Vector control (motor)

Vector control, also called field-oriented control (FOC), is a variable-frequency drive (VFD) control
method in which the stator currents of a three-phase AC electric motor are identified as two orthogonal
components that can be visualized with a vector. One component defines the magnetic flux of the motor, the
other the torque. The control system of the drive calculates the corresponding current component references
from the flux and torque references given by the drive's speed control. Typically proportional-integral (PI)
controllers are used to keep the measured current components at their reference values. The pulse-width
modulation of the variable-frequency drive defines the transistor switching according to the stator voltage
references that are the output of the PI current controllers.[1]

FOC is used to control AC synchronous and induction motors.[2] It was originally developed for high-
performance motor applications that are required to operate smoothly over the full speed range, generate full
torque at zero speed, and have high dynamic performance including fast acceleration and deceleration.
However, it is becoming increasingly attractive for lower performance applications as well due to FOC's
motor size, cost and power consumption reduction superiority.[3][4] It is expected that with increasing
computational power of the microprocessors it will eventually nearly universally displace single-variable
scalar volts-per-Hertz (V/f) control.[5][6]

Contents
Development history
Technical overview
Application
See also
References

Development history
Technische Universität Darmstadt's K. Hasse and Siemens' F.
Blaschke pioneered vector control of AC motors starting in 1968 and
in the early 1970s. Hasse in terms of proposing indirect vector
control, Blaschke in terms of proposing direct vector control.[7][8]
Technical University Braunschweig's Werner Leonhard further
developed FOC techniques and was instrumental in opening up
opportunities for AC drives to be a competitive alternative to DC
drives.[9][10] Block diagram from Blaschke's 1971
US patent application
Yet it was not until after the commercialization of microprocessors,
that is in the early 1980s, that general purpose AC drives became
available.[11][12] Barriers to use FOC for AC drive applications included higher cost and complexity and
lower maintainability compared to DC drives, FOC having until then required many electronic components in
terms of sensors, amplifiers and so on.[13]
The Park transformation has long been widely used in the analysis and study of synchronous and induction
machines. The transformation is by far the single most important concept needed for an understanding of how
FOC works, the concept having been first conceptualized in a 1929 paper authored by Robert H. Park.[14]
Park's paper was ranked second most important in terms of impact from among all power engineering related
papers ever published in the twentieth century. The novelty of Park's work involves his ability to transform
any related machine's linear differential equation set from one with time varying coefficients to another with
time invariant coefficients.[15]

Technical overview
Overview of key competing VFD control platforms:

Scalar control
V/f (Volts per Hertz) control

DSC (Direct self-

control)
DTC (Direct torque control)
VFD, with sensor or sensorless SVM (Space vector
Vector control modulation)

Direct FOC
FOC (Field‑oriented control)

Indirect FOC

While the analysis of AC drive controls can be

technically quite involved ("See also" section),
such analysis invariably starts with modeling of
the drive-motor circuit involved along the lines of
accompanying signal flow graph and
equations.[19]

In vector control, an AC induction or

synchronous motor is controlled under all
operating conditions like a separately excited DC
motor.[21] That is, the AC motor behaves like a Signal Flow Graph (SFG) for Induction Motor
DC motor in which the field flux linkage and
armature flux linkage created by the respective
field and armature (or torque component) currents are orthogonally aligned such that, when torque is
controlled, the field flux linkage is not affected, hence enabling dynamic torque response.

Vector control accordingly generates a three-phase PWM motor voltage output derived from a complex
voltage vector to control a complex current vector derived from motor's three-phase stator current input
through projections or rotations back and forth between the three-phase speed and time dependent system and
these vectors' rotating reference-frame two-coordinate time invariant system.[22]

Such complex stator current space vector can be defined in a (d,q) coordinate system with orthogonal
components along d (direct) and q (quadrature) axes such that field flux linkage component of current is
aligned along the d axis and torque component of current is aligned along the q axis.[21] The induction
motor's (d,q) coordinate system can be
superimposed to the motor's instantaneous (a,b,c)
three-phase sinusoidal system as shown in
accompanying image (phases b & c not shown
for clarity). Components of the (d,q) system
current vector allow conventional control such as
proportional and integral, or PI, control, as with a
DC motor.

Projections associated with the (d,q) coordinate

system typically involve:[19][22][23]

Forward projection from instantaneous

currents to (a,b,c) complex stator current SFG Equations
space vector representation of the three-
phase sinusoidal system.
Forward three-to-two phase, (a,b,c)-to-( , ) projection
using the Clarke transformation. Vector control
implementations usually assume ungrounded motor
with balanced three-phase currents such that only two
motor current phases need to be sensed. Also,
backward two-to-three phase, ( , )-to-(a,b,c)
projection uses space vector PWM modulator or
inverse Clarke transformation and one of the other
PWM modulators.
Forward and backward two-to-two phase,( , )-to-(d,q)
and (d,q)-to-( , ) projections using the Park and
inverse Park transformations, respectively.

However, it is not uncommon for sources to use three-to-two,

(a,b,c)-to-(d,q) and inverse projections. (d,q) Coordinate System Superimposed
on Three-Phase Induction Motor[16]
While (d,q) coordinate system rotation can arbitrarily be set to
any speed, there are three preferred speeds or
reference frames:[16]

Stationary reference frame where (d,q)

coordinate system does not rotate;
Synchronously rotating reference frame
where (d,q) coordinate system rotates at
synchronous speed;
Rotor reference frame where (d,q)
coordinate system rotates at rotor speed.

Decoupled torque and field currents can thus be

derived from raw stator current inputs for control
algorithm development.[24]

Whereas magnetic field and torque components

in DC motors can be operated relatively simply Simplified Indirect FOC Block Diagram [3] [9]:111[17]
by separately controlling the respective field and
armature currents, economical control of AC
motors in variable speed application has required
development of microprocessor-based controls[24]
with all AC drives now using powerful DSP (digital
signal processing) technology.[25]

Inverters can be implemented as either open-loop

sensorless or closed-loop FOC, the key limitation of
open-loop operation being minimum speed possible at
100% torque, namely, about 0.8 Hz compared to
standstill for closed-loop operation.[9]

There are two vector control methods, direct or

feedback vector control (DFOC) and indirect or
feedforward vector control (IFOC), IFOC being more Simplified Direct FOC Block Diagram [18]
commonly used because in closed-loop mode such
drives more easily operate throughout the speed
range from zero speed to high-speed field-
weakening.[26] In DFOC, flux magnitude and
angle feedback signals are directly calculated
using so-called voltage or current models. In
IFOC, flux space angle feedforward and flux
magnitude signals first measure stator currents
and rotor speed for then deriving flux space angle
proper by summing the rotor angle corresponding
to the rotor speed and the calculated reference
value of slip angle corresponding to the slip
frequency.[27][28]

Sensorless control (see Sensorless FOC Block

Diagram) of AC drives is attractive for cost and Sensorless FOC Block Diagram [19][20]
reliability considerations. Sensorless control
requires derivation of rotor speed information
from measured stator voltage and currents in combination with open-loop estimators or closed-loop
observers.[19][20]

Application
1. Stator phase currents are measured, converted to complex space vector in (a,b,c) coordinate system.

2. Current is converted to ( , ) coordinate system. Transformed to a coordinate system rotating in rotor

reference frame, rotor position is derived by integrating the speed by means of speed measurement sensor.

3. Rotor flux linkage vector is estimated by multiplying the stator current vector with magnetizing inductance
Lm and low-pass filtering the result with the rotor no-load time constant Lr/Rr, namely, the rotor inductance
to rotor resistance ratio.

4. Current vector is converted to (d,q) coordinate system.

5. d-axis component of the stator current vector is used to control the rotor flux linkage and the imaginary q-
axis component is used to control the motor torque. While PI controllers can be used to control these currents,
bang-bang type current control provides better dynamic performance.
6. PI controllers provide (d,q) coordinate voltage components. A decoupling term is sometimes added to the
controller output to improve control performance to mitigate cross coupling or big and rapid changes in
speed, current and flux linkage. PI-controller also sometimes need low-pass filtering at the input or output to
prevent the current ripple due to transistor switching from being amplified excessively and destabilizing the
control. However, such filtering also limits the dynamic control system performance. High switching
frequency (typically more than 10 kHz) is typically required to minimize filtering requirements for high-
performance drives such as servo drives.

7. Voltage components are transformed from (d,q) coordinate system to ( , ) coordinate system.

8. Voltage components are transformed from ( , ) coordinate system to (a,b,c) coordinate system or fed in
Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) modulator, or both, for signaling to the power inverter section.

Significant aspects of vector control application:

Speed or position measurement or some sort of estimation is needed.

Torque and flux can be changed reasonably fast, in less than 5-10 milliseconds, by changing
the references.
The step response has some overshoot if PI control is used.
The switching frequency of the transistors is usually constant and set by the modulator.
The accuracy of the torque depends on the accuracy of the motor parameters used in the
control. Thus large errors due to for example rotor temperature changes often are encountered.
Reasonable processor performance is required; typically the control algorithm is calculated
every PWM cycle.

Although the vector control algorithm is more complicated than the Direct Torque Control (DTC), the
algorithm need not be calculated as frequently as the DTC algorithm. Also the current sensors need not be the
best in the market. Thus the cost of the processor and other control hardware is lower making it suitable for
applications where the ultimate performance of DTC is not required.

See also
transform Robust control
Adaptive control Root locus
Control engineering Perturbation theory
Control theory Signal-flow graph
Dqo transformation Small-signal model
Eigenvalues and eigenvectors Sliding mode control
Extended Kalman filter State observer
Filter (signal processing) State space representation
Frequency response Symmetrical components
Hilbert transform Systems analysis
Impulse response Transient response
Kalman filter Transfer function

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