Design of unknown disturbance and current observer for electric motor systems

Abstract

DOB (Disturbance Observer) is an useful control method for estimating the disturbance applied to dynamic systems. Disturbance observer can be used to implement a robust control system to generate a control input for rejecting the disturbance, and it can be also used to estimate the disturbance to obtain information. The system that uses disturbance estimation is investigated for high performance control such as automatic door systems, walking robot and electric power steering system in vehicles. In this paper, a novel disturbance observer which is called disturbance and current observer for estimating load torque in the motor system is proposed. The difference between the DOB for disturbance rejection and DCOB is mathematically verified. Current and angular velocity are required for estimating the load torque of the motor in DOB. However, the DCOB can estimate load torque and current without current sensor. DCOB is designed based on modeling of the motor system. Appropriate Q-filter is selected and the applicability of DCOB is verified by simulation. The estimated disturbance and current of the electric motor can be verified without current sensor, as experiments of the actual motor system.