Design and Control of Drives and Electrical Machines

A special issue of Electronics (ISSN 2079-9292). This special issue belongs to the section "Systems & Control Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 October 2025 | Viewed by 5831

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation, Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen), Shenzhen 518055, China
Interests: high-performance motor driving control strategies; hydrogen fuel cell electronic control systems; optimization control of energy storage converters

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Guest Editor
Sustainable Energy and Environment Thrust, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), Guangzhou 511400, China
Interests: AC motor drives; reluctance motor drives
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
Centre for Advanced Low Carbon Propulsion Systems, Coventry University, Coventry CV1 5FB, UK
Interests: control of permanent magnet brushless machines drives and power electronics

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The field of Design and Control of Drives and Electrical Machines focuses on the development and optimization of electrical machines, such as motors and generators, as well as the control systems that govern their operation. Researchers are exploring innovative approaches to enhance the design and performance of electrical machines. This includes the development of new machine topologies, advanced materials, and optimization techniques. Moreover, control systems play a critical role in ensuring the efficient and safe operation of these machines. Researchers are investigating various control strategies, such as sensorless control, fault detection and diagnosis, and advanced control algorithms, to improve the performance and reliability of drives and electrical machines.

The field also addresses emerging trends, such as the integration of renewable energy sources. With the shift towards clean and sustainable energy, there is a need for electrical machines that can efficiently convert and utilize power from renewable sources like solar and wind. This requires the design of machines with specific characteristics and control systems that can accommodate the intermittent nature of renewable energy generation.

Overall, the field of Design and Control of Drives and Electrical Machines focuses on advancing the performance, energy efficiency, and reliability of electrical machines through innovative design methodologies and control strategies. This Special Issue provides a platform for researchers to exchange ideas and contribute to the ongoing progress in this dynamic field.

The aim of this Special Issue is to attract original research and review papers in the field of Design and Control of Drives and Electrical Machines. Major topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Permanent magnet machines;
  • AC/DC machines;
  • Reluctance machines;
  • Multiphase machines;
  • Motor control and motor drives;
  • Sensorless control;
  • Power electronic devices (si and wide band gap) and applications;
  • Other areas in electric machines;
  • Other areas in motor drives and power electronics.

Dr. Chengrui Li
Dr. Dianxun Xiao
Dr. Lu Wang
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • permanent magnet machines
  • AC/DC machines
  • reluctance machines
  • multiphase machines
  • motor control and motor drives
  • sensorless control
  • power electronic devices (si and wide band gap) and applications
  • other areas in electric machines
  • other areas in motor drives and power electronics

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 8738 KiB  
Article
Sensorless Control of PMaSynRM Based on Hybrid Active Flux Observer
by Zhiqi Li, Jian Su, Huizhen Gao, Erxuan Zhang, Xiaolin Kuang, Chengrui Li, Guangdong Bi and Dianguo Xu
Electronics 2025, 14(2), 259; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics14020259 - 10 Jan 2025
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 706
Abstract
Permanent Magnet assisted Synchronous Reluctance Motor (PMaSynRM) is widely used in electric vehicles, aerospace and other fields with its high speed range, high cost performance and so on. To improve the rotor position estimation accuracy of active flux observer which only uses voltage [...] Read more.
Permanent Magnet assisted Synchronous Reluctance Motor (PMaSynRM) is widely used in electric vehicles, aerospace and other fields with its high speed range, high cost performance and so on. To improve the rotor position estimation accuracy of active flux observer which only uses voltage model or current model in the existing sensorless control methods of PMaSynRM, this paper proposes a sensorless control method of PMaSynRM based on the hybrid of voltage model and current model. In this paper, the definition of active flux is determined according to the mathematical model of PMaSynRM, and then the active flux observer is constructed. The observer includes voltage model and current model, and the proportional integral controller is added to the observer, and the current model is used as feedback compensation to realize the stable operation of the motor without position sensor. The simulation results show that the active flux observer can realize high position observation accuracy and achieve the stable operation of the PMaSynRM in a wide speed range. The proposed method can effectively improve the system load capacity and anti-interference ability. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Design and Control of Drives and Electrical Machines)
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10 pages, 3670 KiB  
Article
Design a Robust Control System for Rubidium Fountain Clock
by Dandan Liu, Hui Zhang, Yang Bai, Sichen Fan, Jun Ruan and Shougang Zhang
Electronics 2024, 13(16), 3133; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics13163133 - 7 Aug 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1027
Abstract
Rubidium fountain clocks are operated by a control system. In this study, first, the control requirements of a rubidium fountain clock are analyzed; then, a control system is designed and divided into a timing sequence control system, a data acquisition system, and a [...] Read more.
Rubidium fountain clocks are operated by a control system. In this study, first, the control requirements of a rubidium fountain clock are analyzed; then, a control system is designed and divided into a timing sequence control system, a data acquisition system, and a servo control system. Multiple boards based on PCI extensions for the instrumentation (PXI) bus and Labwindows/CVI software 2019 are adopted. The timing sequence control system outputs 16 transistor–transistor logic (TTL) signals and three arbitrary waveforms. The results show that these signals are synchronized within 380 ns. Moreover, the digital locking frequency of the master laser is triggered by one of the timing signal, sweeping the laser frequency in a wide range during polarization gradient cooling. Two time-of-flight signals are acquired, and Ramsey fringes are scanned using the data acquisition system. An error signal is obtained every two cycles, and it is feed back to the frequency synthesizer and a high resolution offset generator using the servo control system. Then the frequency synthesizer is locked to the Ramsey center resonance. The rubidium atomic fountain clock exhibited a frequency stability of 7.4 × 10−16 at 86,400 s. Moreover, the phase of the Rb fountain clock is compared with that of UTC (NTSC) in real time, demonstrating a frequency drift of 0.00044 ns/day/day. The whole control system is full-featured, robust and flexible, thus satisfying the requirements of rubidium fountain clocks. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Design and Control of Drives and Electrical Machines)
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25 pages, 3853 KiB  
Article
Adaptive Active Disturbance Rejection Control with Recursive Parameter Identification
by Jacek Michalski, Mikołaj Mrotek, Marek Retinger and Piotr Kozierski
Electronics 2024, 13(16), 3114; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics13163114 - 6 Aug 2024
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1822
Abstract
This paper presents a new adaptive modification of active disturbance rejection control (ADRC) with parameter estimation based on a recursive least-squares (RLS) method. The common ADRC used in many applications relies on the simple approach, which assumes the simplification of the object into [...] Read more.
This paper presents a new adaptive modification of active disturbance rejection control (ADRC) with parameter estimation based on a recursive least-squares (RLS) method. The common ADRC used in many applications relies on the simple approach, which assumes the simplification of the object into an integral chain form. However, this model-free ADRC does not guarantee the stability of a closed-loop system in the presence of noticeable modeling uncertainties, so it is compared in this paper to another approach, in which the linear part of the system is included in the ADRC framework (generalized ADRC). This incorporation of the model is examined in the paper for a wide range of model and controller parameters, considering also the presence of external disturbances as well as parameter uncertainties, pointing out the limitations of fixed-gain algorithms. Then, the adaptive modification of the model-based ADRC is proposed, which is equipped with a real-time estimation of model parameters by means of the RLS method in continuous time. The stability conditions of the proposed modification of the algorithm in the closed control loop are also analyzed. It can be concluded that, under appropriate conditions, the inclusion of information about known plant parameters into the ADRC can noticeably improve the conditions of the control system. The proposed adaptive model-based approach enables quality improvement during the control process even with initially unknown parameters, for time-varying parameters, and in the presence of parametric uncertainties and external disturbances. The tests were performed on a real plant—the task of controlling the angular velocity of the direct current (DC) motor was considered. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Design and Control of Drives and Electrical Machines)
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17 pages, 9252 KiB  
Article
A Low Switching Frequency Model Predictive Control Method for an Induction Motor Fed by a 3-Level Inverter
by Jingtao Huang, Guangxu Jiang, Peng Zhang and Jixin Chen
Electronics 2023, 12(17), 3609; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12173609 - 26 Aug 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1540
Abstract
Traditional model predictive control (MPC) for the induction motor fed by a three-level inverter needs to explore 27 voltage vectors to obtain the optimal one, which leads to high switching frequency and requires too much computation. To solve this issue, a low switching [...] Read more.
Traditional model predictive control (MPC) for the induction motor fed by a three-level inverter needs to explore 27 voltage vectors to obtain the optimal one, which leads to high switching frequency and requires too much computation. To solve this issue, a low switching frequency model predictive control with partition optimization is proposed. First, the reference voltage vector can be gained from the prediction model at the next time, and the space voltage vector plane is divided into 12 sectors for further vector choice. Furthermore, considering inverter constraints, the candidate voltage vectors are determined according to the sector location of the reference voltage vector. In this way, the candidate vectors can be reduced to 3 at most. Then, a boundary circle limit is designed to avoid unnecessary switch changes. If the reference voltage vector is within the boundary limit, the switches do not act, which can reduce the system switching frequency without introducing the extra weight coefficient into the cost function. These selected voltage vectors are substituted into the cost function to determine the optimal one. Finally, the neutral point voltage deviation is controlled by the positive and negative redundant small vectors to realize the multi-objective constraint without weighting coefficients. The simulation results show that the proposed control method can significantly reduce the switching frequency; at the same time, both the dynamic and steady performances can be maintained well, and the cost function has no weight coefficients. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Design and Control of Drives and Electrical Machines)
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