Closed Loop V/f Speed Control of Multilevel Inverter Fed Induction Motors Using PID and Fuzzy Logic Controllers

Abstract

The Volts per Hertz (V/f) speed control method makes induction motors available to be used in variable speed applications. However, the great harmonic distortion in supply voltage is a major issue of this method. Therefore, this study focuses on decreasing the harmonic distortion in the supply to induction motors. For that, the use of thirty-one-level multilevel inverters (MLIs) is investigated. Another drawback of the V/f speed control method is the use of proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controllers as speed controllers, which are difficult to be tuned precisely. To overcome this, the use of fuzzy logic controllers is investigated. The whole model is developed and simulated in MATLAB/SIMULINK by varying two variables, i.e., reference speed and load torque, one at a time using each controller. The observations for the changes in speed, torque, stator current, and supply voltage to the induction motors are made. The system’s performance using fuzzy logic controllers is found superior.