A novel single-phase switched reluctance motor drive system

Single phase switched reluctance machines (SRMs) have a special place in the emerging high-volume, low-cost and low-performance applications in appliances and also in high-speed low-power motor drives in various industrial applications. Single phase SRMs have a number of drawbacks: low power density as they have only 50% utilization of windings, lack of self-starting feature unless otherwise built in to the machine, most of the time with permanent magnets or sometimes with distinct and special machine rotor configurations or additional mechanisms. Many of these approaches are expensive or make the manufacturing process more difficult. In order to overcome such disadvantages, a method involving interpoles and windings is proposed in this paper. The proposed structure also provides four-quadrant operational capability with an appropriate converter. In addition to the proposed single phase SRM topology, a new and novel converter topology requiring only a single switch and a single diode is proposed. This enables for the first time a compact and low-cost single phase SRM. The present configuration, in addition, enables rotor position sensorless operation of the proposed single SRM drive system. Experimental results of the proposed SRM drive system are included