Advanced Motor Control Algorithms for Reducing Power Consumption of Embedded Systems

The top consumers of electricity are HVAC systems, water heating, lighting, office equipment, and machinery. More specifically, the motors within these machine are responsible for approximately two-thirds of the total electrical energy consumption in a typical industrial facility. Motors are everywhere—blowers, pumps, compressors, conveyors, machine tools, mixers, shredders and more. To improve the efficiency and lower the operating costs of the electric motors in your enterprise, certain factors need to be considered. Among these factors are:

• Select a high efficiency motor
• Select the right size of motor
• Select the appropriate motor technology
• Use the appropriate control algorithms

Christian Fritz, Product Manager at National Instruments, looks at these factors, as well as a deeper look at the field oriented control (FOC) algorithm--and how to implement this algorithm using FPGAs--in this technical paper.