An adaptive inductance estimation technique for vector-controlled synchronous reluctance motor drive

Abstract

Synchronous Reluctance Machine (SynRM) has recently gained attention for electric vehicle application due to its lightweight construction. However, one of the major drawbacks of such motors is that the power factor is low. Therefore, it is important to operate such motors in the maximum power factor condition. Such an operation calls for correct values of inductance. In this paper, a method to estimate stator inductance has been proposed using the Model Reference Adaptive System. Two new functional candidates have been derived that estimate the d-axis and q-axis stator inductances to account for its variation due to magnetic cross saturation. Online inductance adaptation can lead to a significant improvement in the SynRM Power Factor. The proposed theory has been extensively tested by simulation studies on MATLAB SIMULINK and its effectiveness has been verified.