Optimal control of a switched reluctance drive by a direct method using a discrete variational principle

In this contribution, we present a novel optimal control method for mechatronic systems and apply it to compute optimal current profiles for a switched reluctance drive. The optimal current profiles are embedded into a control architecture which is validated in simulations and experiments at a real prototype. The results outperform state of the art techniques for the design of current profiles for reluctance drives w.r.t. efficiency of the drive and uniformity of the motor torque. Furthermore, an additional closed-loop torque controller ensures robustness w.r.t. varying drive parameters. The optimal control method is an extension of a discretization technique which has originally been developed for mechanical systems and is based on discrete variational calculus.