Reliable Sensorless Control with PFC for SRM-Based Low-Cost Appliances

Abstract

The switched reluctance motor (SRM) requires the rotor position for the motoring and generating operation. A new sensorless control is presented in this paper for position and speed estimation with power factor correction (PFC) based on SRM for low-power and low-voltage domestic and industrial applications. A Cuk converter is used at the input side to limit the total harmonics distortion (THD) in the supply current. The SR motor's symmetrical property is used for low-cost sensorless control. In this method, a single current sensor and a voltage sensor are sufficient for a four-phase SRM to implement the sensorless control, which reduces the cost of the overall system. The flux linkage-based model is used for the position estimation of four-phase SRM. Two flux linkage data at two specified positions are required for the sensorless control, which reduces the controller memory requirement and increases the response time. The flux linkage data at a particular position is taken from the physical modeling of four-phase SRM. A reference flux linkage is compared with the running flux linkage for the rotor position estimation. For control validation, a four-phase, eight-stator poles, and six-rotor pole configuration SRM simulation model is used for the position determination of the rotor and sensorless control. Simulated results endorse the adaptability of the recommended sensorless technique for the four-phase SRM in low-cost applications.