Three-Phase Full-Bridge Converter Controlled Permanent Magnet Reluctance Generator for Small-Scale Wind Energy Conversion Systems

A permanent magnet reluctance generator (PMRG), which is a type of switched reluctance machine (SRM) with magnets on stator yoke, has an extremely simple and robust structure and is suitable for variable speed applications such as wind energy conversion systems (WECSs). A three-phase asymmetric half-bridge (AHB) converter with a torque ripple minimization-assisted maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithm presents an effective control for a PMRG-based WECSs, which allows suppressing torque ripples arising from the nature of the PMRG while capturing maximum power from the wind. However, a single package of the converter is not available in the markets and hence, its construction by a user suffers from higher cost and lower reliability. In order to overcome the drawbacks of the AHB converter, this research introduces, for the first time, the use of full-bridge (FB) converter to drive the PMRG-based WECS. The three-phase FB converters, which have widespread use in practice, are commercially available in the markets. The FB converter with torque ripple minimization-assisted MPPT algorithm has been successively employed in the PMRG driven WECS. Performance of the control-converter combination has been experimentally tested on the three-phase 6/4 PMRG.