Abstract
Induction machines have of late become the most popular workhorses in the industry replacing DC machines because of their advantages, such as reduced cost, reliability and the absence of commutators, which make them adapt to unfavourable conditions with lower maintenance requirement. However, higher-order models of AC machines, nonlinearities in model equations, uncertainties in parameters and load disturbances make induction motors difficult to control than that of DC motors. In this paper, a robust control strategy considering the recent advances in technology is proposed employing input-output feedback linearization for the exact decoupling of electromagnetic torque and rotor flux using fractional-order sliding mode controller (SMC) for the outer speed loop. The sliding mode observer is also designed to extract the rotor flux from the DC input voltage of the inverter and stator current measurements. Finally, a comparison between the commonly used proportional integral and derivative (PID) controller and the proposed fractional-order SMCs is made and the conclusion is reached.