Current polarity detection-based simple position sensorless drive of IPMSM for AC compressor in HEV

A position sensorless control approach for IPMSM proposed in this paper is specifically developed for air conditioning compressor drives in hybrid electric vehicles. For stable sensorless operation, it makes the best use of two beneficial aspects appearing in the motor under the sinusoidal PWM voltage drive without any current minor loops. Unlike traditional sensorless approaches being on the basis of d-q vector control, neither complex computation tasks nor external precise current sensors are necessary. Therefore, it is suitable for low cost implementation of variable speed drives. The theoretical and experimental studies using 2.2 kW-6700 rpm IPMSM show the proposed sensorless drive meets the requirements for the target application. Moreover, the dynamic simulator of the controller built up on MATLAB/SIMULINK also demonstrates the validity of the proposed sensorless control approach.