Plug-and-play motor drive

Abstract 

Meanwhile in the energy transition, fossil fueled power plants are removed from the grid and the 
share of renewable energy sources integrated to the grid increases exponentially. As many 
renewable energy sources need an electric drive, the optimization of these is a big topic today. By 
optimizing electric drives, the operation could become more energy-efficient and in terms of motor 
drives, the control of the torque could be improved. The goal of this project was to develop a user-
friendly plug-and-play motor drive. With a plug-and-play motor drive any low voltage permanent-
magnet synchronous motor could be connected to the motor drive, without demanding motor 
parameters from the user. This would enable a control system custom-made specifically for the 
motor connected to the motor drive. As the control system is nearly perfect adapted to the motor, a 
more precise and energy-efficient motor operation would be enabled. The motor drive developed in 
this project estimates the stator resistance, inductance on the d-axis and the back EMF constant in 
an ampere-per-hertz control model. Additionally, these parameters are automatically initialized in 
the control system, to update the current controller for the motor attached. The estimation run can 
be performed multiple times, which is beneficial if the motor has been under load a longer duration 
and the stator resistance needs to be estimated again due to the stator temperature increase. The 
estimation run is very quick in estimating the parameters, with a total time of about 10 seconds. 
After the estimation run, the motor can be operated as normally, with an updated current controller.