A Position Stepping Method for Predicting Performances of Switched Reluctance Motor Drives

This paper presents a novel numerical method, which will be referred as the position stepping method (PSM), to predict the performances of switched reluctance motor (SRM) drives. The 2D bicubic spline is employed to generate the finite rectangular elements. The 2D bilinear spline is used to model the nonlinear magnetic characteristics in SRMs. Consequently, the conventional nonlinear first-order differential voltage equation for describing the performances of SRM drives can be simplified into an analytical expression in terms of the current with respect to the rotor position. Furthermore, the position stepping algorithm is developed according to the boundary and continuity conditions, to accurately and rapidly compute the current from the proposed current expression. Simulated and measured current waveforms are reported to validate the developed PSM. The CPU execution time required by the PSM compares very favorably with that of the analytical method. Overall, this paper provides an accurate and speedy approach to predict the currents and torques of SRM drives.