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 pulsewidthmodulation 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 applicationspecific 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.
Small wind turbines harvest wind energy to provide carbon free energy for residential and small commercial applications. Current technology consists of a diode-bridge rectifier and an off-the-shelf generator. Such a simplified system does not utilize the full capacity of the turbine because the generator drive system is not designed specifically for wind turbine applications. This paper presents the technology that is commonly used in small wind turbines today. The relationship of the wind turbine's mechanical characteristics and the generator power characteristics are explained and some basic design considerations for small wind systems are discussed. The tests utilize a permanent magnet (PM) generator which is connected to the grid via an industrial inverter, and run for different speeds to examine the output power characteristics. Standard operation as well as the control of such a system is covered in detail.
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