A PROTOTYPE CONTROLLER FOR VARIABLE-RELUCTANCE MOTORS

A three-level cascade structure is proposed for the control of a varia ble reluctance (VR) motor, In order to deal with the highly nonlinear behavior of VR motors, the controlling system includes two variable-st ructure controllers for current and velocity loops as well as an inter mediate torque-sharing compensator. The intermediate compensator has b een designed by means of nonlinear optimization techniques in order to reduce the torque ripple and to get the maximum motor velocity, The p roposed controller has been validated through extensive simulation exp eriments, The architecture of a prototype controller is presented and the actual performance measured on a Vp motor is discussed in comparis on with simulations. The results show practical feasibility and good p erformance of the proposed controller, which is also suitable for a ve ry simple and quite inexpensive fully hardware implementation.