In order to effectively control the permanent-magnet brushless direct current motor ( BLDCM) inside aflywheel energy storage system,an immune controller based on the Varela immune network is employed to controlmotor speed and torque,and the reference parameters of the immune controller are determined.As compared withconventional PID controllers,the proposed immune controller provides more stable dynamic response of speed controlsignal,effectively reduces the pulsation magnitude of motor torque and well keeps relative periodic stability,which helps to output system current signal with small distortion and approximate trapezoidal waveform,and to obtainadaptive control parameters.It is thus concluded that the controller based on the Varela immune is effective incontrolling flywheel BLDCM.