Performance evaluation of two-vector-based model predictive current control of PMSM drives

Conventional model predictive current control (MPCC) applies only one vector during one control period, which produces large torque and flux ripples and high current harmonics in permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) drives. Recently MPCC with duty cycle control has been proposed to improve the steady state performance by applying one non-zero vector and one null vector during one control period. However, the prior method requires lots of calculations and predictions to find the optimal voltage vectors and calculate their respective duration. Different from prior enumeration-based MPCC, this paper proposes an efficient two-vector MPCC by applying two arbitrary voltage vectors during one control period. The reference voltage vector is firstly calculated based on the principle of deadbeat current control. Two optimal vectors and their duration are then obtained in a very efficient way, which does not require the calculation of current slopes in prior MPCC methods. The proposed method is compared to the state-of-the-art predictive control methods, including conventional MPCC, MPCC with duty cycle control, deadbeat control with space vector modulation (SVM) and modulated model predictive control (M2PC). Both simulation and experimental results prove that the proposed method achieves better steady state performance than conventional MPCC with or without duty cycle and the dynamic response is not degraded. Under the condition of insufficient dc bus voltage, the proposed method outperforms deadbeat control and M2PC by presenting even higher speed range and less torque ripples.