A COMPARATIVE-STUDY OF PERMANENT-MAGNET AND SWITCHED RELUCTANCE MOTORS FOR HIGH-PERFORMANCE FAULT-TOLERANT APPLICATIONS

Switched reluctance machines (SRM's) have been extensively researched for high performance aerospace applications because of their inherent fault tolerance. Recent work by the authors suggests that with careful design a similar degree of fault tolerance may be achieved with a per manent magnet machine (PM) at a significantly higher torque density th an its SRM counterpart, This latter suggestion is of crucial importanc e in high performance applications, such as aerospace, where a low mas s is essential. This paper is concerned with reporting measured result s from a fault tolerant PM machine, and using these results to examine the relative merits of SR and PM technology for this application.