Experimental Investigations on a Permanent Magnet Brushless DC Motor Fed by a PV Array for a Water Pumping System

This paper describes the experimental study carried out on a Permanent Magnet Brushless DC (PMBLDC) motor coupled to a pump load powered by a Photo Voltaic (PV) Array for a Water Pumping System. A simple low cost controller has been designed and developed without any current and position sensors. This drastically reduces the over all cost of the drive system. This controller is used to test the dynamic behavior of the PMBLDC motor drive system. The mathematical model of the system is developed with a view to carry out a comparison between experimental and simulated response of the drive system. The necessary computer algorithm is developed to analyze the performance under different conditions of varying solar irradiance for a pump load. The developed state space equations are simulated to obtain the performance characteristics which are also verified by conducting suitable experiments on the developed system. [S0199-6231(00)01002-9]