Power Electronics for Renewable Energy Systems, Transportation and Industrial Applications

Chapter 19Model Predictive Speed Control of Electrical Machines

José Rodríguez¹, Marcelo A. Pérez¹, Héctor Young¹ and Haitham Abu-Rub²

¹Department of Electronics, Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Valparaíso, Chile

²Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Texas A&M University Qatar, Doha, Qatar

19.1 Introduction

Speed control improves the efficiency of electrical machines under different operating conditions. This is particularly important when the operating range is wide, such as in pumps and fans. Speed control must also be used when a constant speed is required, for example, in paper mills and in robotic equipment, even if the load changes. Electrical machines are usually controlled using a piece of power electronics equipment called an inverter. Inverters only work with semiconductors in on-state and off-state, hence they are very efficient and can synthesize a fully controllable AC waveform with adjustable frequency and amplitude.

During the last decades, only two speed control strategies for electrical drives have reached widespread industrial application: field-oriented control (FOC) and direct torque control (DTC). However, huge advances in microprocessor technology have made it possible to develop more intelligent and sophisticated control strategies for electrical drives. One of these strategies is model predictive control [1 2], which has recently been recognized as one of the most successful techniques that originated from modern control theory ...