Abstract: A blood pump system includes a blood pump and a corresponding controller. The blood pump includes an impeller that is sealed within the pump housing and hydrodynamically suspended within the pump housing. The pump impeller includes magnets, and is the rotor of a brushless direct current (DC) motor that is driven by electrical signals through stator wire coils in the pump housing, which creates a rotating magnetic field. The rotating magnetic field attracts the magnetized impeller and spins it with the rotating field. The controller provides field-oriented control for the brushless DC motor in the blood pump. The field-oriented control in the controller is provided in a programmable logic device separate from a control processor so that a software or hardware failure related to the control processor does not stop the blood pump. The field-oriented control allows sensing blood flow through the pump without having sensors in the blood stream.