A BL-Homogeneous Observer for Inter-Turn Short-Circuit Fault Detection in PMSMs

Electric vehicle propulsion systems heavily depend on the reliable operation of permanent magnet synchronous motors (PMSMs). However, the susceptibility of PMSMs to electrical faults, particularly inter-turn short circuit (ITSC) faults, poses a significant threat to their overall reliability. With the purpose of enabling an immanent fault detection, we design a fault detection observer using the recently developed bi-limit homogeneous sliding mode observer (BL-H SMO) technique.
The BL-H SMO has the ability to offer zero error estimates within finite or fixed-time intervals even in the presence of unknown inputs, which is a distinctive advantage enhancing its efficacy in fault detection for PMSMs compared to standard Kalman filter schemes. These advantages are illustrated via a simulation study that validates and compares the proposed BL-H SMO’s performance with that of a Kalman filter.