A simple control structure with high anti‐disturbance ability is proposed here for permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) drives. The conventional cascade structure, with an outer speed loop and an inner current loop, is simplified and merged into one single‐loop controller. To enhance the dynamic performance and efficiency of the PMSM drives, an enhanced adaptive reaching law (EARL) is proposed for the single‐loop control strategy. In comparison with conventional reaching laws, the EARL can increase the convergence speed, adapt the gain to fit the system state, and reject the chattering phenomena of conventional sliding mode control. Moreover, an improved disturbance observer (DOBS) is developed to work with the main controller. The DOBS aims to enhance the estimation accuracy of real‐time unknown disturbances in the PMSM system, thereby further improving the disturbance rejection capability through feedforward compensation for the single‐loop control strategy. The EARL and DOBS thus enhance the robustness of the control strategy and ensure high dynamic performance at various motor operating conditions. The performance and efficiency of the proposed control are validated through simulations and experimental studies.

Field-Oriented Control (FOC) is widely recognized as a standard framework for Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor (PMSM) drives. Linear control techniques are commonly employed in designing controllers for this strategy. However, traditional control methods often exhibit performance limitations and reduced robustness, particularly under harsh operating conditions, which makes the FOC structure less appealing and less effective. To address and overcome these challenges, this study proposes a Second-order Non-singular Terminal Sliding (SNTS) mode approach to achieve fast, accurate, and robust tracking for the FOC control structure applied to PMSM drives. The SNTS method combines the benefits of non-singular terminal sliding mode and second-order control laws. This approach ensures rapid and precise tracking while minimizing steady-state errors by using a nonlinear terminal sliding mode surface instead of a linear one. Furthermore, the system state transitions smoothly along the sliding mode surface with continuous functions, which reduces chattering around the sliding surface. The second-order control law incorporated into this method helps mitigate chattering and achieve fast convergence. The Lyapunov stability theory is employed to verify the stability of the SNTS technique designed for the PMSM system. Simulation and experimental validation on a hardware platform confirm the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed SNTS method, demonstrating its capability to enhance the performance of speed controllers for PMSM drives.