A Modulation Technique for Sensorless Control of Switched Reluctance Motor

Abstract

The switched reluctance motor (SRM) uniquely bears several merits with respect to other motor configurations. Especially, the construction of the rotor is simple in the sense that it neither contains copper not contains permanent magnets. Because of this construction, likelihood of rotor’s failure is less than the other motor configurations. This makes this motor more suitable for harsh environments. On the flip side, this motor cannot directly operate with AC or DC power source and needs electronic commutation. For commutation, the information on instantaneous orientation of the rotor is essential. Since inclusion of appropriate sensor adds to the cost and complexity of the system, sensor-less commutation of SRM gained interest among the researchers and has been studied extensively in literature. The techniques for sensorless control of SRM can be broadly classified into Active phase and Idle phase techniques. Idle phase techniques are generally believed to be not suitable for high speed operation beause of tail current in a phase, i.e., because of inductive nature of the phase, it takes time for flow of current to stop. This paper proposes a novel idle phase technique that is conducive for high speed operation of switched reluctance motor.