Solar PV Integration to E-Rickshaw With Regenerative Braking and Sensorless Control

This article proposes a novel drivetrain design of a solar-powered e-rickshaw with the controller. Hall-Effect position sensorless brushless dc (BLDC) motor drive often suffers from delayed commutation at high speed and even at low speed, conventional control does not work well due to low magnitude of back EMF. Here, the proposed sensorless control with commutation error compensation is implemented, which drives the motor over the entire range. A simple commutation error compensation algorithm is designed to detect the freewheeling pulses, reducing the control complexity for low-cost EV application and eliminating low pass filter requirement. Moreover, a zero-crossing detection (ZCD) algorithm is suggested, which inherently compensates the delay and removes the need of any additional phase compensator. A fixed delay digital filter is used to eliminate any unwanted spikes in ZCD circuit. For effective MPPT control, a modified Landsman converter is used, which provides ripple-free current at output and reduces the requirement of ripple filter at front end. The BLDC motor drive is capable of energy regeneration, which reduces the range anxiety for EV. The solar energy and the battery ensure that the vehicle never runs out of power irrespective of the climate conditions. The average distance covered by the vehicle on a single charge is improved.