Lecture Hours

  • Tuesday 13:40-14:30 EA307
  • Friday 10:40-12:30 EA307
  • Office Hour: Tuesday 14:40-15:30

Course Assistant

  • Mesut Uğur
  • Email: ugurm@metu.edu.tr
  • Office: C-114 (or Ayasli ARC-300)
  • Office Hour: Tuesday 14:40-15:30

Projects:

Please visit the ee462 GitHub Page for the information about the project assignments.

Presentations:

Presentations will be added to keysan.me/ee462 weekly:

Brief Info:

This course covers basic operating characteristics and classification of electrical drives, solid-state DC and AC motor control, dynamic behaviour of electrical machines, selection of drives for various industrial applications. You will find chance to design and implement motor drive systems for realistic applications throughout term projects. There will be an optional hardware motor drive project which uses HIL (hardware-in-the-loop).

Important Notes:

In this course there are no midterms, but you are going to do three projects, covering most of the semester. Therefore, I expect you to spend considerable amount of time on projects and discussing your results in the classroom. There will be a final exam, which will be open-book.

In this course I will apply learning by doing, thus I expect (and encourage) you to actively participate to the lectures. Here are the important points:

  • There are no stupid questions.
  • Even if there is, asking a stupid question doesn’t mean that you are stupid.
  • Studying is an activity of students, not of lecturers.

Course Objectives:

At the end of course you will be able to:

  • Understand the fundamental principles of motor drives and the mechanical systems.
  • Analyse and design DC/AC motor drives (including power stage and control loops).
  • Select motor drive systems for various industrial applications
  • Use multi-domain simulation software (e.g. Simulink, Modelica)
  • Prepare design reports and use version control system (GitHub) to build your online portfolio.
  • Use commercial industrial motor drive systems through laboratory, and use hardware-in-the-loop systems by an optional design project.

Grading:

  • 1st Project: 10%
  • 2nd Project: 15%
  • 3rd Project: 20%
  • Final: 25% (Open Book)
  • Laboratory: 20% (Attending to all lab sessions is compulsory)
  • Participation: 10% (not only attendance but active participation)
  • Hardware implementation project(Optional): %10 Bonus

Important Note: Any of the following actions will result in NA grade:

  • Not submitting at least two projects
  • Not attending to any laboratory sessions
  • Not attending to the final exam

Required Background

EE362 and EE463 are prerequisite for this course, and I strongly advise you to review the topics covered in these courses in the very early weeks. You should also take EE464to fully understand the concepts in this course.

Apart from these courses I advise you to take the following courses(in the order of preference), if you are planning to seriously work on the motor-control area:

  • EE406 Laboratory of Feedback Control Systems
  • EE402 Discrete Time Systems
  • EE447 Introduction to Microprocessors
  • EE430 Digital Signal Processing
  • EE407 Process Control

Textbooks & References:

Online References:

Topics

Introduction

  • Basic definitions for static dc and ac motor drives,
  • Classification of drives (servo drives, adjustable speed drives, constant power drives etc.)
  • Energy saving in drive applications

Mechanical System

  • Definitions for linear and rotational motion
  • Torque-balance equation for rotating systems
  • Components of load torque : friction, windage, acceleration and mechanical work
  • Analogy between mechanical and electrical systems
  • The nature of oscillations in mechanical systems
  • Types of couplings (direct-drive, belt-drive, gearbox)
  • Types of mechanical loads ( compressors, pumps, cranes, traction etc.)

Four-Quadrant Drive Characteristics

  • Definition of speed-control problems
  • Operating point in the steady-state
  • Speed-torque loci in dynamic state
  • Examples to drive manufacturer’s catalogue data

DC Motor Drives

  • Operation and equivalent circuit of DC Motors
  • Single-phase line commutated converters for dc motor drives
  • Three-phase line commutated converters for dc-motor drives
  • DC-DC converters for dc motor drives
  • Speed control of dc motor drives

Induction Motor Drives

  • Basic principles of induction motors
  • Voltage control of induction motors
  • V/f control of induction motors
  • Load commutated converters for ac motor drives
  • Forced-commutated converters for ac motor drives
  • Control of wound rotor induction motors
  • Applications (Industrial drives, traction, wind turbines)

Synchronous Motor Drives

  • Synchronous Motor Types (Field excited, PMSM, BLDC)
  • Speed control of synchronous motors
  • Converters (Load commutated, Forced commutated)
  • Synchronous Motor Starting

Industrial Applications and Practical Aspects

  • Selection of drives
  • Intermittent loads, duty cycles
  • Protection (voltage transients overload, faults snubbers etc.)
  • Sensing methods (speed, position, voltage, current)
  • Control methods (microcontrollers, PID control, advanced control techniques)
  • Application (electric traction, excavators, large motor drives)

Experiments

    1. Fan Load Driven by Variable Frequency Drive (VFD)
    1. Variable Frequency Drive (VFD) Driven Crane Hoist with Speed Feedback
    1. Centrifugal Pump Load Driven by Variable Frequency Drive (VFD)
    1. (Demo) Hardware in the loop Motor Drive Controller

Notes on Projects

  • I would like you to use a version control system for your project. Please check keysan.me/okst/ for details.

  • You will submit your projects using GitHub, so please open an account (preferably with your real name, as it will be your online portfolio), and complete a few tutorials and learn the basics as soon as possible.

  • You will not only submit the latest version of your projects, but I would like to see the intermediate stages, and you’ll be also graded with number of commits, so please start working on projects in the early days.

  • For simulations I advise you to use MATLAB Simulink, but Modelica is also a good (and open-source) alternative. If you haven’t used MATLAB/Simulink before, set it up and start learning it as soon as possible.

  • You are required to present your projects with a report. Although, I don’t reinforce it, I strongly recommend Simulink Report Generator. You have to invest some time at the beginning, but it will definitely pay-off later.

Projects Grading

Number of Commits:25%: The number of edits of your project files as seen from the contributors list. For example, if you start making your project in the last few days, you’ll get no credit. If you start early and continue editing your files, you’ll get full credit. The project topics are not easy, so this is a way to encourage you to start early and work regularly.

Level of Information:50%: The detail level of your designs (see requirements above), and the accuracy of your calculations.

Report Quality:25%: Text explaining your design decisions, quality of your figures, citing relevant studies and your conclusion section.