Speed sensorless field-oriented control of induction motor with interconnected observers: experimental tests on low frequencies benchmark

Field-oriented speed control of induction motors (IMs) without mechanical sensors (speed sensor and load torque sensor) are considered. The methodology is divided into two parts. First, interconnected high-gain observers are designed to estimate the mechanical and magnetic variables from the only measurement of stator current. Secondly, the speed and flux estimation are used by a controller to achieve the speed/flux tracking. The flux regulation problem is simple and the traditional approach is followed by using proportional integral (PI) controller. For the speed-regulation problem, it is stated that flux regulation quickly happens by using a high-gain PI controller to regulate the q-axis current to its reference. Stability analysis based on Lyapunov theory is proved to guarantee the ‘observer+controller’ stability. To test and validate the controller–observer by considering the sensorless control problem of IM at low frequency, a significant benchmark is implemented. The trajectories of this benchmark are designed to validate the controller and observer under three operating conditions: low speed, high speed and very low speed. Furthermore, robustness tests with respect to parameter variations are given in order to show the performance of the proposed observer–controller scheme.