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December/2012
Journal of Science and Technology Vol. 13, No. 2
ISSN 1605 – 427X
Engineering and Computer Sciences (ECS)
www.sustech.edu

Performance Comparison of Sliding Mode Control and Conventional PI

Controller for Speed Control of Separately Excited Direct Current Motors
Aamir Hashim Obeid Ahmed

Control Engineering Department, Sudan University of Science and Technology (SUST)

aamirahmed@sustech.edu

Abstract- Direct Current (DC) motors have been used extensively in industry mainly
because of the simple strategies required to achieve good performance in speed or position
control applications. This paper addresses controlling of speed of a separately excited DC
motor which remains among the vital issues. A separately excited DC motor is generally
controlled by Proportional plus Integral (PI) controller. PI controller is simple but sensitive
to parameter variations and external disturbance. Due to the robustness of Sliding Mode
Control (SMC), especially against parameters variations and external disturbances, and also
its ability in controlling linear and nonlinear systems; a separately excited DC motor sliding
mode speed controller technique is proposed in this paper. Performance of these controllers
has been verified through simulation results using MATLAB/SIMULINK software. The
simulation results showed that SMC was a superior controller than PI controller for speed
control of a separately excited DC motor.

Keywords: Direct Current Motors, Speed Control, Proportional plus Integral Controller, Sliding Mode
Control.

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Introduction important issue and has been studied since

Direct current motors have been widely used the early decades in the last century (1). DC
in many industrial applications such as motors are generally controlled by
electric vehicles, steel rolling mills, electric conventional Proportional plus Integral
cranes, robotic manipulators, and home controllers, since they designed easily, have
appliances due to precise, wide, simple, and low cost, inexpensive maintenance and
continuous control characteristics. Therefore, effectiveness.
the control of speed of a DC motor is an

74
 December/2012
Journal of Science and Technology Vol. 13, No. 2
ISSN 1605 – 427X
Engineering and Computer Sciences (ECS)
www.sustech.edu

With only the classical PI controller applied dynamics) in series with the plant. The
to control of a DC motor, a good chattering phenomenon problem is
performance characteristic of the controller considered as a major obstacle for sliding
can be obtained, if all the model parameters mode control to become one of the most
of DC motor and operating conditions such significant discoveries in modern control
as external load torque, disturbances are theory. Several solutions have been proposed
exactly known (2). However, the performance in the research literature to eliminate or
of PI controller for speed or position reduce the chattering (15-17).
regulation degrades under external The organization of this paper is as follows.
disturbances and machine parameter In section II, the state space model of a
variations. Furthermore, the PI controller separately excited DC motor is given. The
gains have to be carefully selected in order to basic concept of SMC is briefly reviewed in
obtain a desired response (3). This makes the section III. The section IV, the speed control
use of traditional PI controller a poor choice of a separately excited DC motor using SMC
for industrial variable speed drive technique is discussed. The simulation results
applications where higher dynamic control are stated in section V. The last section
performance with little overshoot and high contains the conclusion.
efficiency is required (4-7). The State Space Model of DC Motor
The above issues can be solved by advanced Direct current motors are widely used for
control techniques such as sliding mode industrial and domestic applications. The
control. Sliding mode control was first control of the speed of a DC motor with high
proposed in early 1950’s in Soviet Union by accuracy is required. There are various DC
Emelyanov and several co-researchers. After motor types. Depending on type, a DC motor
seventies, SMC has become more popular may be controlled by varying the input
control strategies and powerful control voltage or by changing the input current. In
technology to deal with the nonlinear this paper, the separately excited DC motor
uncertain system. The main reason of this model is chosen due to its good electrical and
popularity is the attractive superior properties mechanical performances compared to other
of SMC, such as good performance even in DC motor models. The separately excited DC
the case of nonlinear systems, applicability to motor is driven by applied armature voltage.
Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO) systems. Figure 1 shows a separately excited DC
The best property of the SMC is its motor equivalent model (1-4).
robustness. Loosely speaking, a system with
a sliding mode control is insensitive to
parameter variations and external
disturbances (8-14).
Nevertheless, this type of control has a
disadvantage, which is the chattering
phenomenon. The chattering phenomenon is
understood to be an oscillatory motion in the
neighbourhood of the sliding surface. There
are two possible mechanisms which produce
chattering. Figure 1: A separately excited DC motor
First, chattering may be caused by the model
switching nonidealities, such as time delays
or time constants. Second the presence of The dynamics of a separately excited DC
parasitic dynamics (actuator and sensor motor may be expressed as:

75
 December/2012
Journal of Science and Technology Vol. 13, No. 2
ISSN 1605 – 427X
Engineering and Computer Sciences (ECS)
www.sustech.edu

d ia not receive wide acceptance among

V a = R a ia + L a + Eb
dt engineering professionals until the mid 1970s
(1) when a book by Itkis (8) and a survey paper
d ia
V a = R a ia + L a + K bω by Utkin (19) were published in English. Since
dt then, and especially during the late 80’s, the
dω
T = K T ia = J + Bω (2) control research community has shown
dt
significant interest in sliding mode control.
where Va is the input terminal voltage
(armature voltage) in volt, Eb is the back emf
Table I: Parameters of the separately excited
in volt, Ra is the armature resistance in ohm,
DC motor
La is the armature inductance in H, J is the
moment of inertia of the motor in kgm2/s2, T Parameters Values
is the motor torque in Nm, B is the viscous Armature resistance, Ra 5Ω
friction coefficient in Nms, KT is the torque Armature inductance, La 0.01H
factor constant in Nm/A, Kb is the back emf
constant in Vs/rad, ω is the angular speed in Moment of inertia, J 0.0025kgm2/s2
rad/s, and ia is the armature current in A. Viscous friction 0.136Nms
Equations (1) and (2) are rearranged to coefficient, B
obtain- The back emf constant, Kb 0.245Vs/rad
The torque factor 0.245Nm/A
d ia R K V
= − a i a − b ω + a (3) constant, KT
dt La La La
dω KT B This increased interest is explained by the
= i − ω (4)
dt J a J fact that robustness has become a major
In the state space model of a separately requirement in modern control applications.
excited DC motor, Equations (3) and (4) can Sliding mode control concepts have
be expressed by choosing the angular speed subsequently been utilized in the design of
(ω) and armature current (ia) as state robust regulators, tracking system, state
variables and the armature voltage (Va) as an observers, model reference systems and fault
input. The output is chosen to be the angular detection schemes. The ideas have
speed (1-4). successfully been applied to problems as
diverse as control of electric motors, aircraft
− Ra − Kb and space craft flight, control of flexible
dia 0 structure, robot manipulators, and chemical
i La La ia
dt = a = + 1 Va processes. In general, the phase trajectory of
dω ω KT −B ω a sliding mode control can be investigated in
La
dt two parts, representing two modes of the
J J
ia
system as shown in Figure 2.
y= 0 1
ω
The first part, the trajectory starting from
anywhere on the phase plane moves toward
(5)
sliding surface and reaches the surface in
Table 1 lists the numerical values for the
finite time. This is known as reaching,
parameters of the separately excited DC
hitting, or non-sliding phase and the system
motor studied in this paper.
is sensitive to parameter variations and
Basic Concept of SMC
disturbance rejection in this part of the phase
The theory of sliding mode control has been
trajectory. The second part is the sliding
developed firstly in the Soviet Union in early
phase in which the state trajectory moves to
1950s (18). However, sliding mode control did
the origin along the sliding surface and the

76
 December/2012
Journal of Science and Technology Vol. 13, No. 2
ISSN 1605 – 427X
Engineering and Computer Sciences (ECS)
www.sustech.edu

states never leave the sliding surface. During In order to satisfy this condition, the basic
this period, the system is defined by the discontinuous control law of sliding mode
equation of the sliding surface and thus it is control is given by:
independent of the system parameters and u = − Ksign( s ) (8)
external disturbances (8-12). where K is a positive constant known as the
In general, the sliding mode controller design hitting control gain or parameter, s is the
approach usually consists of two steps. First, sliding surface, and sign is the signum
the sliding or switching surface(s) is designed function defined as (8-14):

{
such that the system motion in sliding mode 1 if s > 0
satisfies design specifications. Second, a sign (s) = (9)
-1 if s < 0
control law is designed making the switching
surface attractive to the system state. The discontinuous control law described by
Sliding surface can be either linear or Equation (9) presents high robustness,
nonlinear. For simplicity, only a linear insensitive to parameter fluctuations and
sliding surface is used in this paper. disturbances. However, using a sign function
often causes chattering phenomenon in
practice. Several solutions have been
proposed in research literature to alleviate the
chattering phenomenon (9-11).
Design of Sliding Mode Speed Control of
DC Motor
In this section, the design procedure for the
speed control of a separately excited DC
State motor which is under control by SMC
Trajectory technique is discussed. Thus, the state space
model of a separately excited DC motor is
Sliding obtained as shown in Equation (5). The speed
Surface
control goal is to force the speed ω to track
Figure 2: Phase portrait of a sliding motion the desired speed reference ωd. For the
Slotine (12) proposed a form of general sliding mode controller technique, the sliding
equation to determine the sliding surface surface is chosen as:
which ensures the convergence of a variable s = ωe + λωe (10)
towards its desired value as: where ωe is the tracking speed error. λ is a
n −1
d strictly positive constant that determine the
s= +λ e (6)
dt bandwidth of the system. The given speed
where n is the system order, e is the tracking control problem can be treated as a regulator
error, and λ is a strictly positive constant that problem, where the desired acceleration is
determine the bandwidth of the system. chosen to be zero. In this paper to reduce the
Having chosen the sliding surface at this chattering phenomenon of the sliding mode
stage, the next step would be to choose the control, the signum function is replaced by
control law (u) that will allow the error pseudo sliding with smooth control action.
vector ( e , e ) to reach the sliding surface. To The pseudo function is defined as (20):
do so, the control law should be designed in s
u=K (11)
such a way that the following condition, also s +δ
named reaching condition, is met: where is a small positive design constant
ss < 0 (7) also called as tuning parameter used to

77
 December/2012
Journal of Science and Technology Vol. 13, No. 2
ISSN 1605 – 427X
Engineering and Computer Sciences (ECS)
www.sustech.edu

reduce chattering phenomenon (0<δ<1), K is 12

a positive constant, and the sliding surface
has the same definition as Equation (10). 10
Simulation Results Reference
In this section, the overall model of a 8
SMC

Rotor Speed (rad/sec)

PI
separately excited DC motor with sliding
mode control was implemented in MATLAB/ 6
Simulink. Simulation results of the SMC
were compared with the PI controller. 4
Simulations were based on the facts that
whether the sliding mode controller is better 2
and more robust than the PI controller or not.
Firstly the response of a separately excited 0
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45 0.5
DC motor is observed under normal Time (sec)

condition, secondly under load torque Figure 3: Speed responses of SMC and PI
change, finally under high moment of inertia, controller for step command
respectively.
Simulation results for the nominal system are 12

presented in Figure 3, which shows the rotor

speed responses for SMC and PI controller 10
when a separately excited DC motor is
operating at a reference speed of 10 rad/s. In
8
Rotor S peed (rad/s ec )

terms of the rotor speed control trajectories Reference

shown in Figure 3, two different controllers SMC
PI
have a similar performance in term of fast 6

tracking of the desired speed. The sliding

mode controller shows a little overshoot 4
which is reasonable and then tracks the
reference speed closely. However, the 2
settling time and rise time for SMC is shorter
than for PI controller.
0
In order to testify the robustness of the 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45 0.5
controlled system, a 0.5Nm load torque was Time (sec)

suddenly added at time 0.3s and then Figure 4: Speed responses of SMC and PI
removed at time 0.4s while the command controller against sudden change in torque load
speed was set as 10rad/s. Figure 4 gives the
rotor speed responses under these conditions. To analyze the sensitivity of the sliding mode
The PI controller had the worse rotor speed controller to parameter variations, the
response at these two instants. However, the moment of inertia of the separately excited
system controlled by the SMC demonstrated DC motor had been substantially modified
an excellent rotor speed response whether the throughout the test. The motor was
load was added or removed. Again the SMC commanded to accelerate from rest to a
performed a better tracking ability than the PI reference speed of 10 rad/sec under no torque
controller. Therefore, it could be concluded load. Figure 5 shows the motor responses of
that the PI controller is not robust to load SMC and PI controller when the moment of
torque variations. inertia was increased by 100% of its original
value. It can be seen that the PI controller

78
 December/2012
Journal of Science and Technology Vol. 13, No. 2
ISSN 1605 – 427X
Engineering and Computer Sciences (ECS)
www.sustech.edu

exhibited poor dynamic response. against parameter variations and external

Furthermore, when carefully study Figure 5 load torque.
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Separately Excited DC Motor”, American
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3. Y. J. Huang, T. C. Kuo, “Robust position
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system analysis, design, and technology”,
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Journal of Science and Technology Vol. 13, No. 2
ISSN 1605 – 427X
Engineering and Computer Sciences (ECS)
www.sustech.edu

Theory Appl., Vol. 152, No. 4, July

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Journal of Science and Technology Vol. 13, No. 2
ISSN 1605 – 427X
Engineering and Computer Sciences (ECS)
www.sustech.edu

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