Data-Driven Model-Free Adaptive Current Control of a Wound Rotor Synchronous Machine Drive System

The lack of precise mathematical model of nonlinear systems, such as electric machines, brings certain limits to design a powerful controller for such systems. This article presents a model-free-adaptive-control (MFAC) scheme as a good alternative to the commonly used model-based-control (MBC) methods in order to improve the controller design limitations due to the need for system model information. In this regard, an MFAC is developed in this article for current control of a wound rotor synchronous machine (WRSM) drive system and compared with a proportional-integral (PI) controller as a well-known model-based controller. Since the controller performance can be affected by unexpected phenomena, such as model errors, parameter variations, and changes in operating point, beforehand, the robustness of developed MFAC is first tested under the mentioned conditions in the simulation area. Then, through experimental validation on a specifically designed test bench, a satisfactory performance was obtained for the MFAC scheme.