Theory and operation of a four-quadrant switched reluctance motor drive with a single controllable switch-the lowest cost four-quadrant brushless motor drive

Low-cost motor drives are being sought for high-volume energy-efficient home appliances. Key to the realization of such low-cost motor drives is the reduction of the power electronic converter to the barest in terms of its components, particularly the active devices, finding the motor with the least complexity for manufacturing and a controller that can extract the desired performance from the machine and converter combination. These and other factors such as self-starting, speed control over a wide range, and, most of all, the crowning aspect of four-quadrant operation with a bare minimum number of controllable switches remain as formidable challenges for low-cost motor drive realization. An innovative four-quadrant switched reluctance motor (SRM) drive with only one controllable switch is realized in this paper, for the first time, in the opinion of the authors. The motor drive is realized using a two-phase machine and a single controllable switch converter. The theory and operation of the proposed four-quadrant SRM drive with the proposed control algorithm for its realization are described. The motor drive is modeled, simulated, and analyzed to verify its feasibility for self-starting, speed control, and for four-quadrant operation, and the simulation results are presented. Experimental results confirm the validity of the proposed control algorithm for four-quadrant control of the SRM drive. The focus of the paper is mainly directed toward the control algorithm for realizing the four-quadrant operation of the two-phase SRM drive with a single controllable switch converter.