Power convertor circuits for switched reluctance motors with the minimum number of switches

The phase windings of a doubly salient switched reluctance motor are fed with unipolar pulses of current from a suitable power convertor to control the speed and torque of the motor. A new range of power convertor circuits for the switched reluctance motor is proposed in this paper. The circuits allow the full supply voltage to be used to control the current in the phase windings and each switch is rated at close to the supply voltage. These power convertor circuits have fewer than two switches per phase winding. A new switching algorithm to control the switches connected to more than one phase winding is described. Equations predicting the ideal rotor angles for the commutation of the phase currents are derived for this new algorithm. Test results are given that clearly show the benefits of this new range of power convertor circuits over existing designs