A switched reluctance motor drive for home appliances with high power factor capability

Addressing high speed drives for home appliances, a new converter topology is presented for switched reluctance motor drives. Such a converter exploits high speed motor operations, high efficiency, one switch per phase and the capability to increase the system power factor. The proposed topology is based on a modified C-dump converter configuration, where the energy recovery stage acts as an active PFC for off-line operation. This is made possible by introducing a new technique to manage part of the free-wheeling energy that is recovered back to the DC bus by a suitable high frequency transformer. The proposed approach allows to omit the standard power factor controller stage that is included in electrical systems devoted to home appliance applications in order to comply with power quality requirements. Simulations and experimental results confirm the validity of the proposed approach.