Experimental DTC of an Induction Motor Applied to Optimize a Tracking System

Abstract

In recent years, the areas of industrial application of high performance AC drives, especially the induction motor (IM), based on Direct Torque Controller (DTC) technique has gradually increased due to its advantages over the other techniques of control. Among these applications are cited, propulsion and tracking systems. This work presents the experimental part of a research project conducted by the authors where they have implemented an algorithm for a DTC in order to achieve a tracking system designed for a series of solar panels to maximize its overall efficiency. In this paper, three different switching tables are presented for choosing the best between them for a less fluctuation in torque. This study is justified by reduced cost of implementation compared to other methods that require the use of expensive hardware and complicated control techniques. The tests were carried out under the same conditions with the same equipment of the testbed, to get a good comparative study. Three variants were tested: simple switching table, table of sectors shifted by 30 ° and a table with 12 sectors. The results show an improvement, but a dilemma between the torque ripple and those of the stator flux.