Digital hardware implementation of a sensorless speed controller for PMSM drives using HF signal injection and EKF

Among the sensorless PMSM speed control algorithms, the non-model based approach, such as high frequency (HF) signal injection (HFSI), is usually taken as to estimate the rotor position of PMSM at standstill and very low speed condition, but the model based approach, such as extended Kalman filter (EKF) is suitable to the low/medium/high speed condition for PMSM drive. Therefore, to obtain a wide-speed range control from a low speed to a medium/high speed region, combining the aforementioned two approaches - HF signal injection and EKF in sensorless PMSM drive is necessary. In this paper, firstly, the mathematical modeling of PMSM and the rotor estimation algorithms of HFSI and EKF are derived. Secondly, a very high speed IC hardware description language (VHDL) is presented to describe the behavior of the adopted estimation algorithm. Thirdly, to verify the correctness of the designed VHDL code of the adopted estimation algorithm, based on electronic design automation (EDA) simulator link, a co-simulation work is constructed by Simulink and ModelSim which the input stimuli and output responses are run in Simulink and the estimation approach and controller are performed in ModelSim. Finally, some simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed sensorless PMSM speed control system.