A sensorless initial rotor position estimation scheme for a direct torque controlled interior permanent magnet synchronous motor drive

In direct torque control (DTC) scheme, the requirement of the continuous rotor position sensor and coordinate transformation is eliminated since all the calculation is done in stator reference frame. However, the DTC scheme requires the position sensor to determine the initial position of the rotor at starting. Elimination of the shaft-mounted position encoder is a very desirable objective in many applications since this sensor is often one of the most expensive and fragile components in the entire drive system. This paper presents a sensorless method of determining the initial rotor position of a direct torque controlled interior permanent magnet (IPM) synchronous motor drive. The method consists of injecting a high frequency voltage to the windings and examining the effects of the saliency on the amplitude of the corresponding stator current components. This method does not depend on the level of static load and on any motor parameters. The magnet polarity of the rotor at its initial position is also identified using the effect of saliency. Modeling and experimental results verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.