Low‐Cost Permanent Magnet‐Assisted Switched Reluctance Motor for Adjustable Speed Drive Applications

Abstract Permanent Magnet (PM) motors have been attracting great attention in recent technology because of providing higher efficiency as well as power/volume as compared to conventional wound‐rotor type machines. Recently, it has been demonstrated that NdFeB magnets, which are one of the expensive magnets, can be replaced by Alnico magnets in the case of Switched Reluctance Motor (SRM) without any performance degradation. However, the performance of this machine has not been analyzed so far under a proper torque control strategy. The main objective of this work is to investigate the performance of DITC‐controlled PM‐SRM under various conditions. The possible demagnetization effect of the Alnico magnets on motor performance has also been considered. Compared to same size SRM, 3% efficiency increase has been obtained at rated operation. Overall results demonstrate that PM‐SRM drive shows valuable performance and may have potential to be used in near future motor drive technology. © 2020 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.