Sensor-less control of a novel axial flux-switching permanent-magnet motor

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to suggest a novel current sensor-less drive system for a novel axial flux-switching permanent-magnet motor drive to reduce the costs and avoid problems caused by faults of the current sensors. Design/methodology/approach Commonly, a conventional controller needs at least two current sensors; in this paper, the current sensors are removed by replacing estimated stator current with the extended Kalman filter. Findings A prototype of the novel axial flux-switching permanent-magnet motor is fabricated and tested. It is found that the experimental results confirm the proposed method and show that the control has almost the same performance and ability as the conventional control. Originality/value The axial flux-switching permanent-magnet motor is one of the most efficient motors, but current sensor-less control of an axial flux-switching permanent-magnet motor with a sandwiched permanent magnet and a unity displacement winding factor has not been specially reported to date. Thus, in this paper, the authors report on current sensor-less control based on the extended Kalman filter for electric vehicles.