A Dual-Loop Predictive Control Structure for Permanent Magnet Synchronous Machines with Enhanced Attenuation of Periodic Disturbances

In the control of permanent magnet synchronous machines (PMSMs), predictive controllers have received considerable attention due to the enhanced dynamic responses. However, periodic disturbances caused by dead-time effects and sampling errors deteriorate the performances of PMSMs. In order to suppress periodic disturbances, one typical control structure is to adopt several corresponding resonant controllers connected in parallel with the main controller. Even though excellent steady-state performances can be obtained, coupling effects between reference tracking and periodic disturbance attenuation can be observed, leading to significant transient oscillations under the situation of a reference step change. In order to realize decoupling between reference tracking and disturbance attenuation, this paper proposes a dual-loop predictive control structure, in which the reference tracking is only determined by the primary predictive controller. Periodic disturbance attenuation is achieved through an embedded disturbance rejection loop. By applying the proposed controller, periodic disturbances are strongly attenuated while smooth and fast transient performances are simultaneously guaranteed. Furthermore, a wide range of low frequency harmonics can be successfully suppressed, including but not limited to the main periodic harmonics. The steady-state performance, dynamic responses, and robustness against parameter variations of the proposed controller are verified through experiments based on a 2.3-kW PMSM.