A Review on Speed Control of Induction Motor Drives

Abstract: Induction motors are the most widely used electrical motors due to their reliability, low cost and robustness. However, induction motors do not inherently have the capability of variable speed operation. Due to this reason, earlier dc motors were applied in most of the electrical drives. But the recent developments in speed control methods of the induction motor have led to their large scale use in almost all electrical drives. Out of the several methods of speed control of an induction such as pole changing, frequency variation, variable rotor resistance, variable stator voltage, constant V/f control, slip recovery method etc., the closed loop constant V/f speed control method is most widely used. In this method, the V/f ratio is kept constant which in turn maintains the magnetizing flux constant so that the maximum torque remains unchanged. Thus, the motor is completely utilized in this method. During starting of an induction motor, the stator resistance and the motor inductance (both rotor and stator) must be kept low to reduce the steady state time and also to reduce the jerks during starting. On the other hand, higher value of rotor resistance leads to lesser jerks while having no effect on the steady state time. The vector control analysis of an induction motor allows the decoupled analysis where the torque and the flux components can be independently controlled (just as in dc motor). This makes the analysis easier than the per phase equivalent circuit.

Keyword: speed control, induction motor, torque speed analysis, different methods, drive.