Experimental evaluation of second sliding modes observer and Extended Kalman Filter in a sensorless robust control of Switched Reluctance Motor for EV application

This paper proposes an observer based sensorless control of Switched Reluctance Motors (SRM´s) for electric vehicles (EVs) applications. The position and speed estimations obtained from the observer are used to drive a robust speed tracking controller, which is based on H_∞ control approach. An Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) and a second order Sliding Modes Observers (SMO2) are designed to obtain speed and position estimations required for the close loop control. The performances of these two observers are compared, under the same operating conditions, from a control perspective in electric vehicle. The complete drive system performance is validated experimentally using a 4 phase 8/6 SRM prototype.