ACSE Journal

ACSE

Issue (IV)

Fuzzy Position Controller for an Axial Flux Variable Reluctance PM Motor

Naif B. Almutairi[1], Muthana T. Alrifai[2] and Andrew L. Nelson[3]

[1] Department of Electrical Engineering, Kuwait University, P. O. Box 5969, Safat 13060, KUWAIT, Tel.: (+965) 498-5845, Fax.: (+965) 481-7451

[2] Department of Electrical Engineering, Kuwait University, Safat 13060, KUWAIT

[3] Computer Science and Engineering, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620, USA

Abstract:

This paper proposes a path-tracking fuzzy logic-based controller for the rotor position control in an axial flux (AF) variable reluctance (VR) permanent magnet (PM) motor. The proposed fuzzy position controller needs only the rotor position, which can be easily measured, to compute the control law. Using rotor position information in conjunction with the proposed fuzzy position controller, the motor can be electronically commutated and driven, i.e., the proposed fuzzy position controller is eliminating the need for an electronic commutator between the phases. Moreover, the proposed fuzzy position controller is not limited to a certain number of stator coils or rotor poles. Rather, it can be extended to various combinations of stator coils and rotor poles with proper modifications in the fuzzy rule bases and inclusion of additional fuzzy modules. The fuzzy position controller is tested in simulation and the results are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed controller. Additional simulations investigate the robustness of the proposed fuzzy position controller to change in motor parameters. It is found that the proposed fuzzy position controller is robust to changes in a variety of motor parameters. In addition, the performance of the motor with the proposed fuzzy position controller is compared to the performance of the motor controlled with a PI controller. It is found that the motor with the proposed fuzzy position controller can provide better performance than the motor with the PI controller.

Keywords: Axial flux motor, fuzzy-logic control, permanent magnet rotor, position control, robustness, variable reluctance motor.

(Full paper, 960 KB)

Biographie:

	Naif Bejad Almutairi was born in Kuwait in 1974. He received the B. Sc. and M. Sc. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Kuwait University, College of Engineering and Petroleum, Kuwait, in 1996 and 1998 respectively, and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from North Carolina State University, NC, USA, in 2002. He has been a faculty member in Electrical Engineering Department, College of Engineering and Petroleum, Kuwait University since 2002. His research interest are Network-base Control, Nonlinear control, and Fuzzy control.
	Muthana Alrifai received the B.S. degree from Kuwait University, Kuwait, in 1993, and the M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, in 1994 and 1999, respectively. He is a faculty member in the Department of Electrical Engineering, College of Engineering and Petroleum, Kuwait University since 1999. His current research interests include the control of Power systems and motor drives.
	Andrew L. Nelson was born Laramie Wyoming in 1967. He received his B.S. degree with concentration in Computer Science from the Evergreen State College in Olympia Washington in 1990. He received his M.S. in Electrical Engineering from North Carolina State University in 2000. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at the Center for Robotics and Intelligent Machines (CRIM) at North Carolina State University in 2003. Between 2003 and 2005 he was a visiting researcher at the University of South Florida. Currently he is a researcher in the Androtics Research Group, Tucson AZ and Santa Cruz Ca. His main interests are in the fields of fully autonomous robot control, bio-inspired robot control and evolutionary robotics. His robotics work has included applying artificial evolution to synthesize controllers for swarms of robots in a competitive environment as well as the development of a fuzzy-logic based controller for robot navigation. He pursues work in artificial neural networks, genetic algorithms and soft computing related to autonomous machine control. He has also conducted research in diverse fields including electric machine design and molecular biology.

BibTex:

@ARTICLE{P1110549004,

AUTHOR = {Naif B. Almutairi, Muthana T. Alrifai, and Andrew L. Nelson},

TITLE = {Fuzzy Position Controller for an Axial Flux Variable Reluctance PM Motor},

JOURNAL = {ICGST International Journal on Automatic Control and Systems Engineering, ACSE},

YEAR = {2005},

VOLUME = {05},

ISSUE = {IV}

}

(Full paper, 960 KB)