Fault Detection and Fault Tolerant Operation of a Five Phase PM Motor Drive Using Adaptive Model Identification Approach

Nowadays, the use of multiphase fault tolerant permanent magnet (PM) machines is a suitable solution for increasing the reliability of high-performance motion control applications. This solution requires fault detection, isolation, and control adaptation. For this reason, a new open switch fault detection scheme in voltage-source inverter supplying a PM motor is presented in this paper. The detection method is based on model identification of the motor phase currents. The detection scheme is fast, robust, general, and capable of detecting multiple faults. The control algorithm, detection method, isolation, and reconfiguration strategies are discussed. After that, the proposed method is implemented in the fault tolerant control of a five-phase brushless direct current (BLDC) motor drive. Simulation results in MATLAB/Simulink are shown to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed detection technique. Experimental results on a five-phase fault tolerant BLDC motor validate the theoretical developments.