Identification of the induction motor parameters at standstill using soft computing methods

The paper sets out to deal with the off‐line identification of induction motor (IM) parameters at standstill. Determination of values of the IM parameters is essential in sensorless drives with regard to accuracy and quality of the control system.

The presented identification method is based on the reconstruction of stator current response to the forced stator voltage step change; thus the cost function is defined in the classical form of the mean squared error between the computed and experimental data. The identification via evolutionary algorithms (EAs) is presented. The considered problem is continuous and thus a continuous version of EA is suggested as more suitable.

This approach has been shown to have several advantages over classical optimisation methods like the ability to cope with ill‐behaved problem domains exhibiting attributes such as: discontinuity, time‐variance, randomness, and, what is particularly important in this application, the ability to cope with the signals disturbed by noises. Owing to this ability the EAs could be implemented directly for the identification of IM parameters not only in simulations but also in the industrial applications for the motor control, though the electrical signals acquired from real motor and used as input data in the identification procedures are to a large extent disturbed by the electrical noises.

Two versions of the suggested approach are compared: the EA with hard selection and with soft selection. Both algorithms were tested in a simulation and experimental set‐up using digital signal processor for control and signal processing of the voltage inverter‐fed IM drive. Satisfactory results were obtained for the identification procedure based on the selected EA.