Speed-sensorless control of switched-reluctance motors with uncertain payload

We present a controller for switched-reluctance motors without velocity measurements and provide, to the best of our knowledge, the first result establishing global exponential stability. Our controller is composed of an “internal” tracking control loop for the stator dynamics and an “external” control loop based on the so-called PI²D controller. The latter consists in a linear proportional derivative controller in which the measurement of velocities is replaced by approximate derivatives. Furthermore, a double integrator is added to compensate for the load uncertainty. We illustrate our theoretical findings with numerical simulations.