Experimental investigations on a permanent magnet brushless DC motor fed by PV array for water pumping system

This paper describes an experimental study carried out on a permanent magnet brushless DC (PMBLDC) motor drive coupled to a pump load powered by a photovoltaic (PV) array for water pumping system applications. A simple low-cost prototype controller has been designed and developed without current and position sensors which drastically reduces the overall cost of the motor drive system. This controller is used to test the dynamic behavior of the PMBLDC motor drive system. A mathematical model of the system is developed with a view to carrying out a comparison between the experimental and simulated response of the drive system. The necessary computer algorithm is developed to analyze the performance under different conditions of varying solar insolation for a pump load. The developed state-space equations are simulated to obtain the performance characteristics which are also verified by conducting a suitable experiment on the developed PV pumping system.