Temperature Prediction and Thermal Boundary Simulation Using Hardware-in-Loop Method for Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motors

Permanent magnet synchronous motors (PMSMs) are usually kernel parts for industrial robots. This paper proposed a novel hardware-in-loop (HIL) method for the temperature prediction and thermal boundary simulation of the focused PMSMs in a more flexible and more accurate way, and this is necessary and important for the safe and efficient operation of the robot motors under complex working conditions. An equivalent motor conception, together with an equivalent thermal boundary simulator configuration, is established to accomplish the HIL-based temperature prediction. The approaches for the equivalent requirement analysis, key component implements, and system integrations are discussed and described in detail. A physical target system, which includes mechanical load simulator, is constructed for the validation purpose. The conducted validation experiments and application examples show that the proposed HIL method predicts the motor's operating temperature and its boundary heat flux as expected and within a maximum error of 3.0%.