Fuzzy efficiency enhancement of induction motor drive

Efficiency improvement of motor drives is important not only from the viewpoints of energy loss and hence cost saving, but also from the perspective of environmental pollution. Several efficiency optimization methods for induction motor (IM) drives have been introduced nowadays by researchers. Distinctively, artificial intelligence (AI)-based techniques, in particular Fuzzy Logic (FL) one, have been emerged as a powerful complement to conventional methods. Design objectives that are mathematically hard to express can be incorporated into a Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC) using simple linguistic terms. The merit of FLC relies on its ability to express the amount of ambiguity in human reasoning. When the mathematical model of a process does not exist or exists with uncertainties, FLC has proven to be one of the best alternatives to move with unknown process. Even when the process model is well-known, there may still be parameter variation issues and power electronic systems, which are known to be often approximately defined. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that a great efficiency improvement of motor drive can be achieved and hence a significant amount of energy can be saved by adjusting the flux level according to the applied load of an induction motor by using an on-line fuzzy logic optimization controller based on a vector control scheme. An extensive simulation results highlight and confirm the efficiency improvement with the proposed algorithm.