Efficient QR Updating Factorization for Sensorless Synchronous Motor Drive Based on High Frequency Voltage Injection

The conventional methods for estimating the rotor position of permanent magnet synchronous machines, at low speed range and characterized by rotor saliency, rely on high frequency voltage injection in the stator windings. Ordinarily, the rotor position estimation is achieved through the demodulation of the high frequency current response. In this article, an alternative method is presented for detecting rotor position from the rotating high frequency injection current response. The proposed ellipse fitting technique is not affected by signal processing delay effects and it requires the tuning of only one parameter, called forgetting factor, making the studied method suitable for industrial application thanks to its minimal setup effort. The inverse problem related to the ellipse fitting is solved implementing a QR recursive least squares algorithm. Efficient updating QR factorization has been adopted because of its features in terms of numerical stability and required limited computational effort. The proposed sensorless control scheme is validated by means of many experiments.