Expert system aided automated design, simulation and controller tuning of AC drive system

Expert systems, a branch of artificial intelligence (AI), are showing tremendous potential for application to power electronics and AC motor drive systems. The paper describes expert system-aided automated design, simulation and controller tuning of an AC motor drive system. It is an extension of earlier work that discussed the design and optimization of power converter systems. Based on the application and performance specifications from the user, the expert system selects a motor drive configuration consisting of the AC machine type, power converter and control topologies. The expert system embeds the design expertise of an experienced AC motor drive system designer to configure, design and fine-tune the AC motor drive system. Next, the expert system supervises an autonomous hybrid simulation where the controller software is fine-tuned in real-time before loading to an experimental AC motor drive system. The paper discusses the design methodology for AC motor drive systems, with particular emphasis on the configuration selection, AC motor sizing and control design and tuning. The expert system based control design is experimentally verified on an indirect vector controlled induction motor drive system with synchronous current control, using a 5 hp IGBT inverter, with the control implemented by a Texas Instruments DSP 320C25. The same principles can be extended to larger and more complex AC motor drive system applications