A New Position and Speed Estimation Scheme for Position Control of PMSM Drives Using Low-Resolution Position Sensors

A new position control method for permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) drive with a low-resolution encoder is proposed in this paper. Three binary Hall position sensors are utilized to realize a moderate-performance position control system for the consideration of economy and simplicity in servo application. Compared with sensorless control, the usage of binary Hall position sensors is a guarantee of both control performance and low cost. However, the low resolution of the Hall sensor will heavily deteriorate the accuracy of the position and speed calculation. Such drawback can be effectively minimized by using appropriate position and speed estimation schemes. With the help of polynomial fitting and state observer techniques, a solution is provided to realize semi-closed loop control by treating the position and speed estimators as separate systems. The performance can be improved (1) by proposing a polynomial fitting scheme with least squares method, high-resolution rotor-position predictor can be derived by fitting the predefined position data from binary Hall position sensors in a linear or quadratic manner; (2) by adopting the dual-sampling-rate observer, instantaneous speed can be estimated at each control cycle and the estimation error is corrected once a new measurement form the Hall arrives. Furthermore, a nonlinear position control algorithm is introduced to increase standstill stability. Extensive experimental results are given to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed method and its superiority over conventional methods.