Startup torque on sensorless BLDC motors

One of the major challenges when working on my custom open source ESC was to get good startup torque and low-speed performance with sensorless motors. This challenge has been addressed in several places around the net:

Techniques I used

In order to get a smooth and quick startup without sensors I used several tricks, namely:

  • There are no hardware low-pass filters that introduce phase delay. Such filters can be avoided because the ADC samples are synchronized to the PWM timer and adjusted dynamically every time the duty cycle or switching frequency is changed.
  • After a zero crossing, the area under the voltage is integrated until a threshold for commutation based on the motor parameters. This integration is robust agaist acceleration and provides good SNR since an integrator is a low-pass filter.
  • There is a parameter that defines the voltage coupling between the windings when measuring the back-emf. This make a huge difference when running at low speeds with low duty cycle. This compensation has a RPM dependence though, which is something I tried to avoid where possible because the RPM estimation has a delay and thus causes problems during acceleration.
  • To get better voltage samples, the switching frequency is adaptive and proportional to the duty cycle. This is because the back-EMF only can be sampled during the ON-time of the PWM cycle and low duty cycles have short ON time. Since the motor is running slowly on low duty cycles, sampling and switching does not have to be as fast to keep up with the motor which makes this less of a problem. Lower switching frequency also decreases switching losses, which is a positive side-effect.
  • When the motor is un-driven, the back-emf on all phases is analysed to track the position, direction and speed of the motor. So when the motor is already spinning, the algorithm will begin in the exact state of the motor (position, duty-cycle, direction).
  • I have also used some hack-ish conditions based on trial and error to improve the startup.
  • Closed loop operation is used from the first commutation, since the measured values are clean enough when using these techniques.

This is a video where I demonstrate how this works on a scorpion outrunner and an electric longboard:

Some examples with plots

** Note that all the plots show the voltages samples captured by the motor controller, which are synchronized to the PWM timer. It would look different on an oscilloscope since the switching distorts the signal. **

This is what the phase voltage for a typical startup sequence looks like, where the duty cycle is set to 5%:

start_d5_almost_auto_voltage

Even though the duty cycle is only 5%, the waveform is clean. This is because the switching frequency is low at this speed and the on-time is long enough to get good samples. The first commutation is a bit off at first since the motor is not perfectly aligned, but the second commutation already looks perfect.

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A custom BLDC motor controller (a custom ESC)

================= IMPORTANT UPDATE =================

I have written a new post about my open ESC on this page and also updated the hardware significantly. If you haven’t built it yet and if you are planning to order parts for it, please refer to that page. I will only leave this page for reference in case you have built it before I wrote the new post and updated the hardware. Also, If you have built the ESC before, the tutorial and software on the new page also applies to the old hardware.

=====================================================

Updated 2014-12-08

For about three years I have been working on a custom BLDC motor controller (also known as an ESC). I have spent hundreds of hours on writing code and I have made many minor and four major revisions of the printed circuit board (PCB). Now I finally have something that I can publish. The code can still be cleaned up a lot, especially the latest parts that I wrote in a hurry, but I don’t want to delay the release forever.

The features of this BLDC controller are:

  • The hardware and software is open source.
  • A STM32F4 microcontroller.
  • A DRV8302 MOSFET driver / buck converter / current shunt amplifier.
  • IRFS3006 MOEFETs.
  • 5V 1A output for external electronics from the buck converter integrated on the DRV8302.
  • Voltage: 8V – 60V.
  • Current: Up to 240A for a couple of seconds or about 50A continuous depending on the cooling.
  • PCB size: slightly less than 40mm x 60mm.
  • Current and voltage measurement on all phases.
  • Regenerative braking.
  • Sensored or sensorless commutation.
  • Adaptive PWM frequency to get as good ADC measurements as possible.
  • RPM-based phase advance.
  • Good start-up torque in the sensorless mode (and obviously in the sensored mode as well).
  • The motor is used as a tachometer, which is good for odometry on modified RC cars.
  • Duty-cycle control, speed control or current control.
  • Seamless 4-quadrant operation.
  • Interface to control the motor: servo signal, analog, UART, I2C, USB  or CAN (with a transceiver). Some of these modes need a bit more code to work, but not much.
  • Servo signal output. Good when e.g. controlling an RC car from a raspberry pi or an android device.
  • The USB port uses the modem profile, so an Android device can be connected to the motor controller without rooting. Because of the servo output, the odometry and the extra ADC inputs (that can be used for sensors), this is perfect for modifying a RC car to be controlled from Android (or raspberry pi).
  • Adjustable protection against
    • Low input voltage
    • High input voltage
    • High motor current
    • High input current
    • High regenerative braking current (separate limits for the motor and the input)
    • Rapid duty cycle changes (ramping)
    • High RPM (separate limits for each direction).
  • When the current limits are hit, a soft back-off strategy is used while the motor keeps running.
  • The RPM limit also has a soft back-off strategy.
  • The commutation works perfectly even when the speed of the motor changes rapidly. This is due to the fact that the magnetic flux is integrated after the zero crossing instead of adding a delay based on the previous speed.
  • When the motor is rotating while the controller is off, the commutations and the direction are tracked. The duty-cycle to get the same speed is also calculated. This is to get a smooth start when the motor is already spinning.
  • All of the hardware is ready for sensorless field-oriented control (FOC). Writing the software is the remaining part.

This is a photo of the front of the assembled PCB (please ignore the soldering quality…):

Front

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