A position sensorless drive technique considering magnetic saturation for switched reluctance motor

This paper describes a position sensorless drive technique considering magnetic saturation for switched reluctance motors (SRMs). The sensorless drive technique makes use of the variation of the phase inductance, and is applied at low and medium speeds. In the low speed region, the theory of this method is simple, and uses the change of the gradient of the phase inductance when the stator and rotor poles are aligned. In the medium speed region, the turn-off timing of the excitation is advanced based on the difference between the phase inductance computed every sampling and the phase inductance at the aligned position. The sensorless drive can be carried out with considering of the magnetic saturation in both speed regions. Experimental results by using the proposed algorithm show that the SRM can successfully be controlled without a position sensor