. Fig. 10 shows a good accordance of
the tuning method. It shows that by injecting some certain
delay time, a Nyqusit point is selected and indirectly identified
and the damping ratio also change monotonically. The tuning by identifying the relay oscillation point.
performance is related to the setting of the delay time. Secondly, the auto-tuning results with different phase
The corresponding frequency and the real-time response of margins for one critical point are shown in Table 2. The critical
the tuning result with different delay time in Table 1, are shown point is the oscillation result when the time delay is 400 ls,
in Fig. 8 which is the Bode diagram and Fig. 9, which is assumed and the amplitude and the phase can be found in Table 1.
of I tuning for current loop. The 3 dB frequency point is The bandwidth slowly increases and the damping ratio
moving towards the low frequency side, when the delay time falls significantly, when the phase margin reduces from 60
increases, which means that the bandwidth is getting smaller. to 30.
An estimated value of the rising time and the settling time is The corresponding frequency and the real-time response,
8 with different phase margins, are shown in Fig. 11 which is
> 31
>
< tr ¼ the Bode diagram and Fig. 12. It can be seen in Table 2 that
xn the damping ratio falls from 1.097 to 0.406. The highest ampli-
ð26Þ
>
> 4 tude in Bode diagram in Fig. 11 increases to almost 4 dB at the
: ts ¼
1xn phase margin of 30. However, the frequency of 3 dB point
Accordingly, in the step response the settling time gets does not change significantly, which indicates that the phase
longer when both 1 and xn become smaller. The overshoot is margin is more related to the system damping ratio.
getting bigger due to the reduction of 1. The long delay time In Fig. 12, the step response is shown. The rising time
results in the slow system step response. Therefore, it is slightly reduces but the settle time is getting longer due to
concluded that the longer the delay time, the smaller the the reduction of 1 in Eq. (26). The vibration is also getting lar-
bandwidth becomes. ger. Hence, it shows that the tuning phase margin determines
the damping ratio of the system.

Fig. 8 Bode diagram of tuning results with different delay time.

Fig. 10 Contrast of the identified Nyquist points and actual

Nyquist curve.

Table 2 Auto-tuning results with different phase margins for

one critical point.
um () xn (Hz) 1 Ki Kp
60.0 437.4 1.097 1388 3.157
52.5 470.1 0.884 1848 2.897
45.0 489.2 0.703 2409 2.588
37.5 513.9 0.546 3138 2.234
30.0 546.5 0.406 4161 1.842
Fig. 9 Step response of tuning results with different delay time.
PI controller relay auto-tuning using delay and phase margin in PMSM drives 1533

Since the Bode diagram cannot be illustrated without the

parameters of the plant, the step response of the tuning results
is provided to show the validity of the tuning method. The
sampling time of the current loop and the speed loop is 80 ls
and 4 ms, respectively.
The PI controller of both the current loop (d-axis) and the
speed loop can be tuned with the auto-tuning technique. Since
the bandwidth of the current loop is around several hundred
Hertz whereas the speed loop is several Hertz or tens Hertz,
the current loop response can be considered to be much faster
and it can therefore be ignored during the speed loop tuning.
The outputs of the tuning relay are ±5 A and ±100 r/min,
respectively.
The PMSM is tuned first. Fig. 14(a) shows the step response
of the current loop for I at 60 phase margin with different
Fig. 11 Bode diagram of tuning results with different phase
delay time. As the delay time is increased from 240 ls to
margins.
720 ls, the overshoot of the step response gets larger and the
steady state settling time is increased. The increasing overshoot
is caused by a reduction in the damping ratio and the longer
settle time is the result of a smaller bandwidth; these results
are the same as those found in the simulation.
Compared to the simulation results, the trend of the
increasing delay time seems different in the experiment, which
can be explained as follows. Both 1 and xn reduce as the delay
time gets longer. According to Eq. (26), the rising time will
increase if 1 reduces much slowly than xn as shown in the sim-
ulation results, whereas it will decrease if 1 reduces faster than
xn as shown in the experiment results.
Fig. 14(b) shows the step response of the current loop at
different phase margins. With a decrease in the phase margin

Fig. 12 Step response of tuning results with different phase

margins.

4.2. Experimental setup and results

The proposed relay auto-tuning method has been validated

with an experimental setup consisting of an indirect matrix
converter28,29 PMSM drive. The PI controller scheme with
output saturation and anti-windup features is the same as
the one when knowing the parameters of the plant. Only the
Kp and Ki need to be tuned for the PI controller.
Two different machines were considered for the experimen-
tal validation, a 10-pole pair PMSM and a 7-pole pair
PMFSM30 (controlled as a PMSM). Each of the two motors
was designed and manufactured by the Power Electronics,
Machines and Control Group, University of Nottingham. It
has been demonstrated that field-oriented control can be
employed on a PMFSM31,32 and therefore be seen from the
controller side, the PMFSM is controlled in the same way as
the PMSM. The parameters (inductance, resistance, inertia
and friction) of the two motors are unknown.
The core controller is based on a Texas Instruments
TMS320C6713 plus Actel A3P400 FPGA. The auto-tuning
method is implemented in the digital signal process (DSP)
and Matlab on a PC. The communication between DSP and
PC uses a USB data connection. The experimental setup,
including PMFSM and DC load motor and the indirect matrix
converter, are shown in Fig. 13. Fig. 13 Experimental setup.
1534 L. Wang et al.

from 60 to 30, the damping ratio becomes smaller. It is also

clear that the vibration around the set-value becomes larger,
the same conclusion as shown in the simulation result.
The speed loop for n is tuned after the faster, inner current
loop is tuned. The tuning result of the speed loop is similar to
the result of the current loop. In Fig. 15(a), with an increase of
the delay time, the step response oscillation is larger and the
settling time becomes longer, implying a decrease of the system
bandwidth and the damping ratio. In Fig. 15(b), the decrease
of the phase margin results in a smaller damping ratio, which
results in larger oscillation around the set point value and fas-
ter rising time. Another caveat is that the noise of the speed
curve is due to the limited resolution of the resolver.
The tuning algorithm was then run on the PMFSM. Fig. 16
shows the auto-tuning results of the current loop with different
delay time. Since the current loop is much faster than the speed
loop, the stability is considered to be more important than the
rising time. The overshoot should be controlled to a reasonable
level. Therefore the tuning phase margin is set to 60. The
response of the tuning result under 80 ls is over-damped
whereas the oscillation is too large for a delay under 240 ls.
Consequently, the tuning result for 160 ls is employed as the
PI coefficients.

Fig. 15 Step response of speed loop auto-tuning experiment on

PMSM.

Fig. 16 Auto-tuning results of the current loop with different

delay time.

The changing of the system inertia is the main reason for

implementing PI auto-tuning. In order to show the validity
of the tuning method, the speed loop is tuned with different
system inertias by connecting or disconnecting the plant motor
Fig. 14 Step response of current loop auto-tuning experiment on to the load DC motor. The DC motor works in the generating
PMSM. mode with its armature connected to a load resistance. The DC
PI controller relay auto-tuning using delay and phase margin in PMSM drives 1535

Fig. 17 Step response of speed loop auto-tuning experiment on PMFSM.

motor is a high-inertia and low-speed motor. The limitation of Fig. 14. The rising time is around 0.25 s when the speed
the speed is 500 r/min. reaches 500 r/min and is around 0.10 s when the speed reaches
Figs. 17(a) and (b) show the step response of the auto-tun- 50 r/min.
ing results when the PMFSM is not connected to the DC Figs. 17(c) and (d) show the tuning results when the
motor. The speed reference is set to 500 r/min. The oscillations PMFSM is connected to the DC motor. The speed reference
are greater and settling time longer when the delay time is set to 50 r/min, because of the limitation of the DC motor.
increases, and it oscillates larger and rises faster as the phase The rising time is up to 0.25 s when the speed reaches
margin reduces, the same conclusion as in PMSM tuning in 50 r/min, longer than rising time of 0.10 s when the DC motor
is not connected. It is because the highest torque of the
PMFSM is constant due to the current limitation of the IGBT
and the armature, but the inertia increases when the DC motor
is connected. The changing of rising time and vibration is
similar to the trend in Fig. 17(a) and (b) for different delay
time and different phase margins. The auto-tuning method
successfully tuned the PI controller with DC motor connected
or disconnected to the PMFSM.
Fig. 18 shows the speed response of 1000 r/min, 2000 r/min
and 3000 r/min, at the same PI auto-tuning parameters. The
slope of the rising speed is concerned with the saturation of
the current limit. This figure verifies the auto-tuning results
for a wide speed range.
The above discussion leads to the conclusion that the
experimental results agree with the simulation analysis. The
proposed auto-tuning method finds valid PI coefficients and
provides different results for 1 and xn with the specification
Fig. 18 Response of speed loop auto-tuning with different of s and um. The most satisfactory tuning result can be chosen
speeds. from the result presented in Fig. 17.
1536 L. Wang et al.

5. Conclusions Proceedings of 2006 IEEE industry applications conference; 2006

Oct 8–12;Tampa, FL. Piscataway, NJ:IEEE; 2006. p. 2062–9.
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PI controller relay auto-tuning using delay and phase margin in PMSM drives 1537

Construction Company Limited. His main research interests are high- Pat Wheeler received his Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering for his
voltage direct current (HVDC) and power electronics. work on Matrix Converters at the University of Bristol, England in
1993. In 1993, he moved to the University of Nottingham and worked
Liliana de Lillo is a senior research fellow in faculty of engineering, as a research assistant in the School of Electrical and Electronic
University of Nottingham. Her area of research includes matrix Engineering. In 1996, he became a lecturer in power electronic systems
converters, power electronics and power device. with the Power Electronics, Machines and Control Group at the
University of Nottingham, UK, became a senior lecturer in 2003, and a
Lee Empringham is a senior research fellow in faculty of engineering, professor in January 2008. He now works as the director of the
University of Nottingham. His research area includes power institute for aerospace technology and professor of power electronic
electronics and power device. systems, faculty of engineering, University of Nottingham.