2011 Power Engineering Society Literary Prize for Dr. Grabner

[9 Nov. 2011] Yesterday Dr. Herbert Grabner, employee of Area Mechatronic Design of Machines and Components of ACCM and at Linz Center of Mechatronics, was honored with the ETG Literary Prize 2011 for his paper, “Nonlinear feedback control of a bearingless brushless DC motor”.

The paper addresses the control of a five-tooth coil, bearingless permanent magnet synchronous motor. The coils are interconnected at the neutral point and are individually controlled by pulse width modulation voltage, so that four independent streams are available for torque and radial force generation (magnetic bearings).  Axial stability and stability during tilting movements is obtained from reluctance forces (disk-shaped rotor geometry) and is not regulated.

This paper derives the fundamentals of control engineering relating to this configuration and regarded as generally valid and transforms the nonlinear ODE system into a linear system. This simplifies control and simultaneously improves accuracy and reduces currents. Even the practical, important increase in the effective coil voltage by injection of higher harmonics is taken into consideration. Subsequently, the theoretical results are implemented and verified with a drive system (motor and controller).

Grabner’s work was judged by the jury to be “fundamental in this interesting field of application and comprehensive as regards content,” and it was positively emphasized that Grabner also proved his theoretical deductions by means of practical tests. This new procedure should have high potential for industrial implementation and to improve the performance of bearingless drives.

Grabner was born in 1977 in Braunau am Inn, graduated in mechatronics and completed his doctorate of technical sciences at Johannes Kepler University Linz. He then completed an MSc management program of engineering at the Austrian Business School LIMAK.
In his research and development work, Grabner mainly focuses on the field of small electronics businesses, power electronics and magnet bearing technology for customers in various branches.
Grabner’s research focuses on active and passive magnetic bearings, bearingless (magnetically mounted) motors as well as control of electrical machines and actuators. Numerous international publications and patent registrations have resulted from his work.

The Power Engineering Society (ETG) is part of the Association for Electrical, Electronic and Information Technologies (VDE).
Excellent publications in the field of power engineering are honored with the VDE/ETG Literature Prize every year. The prize recognizes particular scientific and journalistic achievements with 3000 Euros in prize money.

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