Sensorless DC output control of a high performance reluctance generator system

This paper presents a sensorless DC output voltage control system for a PWM inverter-based high performance reluctance generator (RG). It utilizes an axially laminated anisotropic (ALA) rotor reluctance generator and torque vector control principles. Due to the variation of driven speed and as required by torque vector control, a novel sensorless robust rotor position estimation algorithm is developed. This algorithm requires the knowledge of stator resistance, q-axis inductance and the square of the ratio of q-axis to d-axis inductances. Extensive digital simulations of the sensorless DC output control system, for an existing laboratory prototype, are performed for self-excitation on no load and under load, step variations in load, driven speed variations of about 50%, and step changes in output voltage command. High performance is obtained in every case