Advanced Automotive

Engineering

www.motorvehicleuniversity.com www.aae.unimore.it
 Electric Drives -
Electric Propulsion Systems
AY 2018-2019

Lecturers:
Prof. Giovanni Franceschini
(giovanni.franceschini@unimore.it)

Fabio Immovilli
(fabio.immovilli@unimore.it)
V1.2

Electric Drives – Electric Propulsion System 2

Transducers for
electric drives

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 Transducers
Overview

Practical feedback for control loops

Position transducers
• Absolute / Incremental
• Optical / Magnetic

Current transducers
• Shunt
• Hall-Effect

Electric Drives – Electric Propulsion System 4

 Feedback
transducers

Electric Drives – Electric Propulsion System 5

Transducers

• Measure physical quantities

(usually converting them into electrical ones)

• Enable closed control loops

implementation

Controller Plant

Electric Drives – Electric Propulsion System 6

Feedback measurements
Position (speed) and Current

Electric Drives – Electric Propulsion System 7

 Position
Feedback

Electric Drives – Electric Propulsion System 8

Position transducers
Overview
Type of measure:
• Absolute
• Incremental

Pinciple of operation:
• Magnetic
• Optical SSI: Synchronous
serial interface
Output signal: EnDAT
• Analogic HYPERFACE
• Digital
• Digital (communication bus)
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Angular position measurement
Useful in AC brushless control

Resolver:
Postion information retrived by time

Encoder:
Postion information retrived by space

Two encoder types: relative or absolute

Electric Drives – Electric Propulsion System 10

 Resolver
Construction

•Stator: two sinusoidally-distributed,

2 mutually-orthogonal windings
𝜋
𝐹𝑠2 (𝛼) ∝ cos 𝛼 −
2

•Rotor: a single sinusoidally

1 distributed winding
𝐹𝑠1 (𝛼) ∝ cos 𝛼

In a resolver, the mutual coupling between stator and

rotor windings depends on rotor angular position.

Electric Drives – Electric Propulsion System 11

 Resolver
In use
Supply the rotor with a sinusoidal voltage at a
relatively high frequency (2÷10 kHz): 𝑉𝑟 ∝ sin 𝜔𝑒 𝑡

2
Two amplitude modulated
emf are induced at the
stator windings
J

𝑉1 ∝ 𝑐𝑜𝑠 𝜗 sin 𝜔𝑒 𝑡
𝜋
𝑉2 ∝ 𝑐𝑜𝑠 𝜗 − 2 sin 𝜔𝑒 𝑡 = sin(𝜗) sin 𝜔𝑒 𝑡

Via amplitude demodulation, the values of sin(𝜗), 𝑐𝑜𝑠 𝜗 are obtained

Directional/Direction COSINES
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 Brushless Resolver
Practical construction
To minimize wear, a toroidal rotary
transformer architecture is used to excite
the rotor winding

Electric Drives – Electric Propulsion System 14

Sampling & Demodulation
Stator EMF signal is sampled at the peaks:
e.g. sin wet sin J

The sampled signal is at twice the excitation

frequency.

Usually all the operations are carried out by

Application Specific IC that also provide the
excitation and output data digitally on
comm. bus (e.g. SPI)

Electric Drives – Electric Propulsion System 15

 Speed reference signal
Tacho reconstruction

Tacho information (Speed) is obtained as depicted

in the following diagram

-w sin J -w sin2 J
cos J 𝑑
𝑑𝑡
- w

𝑑
sin J 𝑑𝑡 w cos J w cos2 J

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 Resolver Wrap Up

Resolvers were the first precise, reliable position

feedback devices employed in electric drives

Dedicated IC resolver to digital converter (RDC)

are widely used for the sake of convenience

Sampling demodulation might be convenient in

high performance digital systems using DSP or FPGA

Accurate demodulation design is mandatory in

order to minimize the speed ripple measurement

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 Optical
encoders

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 Optical Encoder
Incremental encoder
Light source (diode) Receiver
(phototransistor/photodiode)

Three receivers are usually adopted:

channel A,B and channel Z Direction

CHA CHA leading CHB

CHB

CHA
CHB leading CHA
CHB

Direction 19
Electric Drives – Electric Propulsion System
 Optical Encoder
Incremental encoder

The simplest incremental encoder provides

two signals (square waves) in quadrature,
plus a zero index.

The angular resolution depends on PPR (n°

of Pulse Per Revolution) usually in the order
of 103
Sampling is strictly spatial, meaning that at
low speed no position feedback update for
relatively long periods of time.

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Optical Encoder
Quad count (x1 x2 or x4)

Line count (index) vs Incremental count

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 Absolute optical encoder
Single-turn
Resolution = 360° /2Nbit
Expensive and delicate for
high resolution: 1 bit per
individual trace
Parallel output

Grey coding of the position

Two adjacent configurations can
only differ by one single bit.

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 Optical Encoder Wrap-up
Incremental encoder

Incremental encoder requires alignment

and system initialization (homing) at startup

Useful to store last known position in

memory, in case of fault or emergency stop

Absolute encoders are an alternative, but

more expensive

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 Magnetic
encoders

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 Magnetic Encoder
Incremental

Same principle of operation.

• Scanning head
• Track with alternatively magnetized stripes

Can be pure incremental or mixed (incremental + absolute)

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 Magnetic Encoder
Incremental Sin Cos

The scanning head houses a permanent magnet

for excitation, the saliency on the position wheel
modulate the readout of the transducer.
Analog output signals
Extremely rugged construction
Electric Drives – Electric Propulsion System 26
 Magnetic Encoder
Demodulation of Sin Cos signals

Enhances
resolution

Line count vs
Incremental count

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 Hall effect resolver
Absolute position feedback

Usually available as a System

on chip, with minimal accessory
component required.

Very useful in small, integrated drives

• Rugged, non-contact operation (+ magnet loss diagnosis)
• Angular resolution up to 12 - 14 bits
• Multiple interfaces: SSI, PWM, quadrature A / B signals
• Readily interfaceable to uControllers

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 Position Feedback Conclusion

High performance AC Drives, until recently, employed

RESOLVERS as the most used position transducer

Optical incremental encoder suffer from vibration and dust

presence: not suitable for harsh environment

A good remedy: the magnetic incremental or sin/cos encoder

Absolute single turn magnetic encoders are readily available as

system on chip, especially useful in embedded applications

The widespread use of Digital Control Systems led to the use of

fully digital position sensors, with proprietary interfaces

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Position feedback limitations
Speed/Resolution tradeoff

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 Current
Feedback

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 Shunt Resistor
PROS
• Simple and rugged
• Low cost
• Wide bandwidht (100 kHz)

CONS
• Dissipative
• No galvanic insulation 𝑉𝑚 = 𝐼 ∙ 𝑅𝑠ℎ
Rsh must be of low value, to
limit Joule losses
Differental readout required

Electric Drives – Electric Propulsion System 32

 Shunt resistor readout
With added galvanic insulation

Insulation amplifier or
Sigma-delta modulator

Electric Drives – Electric Propulsion System 33

 Hall Effect Current transducers
Principle of operation
F=(qv) × 𝐵
𝑉ℎ ∝ 𝐵
PROS
• Rugged
• Inherently insulated
• Not dissipative

CONS
• More expensive
• Require additional power supply
• Offset & drift (open loop)
• Bandwidth limitations (closed loop)

Electric Drives – Electric Propulsion System 34

 Hall Effect Current transducers
Open loop construction

In the airgap of a toroidal core

there is a Hall-effect sensor on
which the toroidal core
concentrates the magnetic
field generated by the unknown
electric current Im.

A small reference current Iref is

passed on the transducer
which, by Hall effect, generates
a voltage Vout proportional to
𝑉𝑜𝑢𝑡 = 𝐾 𝐼𝑟𝑒𝑓 𝐼𝑚 the current Im.

Electric Drives – Electric Propulsion System 35

 Hall Effect Current transducers
Open loop construction
Hall effect
transducers have
good linearity only
for low magnetic flux
values.

With closed loop

configuration the
Hall effect sensor
work around a zero
magnetic flux.

Closed loop operation:

𝐼𝑚 𝑛1 𝐼1 + 𝑛2 𝐼2 = ℛΦ𝐵 = 0
𝑉𝑜 = 𝑅 𝐼2 = 𝑅
𝑛2
Electric Drives – Electric Propulsion System 36