FPGA implementation of a sensor-less speed control architecture for the PMDC motor

This work proposes a practical implementation of sensor-less technique for the speed control of a PMDC motor. Closed loop control of PMDC motor requires speed feedback signal which is conventionally obtained using speed sensor. Besides cost and maintenance, speed sensors are slow in response and have high measurement errors. To reduce additional sensor cost and number of problems associated with it, we propose a robust method for speed estimation based on the Higher Gain Observer (HGO). HGO estimates rotor speed and provide output feedback for closed loop system. Furthermore, proposed HGO based control algorithm is practically implemented on the Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA). The control architecture is robust to parametric variations and uncertainties. Moreover, this scheme is practically tested using Xilinx FPGA board and National Instruments (NI) LabVIEW for practical validation of results. Closed loop analysis has also provided which is evident for the stability of proposed architecture.