Recent Sensor-less Vector Control of Induction Motor Applied for Electric Railway Vehicles in Japan

Recent trend of sensor-less control of induction motor applied for commuter trains in Japan is introduced. Although many inverter-fed Induction motor driven trains have been produced so far, most of them were slip frequency based conventional V/f control system using shaft encoder. There arises a new trend to apply speed sensor-less vector control., for this inverter-fed induction motor drive system. The purpose of sensor-less control is to save, cost and improve system reliability. Several sensor-less systems now under testing on the actual railway company. This paper describes the survey of the fundamental structure and feature of representative sensor-less systems mentioned above.