New Optimal Current Control Methods for Energy-Efficient and Wide Speed-Range Operation of Hybrid-Field Synchronous Motor

Abstract

This paper proposes new practical optimal current control methods for a newly emerging class of synchronous motors with hybrid rotor fields by both permanent magnet and winding. In a practical situation with limited voltage, the extensively used permanent-magnet synchronous motor hardly achieves an ideal performance in an energy-efficient manner due to its constant magnet field, which simultaneously allows both low-speed high-torque and wide speed-range operations. The hybrid-field synchronous motors (HFSMs) are potential candidates that can achieve the ideal performance as practical motors with controllable hybrid rotor field. HFSMs can dynamically control the rotor flux according to the operation requirements by the low-speed, high-torque, and wide speed-range operations, etc. For the HFSMs, the same torque can be produced by a variety of stator and rotor currents due to the nonlinearity between the torque and the currents. Produced losses and required voltages depend upon the associated currents. Consequently, in the situation that current control systems are well constructed, appropriate determination of a set of stator and rotor current commands plays a key role to achieve the ideal performance in an energy-efficient manner. The proposed methods determine the current commands corresponding to a given torque command such that the total winding copper losses due to the stator and rotor currents can be minimized if the exact currents associated with the torque command exist; the best approximate torque can be produced if no exact associated currents exist, which is, of course, under the circumstance of a voltage limitation. The determined current commands are optimal in the sense of energy efficiency or degree of approximation under voltage limitation. New recursive algorithms searching the optimal current solution in real-time are also given as parts of the methods. The proposed methods are analytical but practical, whose usefulness is verified through experiments.