Sensorless control of permanent magnet synchronous motor using extended Kalman filter

This paper presents the modeling, analysis, design and experimental validation of a robust sensorless control method for permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) based on extended Kalman filter (EKF). A real-time PMSM and its EKF models in the MATLAB/Simulink simulation environment are developed. The position/speed sensorless control scheme along with the power electronic circuitry is modeled. The performance of the proposed control is assessed and verified for different types of dynamic and static torque loads. The robustness of the sensorless method is demonstrated by starting the motor with different rotor initial positions. The proposed EKF speed/position estimation method is also proved insensitive to the PMSM parameter variations. Proper operations of this EKF based sensorless control method for a high-speed permanent magnet synchronous machine are verified experimentally in the research laboratory at Honeywell.