Adaptive sensorless robust control of AC drives based on sliding mode control theory

This paper focuses in the design of a new adaptive sensorless robust control to improve the trajectory tracking performance of induction motors. The proposed design employs the so‐called vector (or field oriented) control theory for the induction motor drives, being the designed control law based on an integral sliding‐mode algorithm that overcomes the system uncertainties. This sliding‐mode control law incorporates an adaptive switching gain in order to avoid the need of calculating an upper limit for the system uncertainties. The proposed design also includes a new method in order to estimate the rotor speed. In this method, the rotor speed estimation error is presented as a first‐order simple function based on the difference between the real stator currents and the estimated stator currents. The stability analysis of the proposed controller under parameter uncertainties and load disturbances is provided using the Lyapunov stability theory. The simulated results show, on the one hand that the proposed controller with the proposed rotor speed estimator provides high‐performance dynamic characteristics, and on the other hand that this scheme is robust with respect to plant parameter variations and external load disturbances. Finally, experimental results show the performance of the proposed control scheme. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.