Development of a variable-magnet switched reluctance motor drive

This paper introduces a variable magnet switched reluctance motor (VM-SRM) drive that can be characterized with adjustable performance. It consists of a switched reluctance (SR) motor with low coercive force (LCF) magnets buried on stator yoke and a modified asymmetric half bridge (AHB) converter. Magnetization level of the LCF magnets is adjusted by injecting a current pulse to a phase winding of the VM-SRM. The magnetization process does not need any extra coil and provides a simplicity owing to modified AHM converter. Possible magnetic saturation that limits the magnetization level is overcome by injecting current pulses to two phase windings at the same time. Thus, LCF magnets can be used with their full capacity. The presented analysis results demonstrate that proposed VM-SRM drive provides a variable performance and might be a candidate for future variable speed applications. (c) 2022 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.