Robust Sensorless Control of a PMSM: Experimental Validation on an Appliance

Modern home appliances like dishwashers are engineered considering energy-saving features. This requires enhancing the performance and efficiency of the entire drive system and the correct selection and effective control of the main driving motor to meet industry standards in the white goods market. Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motors (PMSMs), combined with vector control strategy, are selected as the driving system for high-efficiency and high-performance smooth torque control applications. Employing such control techniques needs sensors to detect rotor speed and position but the consideration of cost and reliability requires the avoidance of using sensors. In this paper, a sensorless Field Oriented Control (FOC) for PMSM using Sliding Mode Control (SMC) has been studied and implemented in drives for household dishwasher machines. The reported experimental data demonstrates that the considered solution, compared with a PID control policy, achieves effective speed trajectory tracking and maintains robustness in the presence of system disturbances.