Fault-Tolerant BLDC Motor-Driven Pump for Fluids With Unknown Specific Gravity: An Experimental Approach

Abstract

This paper presents an experimental approach for the design of a brushless DC (BLDC) motor-driven pump that is intended to pump fluids with unknown specific gravity. We propose a control mechanism that will enable the pump to operate at a higher efficiency irrespective of fluid types. Experimental results from a prototype pump system controlled by two different open-loop controllers are used for determining the optimized closed-loop control algorithm to run the pump while tracking its higher efficiency point. A set of computer simulations is conducted based on a conventional finite-element method to design the best possible BLDC motor, which is employed in the proposed fault-tolerant and efficient pump. Experimental results are presented to validate the efficiency of the proposed pump and also compared with that of a commercial motor design simulator.

Keywords

• BLDC motor-driven pump
• closed-loop control
• fault-tolerant BLDC motor
• maximum power-point tracking
• open-loop control