Four-quadrant smooth torque controlled Switched Reluctance Machine drives

The design of a new control scheme for a four- quadrant Switched Reluctance Machine (SRM) drive is presented. The SRM drive operates over the entire speed range and provides low torque ripple with smooth transition between the control operations. The low torque ripple is achieved by controlling the firing angles through simple formulas so as to minimize the pulsations of the total current in the commutation region. The smooth transition is attained since the conditions that determine the firing angles of one operating mode are derived from the conditions of the other operating mode. The smooth transition between motoring and braking operation is accomplished by means of a new control technique. The SRM drive is modeled in Simulink environment and several simulation results are presented to validate the feasibility of the proposed control scheme.