An FPGA-Based Novel Digital PWM Control Scheme for BLDC Motor Drives

Development of advanced motor drives has yielded increases in efficiency and reliability. Residential and commercial appliances such as refrigerators and air conditioning systems use conventional motor drive technology. The machines found in these applications are characterized by low efficiency and high maintenance. A brushless dc (BLDC) motor drive is characterized by higher efficiency, lower maintenance, and higher cost. In a market driven by profit margins, the appliance industry is reluctant to replace the conventional motor drives with the advanced motor drives (BLDC) due to their higher cost. Therefore, it is necessary to have a low-cost but effective BLDC motor controller. This paper lays the groundwork for the development of a new low-cost IC for control of BLDC motors. A simple novel digital pulsewidth-modulation control has been implemented for a trapezoidal BLDC motor drive system. Due to the simplistic nature of this control, it has the potential to be implemented in a low-cost application-specific integrated circuit. The novel controller is modeled and verified using simulations. Experimental verification is carried out using field-programmable gate arrays to validate the claims presented.