Traditional I-f control for sensorless control of the permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) suffers from poor damping and disturbance rejection, which lead to large speed oscillations at motor startup and long transition time when switching to close-loop control. It is unfavorable for multi-rotor unmanned aerial vehicles and electric vertical take-off vehicles. According to the differentiation of d-axis voltage and transition strategy, this paper proposes an improved I-f control strategy with frequency compensation to increase damping and improve disturbance rejection of the I-f control based on decoupling current dynamics and angle dynamics. Speed oscillations at motor startup are suppressed significantly, and a fast transition from I-f control to closed-loop control is achieved smoothly with less mechanical dynamics.

Firstly, a small-signal perturbation model of the I-f control is deduced with detailed analyses of its damping characteristics. To increase damping and suppress speed oscillations, differentiation of the open-loop d-axis voltage is used to compensate for the open-loop frequency. Secondly, to improve the load disturbance rejection when switching to closed-loop control, the angle of the reference current vector is rotated via Park transformation. In contrast, the open loop angle is increased to gradually approach the real rotor angle obtained by the angle observer. Since the reference current vector is stationary relative to the real rotor angle during this transition process, no mechanical dynamics are generated. This transition can even be done at zero angle error between the real rotor coordinate and the open-loop coordinate, which indicates no current and angle dynamics at the switching instant. The amplitude of the reference current vector is kept unchanged throughout the whole I-f control. Therefore, the load disturbance is effectively rejected, even during the transition process. Finally, after switching to closed-loop control successfully, the d-axis current is decreased to 0 according to a certain trajectory, and normal closed-loop control takes over.

Two experiments demonstrate the improvement of system damping and load disturbance rejection. In the first experiment, the proposed strategy is compared with the traditional I-f control and the perturbation of active power in literature. The experimental results show that under traditional I-f control, significant speed oscillations occur during the starting phase, and the peak-to-peak value of speed oscillations is about 80 r/min. With perturbation of active power, speed oscillations rapidly decay in 0.1 seconds, and the peak-to-peak value of speed drops to about 10 r/min in the steady state. The motor attenuates speed oscillations fast, and the peak-to-peak value of speed drops to about 5 r/min in the steady state.

The second experiment compares the proposed transition strategy and the strategy by reducing the q-axis current in the literature. The experimental results show that reducing the q-axis current generates large mechanical dynamics at the transition stage under sudden load disturbances. The speed decreases by about 260 r/min at the load disturbance of 0.064 N·m, and the motor is out of control at the load disturbance of 0.16 N·m. Mechanical dynamics are much smaller using the proposed method. The speed decreases by about 40 r/min at the load disturbance of 0.064 N·m, and the motor can still maintain normal operation at the load disturbance of 0.512 N·m.

The proposed improved I-f control strategy has better damping effect on speed oscillations and can transition to closed-loop control with strong rejection of load disturbances.