Design and Optimization of an MCU-based controller implementing Field-Oriented-Control of a BLDC motor

Brushless DC (BLDC) motors are widely used in many applications including automotive ones and the Field Oriented Control (FOC) is the control algorithm used for these motors and, in general, it is implemented by a programmable Micro Controller Unit (MCU). The control parameters must be well tuned and the model-based design, using simulation platforms, gives the possibility to study the behavior of a system under several conditions, observing the outputs, and tuning the system's parameters without interacting with the real one. This, combined with the automatic code generation capabilities of some simulation platforms, makes it possible to automatically convert the model or part of it into integrable standard C code. This paper presents a simulation-based optimization by the MATLAB/Simulink platform of the PIDs' parameters of an existing FOC Software Library for a brushless motor, the automatic code generation, and the integration of the generated code in the existing library. The simulation and experimental results show that the speed ripple is reduced from ± 8% of the target speed to ± 4% and demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed simulation-based optimization approach.