IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 39, NO.
1, JANUARY 2003
Fast, Real-Time Monitoring of Rotating Machines
Using Digital Motion Control Coprocessors
M. Giesselmann, Senior Member, IEEE, B. McHale, Student Member, IEEE, and M. Crawford, Member, IEEE
Abstract—This paper describes the use of methods and tech-
niques that have been developed for high-performance control of
relatively small and slow turning industrial machines and extend
these techniques to the more demanding regime of ac machines
used for kinetic energy storage and fast ac servos for military ap-
plications. In particular this paper describes a technique for fast
monitoring of the output voltage of ac generators. To accomplish
fast monitoring, the (sinusoidal) ac output voltage is converted to
a dc quantity that represents the instantaneous amplitude. This
is achieved through the use of a rotational transformation. This
transformation, also called “vector rotation,” can be used for very
fast observation of the momentary amplitudes of all electrical ma-
chine quantities, such that averaging of the ac value (to determine
“momentary average” rms amplitude) is not necessary. The proce-
dure is implemented by tightly integrating a digital motion control
coprocessor into the memory map of a 16-bit microcontroller.
Index Terms—Digital control, induction machines, motor drives,
synchronous generators.
I. INTRODUCTION
R OTATING machinery is an excellent means for kinetic en-
ergy storage for electromagnetic launch applications due
to the high energy density available in spinning rotors and fly-
wheels. Typical machines used for this purpose fall in the gen-
eral class of synchronous machines with a rotating dc excitation
winding and potentially other short circuited windings, called
“damper” or “compensation” windings. During the rapid dis-
charge, it is important to have accurate information about the in-
stantaneous values of the voltages and currents of the machine in
order to control the discharge process properly. In electromag-
netic launch operations, not only the amplitudes but also the fre-
quency of the voltages and currents are changing rapidly. If the
voltages and currents are modeled as rotating space vectors, in-
stantaneous amplitude and phase information can be used to pre-
cisely describe all quantities. Rotational transformations of the
voltages and currents can be used to obtain accurate, real-time
information of the vector quantities. In a rotational “back” trans-
formation (1b), the ac voltages and currents are transformed to
dc values, were the amplitude represents the magnitude of the
space vector and the instantaneous transformation angle repre-
sents the phase angle. Rotational transformations can be per-
Manuscript received January 14, 2002. This work was supported under a
grant to provide real-time instrumentation support for transient operation of
AC-Alternators by the Institute for Advanced Technology at the University of
Texas at Austin.
M. Giesselmann and B. McHale are with the Department of Electrical and
Computer Engineering, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX 79409 USA
(e-mail: Michael.Giesselmann@ttu.edu; Brent.McHale@ttu.edu).
M. Crawford is with the Institute for Advanced Technology, University of
Texas, Austin, TX 78759 USA (e-mail: Mark_Crawford@iat.utexas.edu).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TMAG.2002.806418
0018-9464/03$17.00 © 2003 IEEE
343
formed by digitizing measured values for voltages and currents
and performing the computations shown in (1a) and (1b). The
equations involve the computation of a sine and a cosine value,
multiplication and addition/subtraction. However, in order to
track the space vectors accurately in fast spinning machines,
these computations have to be performed fast enough, to happen
in small enough angular increments. Therefore, the use of a spe-
cialized coprocessor, as described here is very beneficial
(1a)
(1b)
using
II. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
A. Digital Control System
Rotational transformation is widely used in precision control
of industrial motors—mainly induction motors. In order to es-
tablish the limitations of this technique with currently available
hardware, an experimental setup, using an Analog Devices [1]
Motion Control Coprocessor type ADMC201 designed for fast
rotational transformations coupled to a Motorola HC12A4 mi-
crocontroller, was assembled. The ADMC201 has a digital ref-
erence transformation module, 12-bit PWM generators as well
as 12-bit A/D converters with simultaneous sampling, which is
synchronized to the PWM switching events. The ADMC201 has
a bidirectional 12-bit data bus for normalized digitized signals
in various reference frames as well as 12-bit rotation angle data.
The HC12A4 processor, operating in expanded wide mode, was
chosen because of its externally available 16-bit wide, nonmul-
tiplexed data and address bus and build in address decoders for
memory expansion. This means that data can be exchanged be-
tween the HC12A4 and the ADMC201 in a single read or write
instruction. The ADMC201 is integrated into the address space
of the HC12A4 such that the registers of the ADMC201 appear
to be internal HC12 registers with a full 16 (12)-bit data path
for full speed read/write access. Also, the interrupt output of
the ADMC201 was connected to the HC12 IRQ interrupt line,
344
Fig. 1. Schematic for ADMC 201 daughter-board for the HC12A4 processor.
Fig. 2. ADMC 201 daughter-board for the HC12A4 processor.
to enable “conversion-complete” interrupts, etc. To implement
the integration, a daughter-board was designed that fits onto the
expansion ports of the HC12A4 mother-board. Fig. 1 shows a
schematic diagram of the daughter-board, which was created
using the professional version of PSpice [3] Design Center, Ver-
sion 8.0.
The Design Center tightly integrates the schematic capture
program with a circuit board layout program, which was used to
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 39, NO. 1, JANUARY 2003
generate the daughter-board. The Design Center was also used
to design the programmable logic array (PALCE20V8-25PC)
shown on the right side of the schematic in Fig. 1. The logic
incorporated into the device is shown in the block above. This
IC generated the appropriate read/write timing signals for inter-
facing the ADMC201 to the HC12A4. Fig. 2 shows a picture
of the daughter-board mounted on the expansion ports of the
HC12A4 board.
GIESSELMANN et al.: FAST, REAL-TIME MONITORING OF ROTATING MACHINES
Fig. 3. Picture of the three-phase inverter with the SKiiP module.
Fig. 4. Induction motor with BEI rotational encoder.
B. Power Electronics
In order to test the system, a three-phase inverter was de-
signed which was used to drive an induction motor with a ro-
tational position encoder. The PWM generation block on the
ADMC201 is used to generate the drive signals for all 6 IGBTs
of the inverter. The inverter was build using the highly integrated
Isolated Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT) modules of the Mini-
SKiiP (SemiKron integrated intelligent Power) series made by
Semikron, Inc. [2]. These modules are pressure-mount on the
lower side of a circuit board that holds the drive electronics.
The SKiiP module contains a three-phase diode rectifier, a three-
phase IGBT inverter, and an additional IGBT for absorbing en-
ergy regenerated into the dc bus during motor braking events.
A six-channel three-phase driver, model IR2132, was used to
control the IGBT inverter. An additional single-channel PWM
generator/driver was added to control the braking transistor. A
picture of the complete circuit board is shown in Fig. 3. The
circuit board also holds two current sensors made by LEM (on
345
the right bottom of Fig. 3). The current sensors are closed loop
hall-effect type devices requiring only a 5 V supply. The output
signal is centered around 2.5 V. The sensors are measuring two
of the three balanced motor currents, which the ADMC201 can
transform into an appropriate set of three currents before per-
forming a reference frame transformation. To test the rotational
transformation capability of the ADMC201, an induction motor
fitted with a rotational encoder was connected to the output of
the inverter. A picture of the motor and the encoder is shown in
Fig. 4.
C. Rotational Encoder
In order to perform rotational transformations in synchronous
machines, the rotational angle of the rotor must be known. Al-
though there are several control schemes known as “Speed-Sen-
sorless Control” for commercial machines, [4]–[6] electromag-
netic launch applications typically would require rotational en-
coders to measure the rotor position. Here, the advantages of
346 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 39, NO. 1, JANUARY 2003

Fig. 5. Gray code (top four traces) and binary code (bottom four traces) for 16
steps.

having an actual sensor clearly outweigh the typical reasons for

sensorless applications such as cost savings and easy retrofit op-
tions. The cost of a speed sensor is negligible compared to the
cost of a pulsed alternator for electromagnetic launch applica-
tions, and the issue of retrofitting sensors into legacy equipment
is not relevant.
Fig. 6. Absolute position encoder with Gray code output mounted on a
Also, the discharge of a pulsed alternator into a launch system 75-kVA synchronous generator. Mounted behind is an analog dc-tachometer
is such an extreme, nonlinear event, [6] that reliance on on-line (small diameter).
modeling, which is the normal way to replace a sensor, [4] is not
feasible.
The encoder shown in Fig. 4 is an optical, incremental en-
The rotor position of an electrical machine can be measured
coder with 1024 pulses per revolution and a reference pulse
using rotational encoders. Rotational encoders can be based
channel, made by BEI, Inc. [7]. The encoder is of the so-called
on inductive or optical principals. Encoders based on inductive
“hollow-shaft” type and is directly mounted on the motor shaft.
principals are based on changes in magnetic flux due to
The output of the encoder is connected to the input of the Pulse
changing reluctance on a rotating disk, sprocket, etc. Inductive
Accumulator of the HC12A4. The Pulse Accumulator is a 16-bit
encoders are widely used in automotive applications for an-
counter with a 16-bit connection to the data bus, which is built
tilock brake systems and traction control. Their advantages are
into the HC12A4.
ruggedness and insensitivity to dirt and debris.
This counter is used to count the incremental pulses coming
However, inductive encoders are incremental (returning a se-
from the rotational encoder to determine the speed of the motor
ries of pulses) in nature and typically have lower angular reso-
and the rotor angle. We also tested the fast monitoring system
lution than optical based encoders. Optical based encoders use a
using an absolute position encoder with 12-bit Gray code output,
spinning disk with alternating transparent and opaque sectors to
which was mounted on a 75-kVA size synchronous generator as
create either a series of pulses per revolution (incremental type)
shown in Fig. 6. For this sensor, we included a hardware-based
or encode the absolute position using multiple concentric tracks.
Gray to binary code converter onto the daughter-board. The
Incremental encoders often have an additional channel to
hardware based code converter can perform a 12-bit conversion
produce a reference pulse once per revolution. Absolute posi-
in a single clock cycle of the microcontroller.
tion can then be obtained by counting pulses and resetting the
counter with the reference pulse. Modern seals can effectively
III. RESULTS
shield the optical parts from dirt and debris. Optical encoders
have very high resolution with up to several thousand pulses Our system successful performs forward and reverse refer-
per revolution. Absolute encoders are available with up to 12 ence frame transformations, which take 40 and 37 clock cy-
bits of resolution. They have either natural binary or Gray code cles, respectively, to complete. All programming was done in
encoding. The advantage of Gray code is that only a single bit assembly language to obtain maximum speed. We transformed
changes each step. In binary code, multiple bits can be changed the motor current of the induction motor shown in Fig. 4 to a
during a transition (for example, , ). vector quantity represented by two orthogonal components ID
Multiple bit transitions during one step can lead to ambiguities and IQ in the stationary reference frame.
in the result. In addition, the maximum pulse frequency of The motor currents were measured by the LEM current sen-
Gray code encoders is half that of binary coded models for the sors shown in Fig. 3 (see discussion in Section II-B). Fig. 7
same resolution. This creates a bandwidth advantage for fast shows a trace of the ID component that we obtained. We used
spinning machines if Gray code is used. An example of binary a serial D/A converter with an SPI synchronous serial inter-
and Gray code is shown in Fig. 5. face, mounted on the daughter-board (Maxim 522, see Fig. 1),
GIESSELMANN et al.: FAST, REAL-TIME MONITORING OF ROTATING MACHINES 347

all the way to the least significant bit (LSB, bottom trace). The
increasing delay is due to the fact that according to the con-
version algorithm, which is given by (2), the result for each bit
depends on the result of the next-higher bit

(2)

Due to the algorithm shown in (2), a software based code

conversion routine (see example in the Appendix) would be up
to a factor of 100 slower.

IV. CONCLUSION AND OUTLOOK

Our system successfully performs forward and reverse
reference frame transformations, which provide instantaneous
Fig. 7. Trace of ID vector component during motor load changes.
representations of the orthogonal vector quantities of voltages
and currents in the system. At a system frequency of 8 MHz,
(12 MHz max. for the ADMC201) a reverse transformation can
be performed once every 4.6 s corresponding to a frequency
of 216 kHz. That means that more than 1000 transformations
per revolution can be performed on a machine rotating at
10 000 r/min. To monitor a large number of signals very
fast, several ADMC201s could be operated such that all A/D
converters are sampling synchronously. Through appropriate
address/chip select management, vector rotations of multiple
ADMCs could be started and finished simultaneously.

APPENDIX
Gray Code Conversion Routine in Assembly for estimation
of speed-up factor through hardware conversion.
Fig. 8. Timing-diagram for hardware-based Gray code converter.
GRAY: LSRD ;Logical Shift Right Accu D; 0 MSB
EORA 0,SP ;EXOR Shifted Accu A with A on Stack
to convert the digital signal for display on an oscilloscope. The
EORB 1,SP ;EXOR Shifted Accu B with B on Stack
data transfer to the D/A converter was running at a clock speed
DEC 2,SP ;Decrement Loop Counter
of 1 MHz.
BNE Gray ;Iterate one more time if not zero
The data shows the change of the ID component during two
LEAS 3,SP ;Deallocate Stack Space
consecutive rapid load changes on the motor, where both the
RTS ;Return from Subroutine
magnitude of the current is increasing and the phase shift is
changing as well. After the sharp increase, the motor current
decreases as the motor speeds up. The noise is due to the fact that REFERENCES
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