Sensorless Saliency-Based Control of Dual Induction Machines Under Dynamic Load Imbalances Using Three Current Sensors

Abstract

To perform vector control of single-inverter dual induction motors, drives are standardly equipped with current and position sensors. In medium-power railway applications, a shaft encoder is usually mounted on each motor, and the inverter output current is measured using two current sensors. Yet, this configuration features some disadvantages. First, torque-sharing cannot be computed because stator current of each motor is unknown. Similarly, saliency extraction of each motor is not achievable since individual current drawn by each motor is not measured. An option that achieves torque-sharing calculation is to attach two current sensors to each motor, provided that both rotor positions are known. However, industrial inverter/control platforms considered offer a maximum of three input channels for current sensors. Besides, some industry fields tend towards encoderless speed control. Therefore, this article proposes to use three current sensors in total and no shaft encoders. Thanks to a special current sensor arrangement and a voltage step excitation method, saliency-based encoderless control is achieved. In addition, a method is presented to estimate torque-sharing. Experimental measurements, taken on a dual induction motor test bench, will show the capability of the proposed methodology to identify individual loading as well as excellent encoderless control performance.