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The Design of a Switched Reluctance Motor Drive System

Conference Paper · February 2009

DOI: 10.1109/CAR.2009.102 · Source: DBLP

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 2009 International Asia Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics

The Design of a Switched Reluctance Motor Drive System

Jiangbiao He, Guangzheng Liang, Shihu Wang

Institute of Mechatronics and Information Systems
Xi’an Jiaotong University
Xi’an, China
e-mail: [email protected]

Abstract—A four-phase 8/6 pole and 75kW switched reluctance the phase current and the motor speed of SRM, and its
motor drive based on 32-bit digital signal processor property can directly affect the performance of SRD system.
TMS320F2812 is designed. The details of the controller design Detector module generally includes rotor position detection
and analysis are discussed. In addition, aiming at solving the and winding current detection, and it functions as providing
nonlinear problems of the switched reluctance motor, fuzzy-PI the essential information of rotor position and the switch
hybrid algorithm is presented to control the motor speed and state of motor winding.
the phase current. Experimental results show that the
hardware and software design of the switched reluctance drive
system are reasonable, and the proposed fuzzy-PI double
closed-loop control strategy is feasible and correct.

Keywords-switched reluctance motor; nonlinear; digital

signal processor; fuzzy-PI control

I. INTRODUCTION
Switched reluctance motor drive (SRD) has been Fig.1 Structure of four-phase 8/6 pole SRM
regarded as one of the promising speed-adjusting driving
systems since 1980s. It has become a competitor to the The main function of SRD system is to regulate the SRM
conventional ac or dc motor drive because of its nature of speed to the required parameters, and torque control is the
simplicity, robustness, high efficiency and high power crucial point for a driving system. The SRD system has
density. With much market potential, products of switched many controllable parameters, such as turn-on angle, turn-off
reluctance motor (SRM) have been used in many fields, such angle, phase voltage and phase current. Accordingly, control
as driving electric vehicle, household appliances, aviation strategies of SRD mainly include angular position control,
industry, servo system, etc. However, owing to the severe chopped current control and voltage pulse width modulation
nonlinear problems caused by magnetic saturation, eddy (PWM) control. Angular position control refers to
effect and hysteresis characteristic of SRM, it is difficult to controlling the speed and torque of SRM by regulating the
establish accurate mathematical model for SRM [1]. In turn-on angle and turn-off angle of main switch devices
addition, the structure and parameters of SRM are variable while keeping the input voltage unchanged. Angular position
with the change of control strategy [2]. Hence, it is very control strategy is very suitable for high-speed, efficient and
challenging to obtain sound controlling performance by torque optimal control, but not for low-speed control because
using the purely traditional PID strategy. With the view of of the high current peak. Chopped current control is realized
solving these problems, this paper presents the fuzzy-PI by controlling the switch devices IGBT to limit the winding
strategy by combining PID algorithm with fuzzy algorithm, current peak, so as to achieve torque control while keeping
and designs a four-phase, 8/6 pole SRD based on advanced the turn-on angle and turn-off angle unchanged. Chopped
32-bit digital signal processor (DSP) TMS320F2812. current control strategy is adequate for low-speed regulating
Experimental results show that the scheme can solve to a system. As for voltage PWM control, this strategy is
certain extent the problems caused by SRM nonlinear implemented by controlling PWM duty cycle to adjust wind
features. voltage while keeping the turn-on angle and turn-off angle
unchanged. The advantages of voltage PWM control lie in
II. SYSTEM STRUCTURE AND CONTROL that it can indirectly regulate the winding current by
STRATEGY adjusting the average voltage value of phase windings, and it
The SRD system is mainly composed of SRM, power is propitious to both high-speed drive system and low-speed
converter, controller and detector. The structure of SRM is drive system. Moreover, it has fast dynamic response on
shown in Fig.1. It’s a four-phase, 8/6 pole SRM. Power anti-load disturbance, which is beneficial for achieving
converter is mainly responsible for energy transfer by sound SRD operation performance. Considering all these
controlling the switch of the motor’s winding current. characteristics, this paper adopts voltage PWM control as the
Controller is the core part of SRD system, which can adjust control strategy.

978-0-7695-3519-7/09 $25.00 © 2009 IEEE 445

DOI 10.1109/CAR.2009.102
 III. SYSTEM HARDWARE DESIGN
The overall hardware structure based on main control
chip DSP TMS320F2812 is presented in Fig.2, and
photograph of TMS320F2812 system PCB is shown in Fig.3.
As one of the advanced 32-bit fixed-point DSP chips,
TMS320F2812 can reach a processing speed of 150MIPS
[2]. It has sound ability about signal processing and can
realize complex control algorithm.
In Fig.2, the section in the dotted-line is TMS320F2812, Fig.4. Power converter circuit
and all the controlled parts of the system including current
control, speed control and motor commutation control are Switched device IGBT module SKM300GB123D
fulfilled by software of DSP. Output logic level PWM signal manufactured by SEMIKRON Company is chosen as the
from DSP will drive the power circuit to control the SRM power switching device, which is rated 300A/1200V. It has
current and speed. Feedback signals of winding current the advantages of little power loss, high switching speed and
detected by Hall current sensors will be delivered to ADC simple driving circuit.
unit of DSP to implement the current closed-loop control, Driving module EXB841 produced by Fuji Corporation
while feedback signals of rotor position detected by is selected to drive the IGBT. EXB841 is an integrated
photoelectric sensor will be delivered to CAP unit of DSP to circuit with isolated inputs and outputs. In addition, the
achieve the speed closed-loop control. In addition, important EXB841 has an over current protection function. When the
information of motor speed, phase winding current, and current in the IGBT exceeds its limitation, the EXB841 can
output torque will be sent to LCD display via SPI interface automatically disable the trigger signals to avoid damaging
of DSP. the IGBT.
B. Rotor position detection
There are two aspects for the function of rotor position
signals: one is to accurately indicate relative position
between the rotor and stator, and the other is to calculate
SRM real-time speed. Position sensors used in this paper are
photoelectric sensors. In Fig.5, both sensors are installed on
the motor shell, to generate two square wave signals with the
phase difference of 15 mechanical degrees in a rotor angle
period. Four different states composed by the two signals
represent four different reference positions of the SRM rotor.
Rotor position signals gained in the experiment are shown in
Fig.2. Block diagram of the switched reluctance drive system Fig.6. Position signals are delivered to CAP unit of DSP to
determine the rotor position and motor speed after optical
coupling isolation and signal conditioning.

Fig.3. Photograph of 32-bit digital signal processor TMS320F2812

(a) Relative positions of the stator and rotor
(b) Relative positions of photoelectric sensors P&S
A. Design of Power converter
Fig.5 Rotor position detection
To improve the operational reliability, asymmetry half-
bridge circuit is adopted as the power circuit of the SRD
system, so that each phase can be controlled independently,
which will avoid the phase connections and the phenomenon
of circuit direct connection between the two bridge arms of
the power circuit. Moreover, asymmetry half-bridge circuit is
more efficient for it has a better power utilization than other
power circuits [3]. Topology of asymmetry half-bridge Fig.6. Rotor position signals detected by photoelectric sensors
circuit is presented in Fig.4.

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C. Phase current detection TABLE I. FUZZY CONTROL RULE TABLE

Phase current detection plays an important role in SRD

system, for it can provide winding current information to
achieve phase current closed-loop control. Because of the
high frequency power switched circuit, current-output mode
sensor has better anti-interference ability than voltage-output
mode sensor. In this paper, type LT300-C current-output
mode Hall sensors are adopted to detect phase current.
Signals output from the Hall current sensors will be
delivered to ADC unit of DSP to obtain SRM speed value
after the process of signal sampling and filtering.
IV. SYSTEM SOFTWARE DESIGN
B. Phase current control
Programming language of DSP C is applied and modular
PID control strategy is adopted in current closed-loop
programming method is adopted in the software design.
control. It refers to controlling the object by controlling the
Shared Programs are compiled into subroutines with
variables constituted by the linear combination of proportion
different functions to improve readability and portability of
parameter P, integral parameter I and differential parameter
programs. The SRD software programs include main
D. Discrete PID can be expressed as
program, AD interrupt program, system initialization
program, PI control program of current and fuzzy control k
program of speed. uk = kP ek + K I ∑ e j + K D (ek − ek −1 ) (1)
j =0
A. Motor Speed control
Fuzzy algorithm is adopted in SRM speed control Where k is the sampling sequence number, uk is the
because of its suitability to the nonlinear variation of system
parameters [4-5]. One goal of the fuzzy controller is to adjust microprocessor’s output value at the k sampling time, ek is
the PID parameters online. Control strategies of the the input deviation value at the k sampling time, ek −1 is the
adjustment should be made according to the analysis for the input deviation value at the (k − 1) sampling time, k P is the
SRD system. Fuzzy controller should first transform the
input variable from natural language to numerical proportional coefficient, k I is the integral coefficient, k D is
information which can be identified by the fuzzy controller. the differential coefficient.
Fuzzy reasoning will be done to blur the obtained results. To reduce the effect of misoperation and the complexity
Seven common language variable values including NB, NM, of calculation, positional PID algorithm is applied in this
NS, ZE, PS, PM and PB are selected in the fuzzy algorithm. paper [6]. It can be expressed as
Fuzzy subsets of velocity error E, error variation Ec and
control variable U are the fuzzy subsets of language variable +uk = k P ΔeK + k I eK + K D [ ΔeK − Δek −1 ] (2)
field {NB, NM, NS,ZE, PS, PM, PB}, which is described by
function .membership function of E, Ec and U are shown in
Fig.7. Meanwhile, triangle membership function is adopted Δek is defined as
in velocity error E, error variation Ec and control variable U.
Control variables output from the fuzzy controller are based Δek = ek − ek −1
on the input variables at sampling time and the fuzzy control
rules. Mamdani algorithm is applied in fuzzy reasoning [3- In addition, differential parameter overreacts to the phase
4]. current change in the closed-loop control of SRD, which
The control rule of fuzzy controller is based on the causes the system to be instable [7]. For this reason, PI
experience of operator and the knowledge of relevant algorithm has been used instead of PID controlling
experts. Common features of the system to step response and algorithm.
the relationship with input variables are taken for reference
in the fuzzy control rule table, which is shown in Table1. C. Software process
Once the program starts, it first initializes the whole
system, and then incycles and inquires repeatedly if the
analog/digital (A/D) transformation has finished. If finishes,
it will calculate and modify the output value. Meanwhile, it
will output the system information of speed and current to
the liquid crystal display (LCD) module. Fig.8 shows the
flowchart of main program and A/D interruption. Fig.9
shows the flowchart of current feedback, speed feedback and
Fig.7. Membership function of E, Ec and U system initialization.

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 the current of a-phase starts rising rapidly when a-phase is
energized, and significant chopper phenomenon can be seen
during the process. The current value begins to decrease to
zero dramatically when a-phase is blocked. The short current
reflowing time is beneficial for the motor’s practical
operation. But the current peak value pulse is relatively high,
which will affect the reliability of switching devices.
Besides, the rising velocity of phase current is not fast
enough, because of the limitation of maximum PWM duty
cycle. All these shortcomings will be improved in the later
experiments.
Fig.12 shows the static torque curve of SRD, which
indicates if the machine is capable to start from every rotor
position. The dotted line represents the actual measuring
value of torque variation with the rotor position under the
phase current of 30A, while the solid line represents the
calculated value, which is calculated via using ANSYS
infinite element analysis software under the same condition.
Fig.8. Flowchart of main program and A/D interruption As can be seen from the figure, the calculated value is larger
than the actual measuring value, which is probably because
two-dimensional rather than three-dimensional model is
adopted in finite element calculation and the motor's end
effect is ignored. The torque curve demonstrates that the
stator pole coincides with the rotor pole within the range of
0~8 mechanical degrees, and the output torque value is
relatively little in this range. However, from 7 degrees to 9
degrees, the stator pole begins to coincide with the rotor
pole. Beyond 9 degrees, the torque value gets to increase
rapidly. As the degree increases, the output torque value
decreases, until the torque value drops to zero at 30
mechanical-degree point.

Fig.9. Flowchart of current feedback, speed feedback

and system initialization

Fig.10 Photograph of 4 phases, 8/6 pole switched reluctance motor

V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
To evaluate the performance of the proposed SRM drive
system, some experimental results are shown here.
Experimental subject is based on a four-phase, 8/6 pole
and 75 kW switched reluctance motor, which is shown in
Fig.10. The adjustable speed range of the drive system can
vary from 1500 r/min to 4500 r/min. The rated dc voltage of
the power converter is 336V. The input dc voltage is
obtained by rectifying a three-phase adjustable ac source. (a)
The SRM is coupled with a mechanical commutation
dividing head. The experimental waveforms are measured by
a Tektronix digital storage oscilloscope TDS-2002.
Fig.11 shows the measured phase current waveform and
switching sequence of a-phase, b-phase, c-phase and d-
phase. As is shown in the figure, a-phase is energized in the
beginning, after a certain period, a-phase is blocked and b-
phase is energized, and then c-phase and d-phase are
energized in the same way. Taking a-phase as an example, (b)

448
 VI. CONCLUSION
In this paper, a four-phase 75kW switched reluctance
drive based on 32-bit DSP TMS320F2812 is designed. In
addition, double closed-loop control strategy of fuzzy-PI
algorithm for the drive system has been presented, which
aims to solve the problem of difficult control caused by SRM
nonlinear feature. Experimental results show that, the
(c) hardware and software design of the SRD system are
reasonable, and the proposed fuzzy-PI controlling strategy is
feasible and correct. This paper presents a new direction in
the advanced nonlinear controller design of a switched
reluctance drive system.
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Fig.12. Static torque curve for 30A phase current

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