Sensorless Sliding Mode Position Control of Induction Motors Using Braided Extended Kalman Filters

This study is aimed at designing a sensorless sliding mode position control system for the rotor flux oriented Direct Vector Control (DVC) strategy of induction motors (IMs). For this purpose, a novel sliding mode controller (SMC) with reduced-chattering is designed for the control of the flux and angular position of the motor. All the states required for DVC in addition to the step-shaped load torque, stator resistance and rotor resistance are estimated using Braided EKF based observers. The performance of the new SMC is compared against a previously developed chattering-free SMC scheme. The simulation results demonstrate an improved robustness in the system response against parameter and load variations. It has also been demonstrated that the new Braided EKF technique used in the proposed sliding mode position control system also increases estimation accuracy of estimations when compared with chattering-free SMC under challenging variations of 100 % in the load and stator & rotor resistance.