Motion control of AC Induction Motors

Question

Controlling AC Induction Motors is a difficult task. A new project of mine will have me controlling the speed of an AC motor as well as direction. Anyone out there do this? And can you give me a push in the right direction? UPDATE: I attached a PDF to this post that has been invaluable to my learning. Hope it helps. Cabe 
 Attachments: IM98VC1[1].pdf flux observer.pdf alexandru flux calculations.pdf

Jorge_Garcia · Accepted Answer

Hi Cabe,

You are a busy fellow here on the element-14 forums. I once had a customer who wanted to design a controller for a permanent magnet synchrounous motor, the project never came to fruition however I did a lot of research on the subject.

For good applications info, look through some of the microcontroller manufacturer's app notes.

I found a lot of good info at microchip.com, ti.com, and freescale's site. They have dedicated motor control sections on their sites so that will get you going in the right direction.

Microchip

AN1162 Sensorless Control of AC induction Motors

AN887 AC Induction Motor fundamentals

Ti.com

http://focus.ti.com/docs/solution/folders/print/745.html

Freescale

AN1931 3-Phase synchrounous vector control...

I hope your sharp on your linear algebra, you'll be needing it to implement the Clark and Park transformations used for Vector motor control.

I'm sure that if you search through the above websites, you'll find all the info you'll need to do this project. If your handy with an MCU (doesn't matter the manufacturer, I'm a PIC kind of guy, however there are plenty of powerful MCUs that can handle these types of applications) and take a little time to review your Matrix Algebra you shouldn't have a problem.

Hope this helps,

Jorge Garcia

Cadsoft Computer

enrico.migchels · Answer

Hi Cabe, You might consider dsPIC. Microchip has application notes on AC induction motors and Vector control on their website. Best regards, Enrico Migchels