Integrated sliding-mode sensorless driver with pre-driver and current sensing circuit for accurate speed control of PMSM

This paper proposes a fully sensorless driver for a permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) integrated with a digital motor controller and an analog pre-driver, including sensing circuits and estimators. In the motor controller, a position estimator estimates the back electromotive force and rotor position using a sliding-mode observer. In the pre-driver, drivers for the power devices are designed with a level shifter and isolation technique. In addition, a current sensing circuit measures a three-phase current. All of these circuits are integrated in a single chip such that the driver achieves control of the speed with high accuracy. Using an IC fabricated using a 0.18 Îm BCDMOS process, the performance was verified experimentally. The driver showed stable operation in spite of the variation in speed and load, a similar efficiency near 1% compared to a commercial driver, a low speed error of about 0.1%, and therefore good performance for the PMSM drive.