Designing electrical drives resistant to the failures of chosen sensors has recently become increasingly popular due to the possibility of their use in fault-tolerant control (FTC) systems including drives for electric vehicles. In this article, a virtual current sensor (VCS) based on an algorithmic method for the reconstruction of the induction motor (IM) phase currents after current sensor faults was proposed. This stator current estimator is based only on the measurements of the DC-bus voltage in the intermediate circuit of the voltage-source inverter (VSI) and a rotor speed. This proposal is dedicated to fault-tolerant vector controlled IM drives, where it is necessary to switch to scalar control as a result of damage to the current sensors. The proposed VCS allows further uninterrupted operation of the direct rotor-field oriented control (DRFOC) of the induction motor drive. The stator current estimator has been presented in the form of equations, enabling its practical implementation in a microprocessor system. Simulation studies of the proposed algorithm in an open and closed-loop DRFOC structure are presented under different operation conditions of the drive system. The experimental verification of the proposed method is also presented and the accuracy of the stator current estimation algorithm is analyzed under various operating conditions of the drive system.
Keywords: current estimator; current sensor fault; electric vehicle; fault-tolerant control; field-oriented control; induction motor drive.