Sliding mode angular position control for an 8/6 Switched Reluctance Machine: Theoretical concept, design and experimental results

This paper presents a study about the angular position control of a regular four phases 8/6 Switched Reluctance Machine (SRM). The SRM has very interesting characteristics, however there is still not a comprehensive use of it as a position controlled system. Effectively there are many papers in the literature about position detection but still few about SRM position control. This work pretends to be a contribution to overcome this limitation. The theoretical development and design of a robust and accurate sliding mode controller (SMC) is presented, based on the machine torque characteristics, with the correspondent experimental implementation based on the construction of a prototype. It is a low cost system, which makes it very attractive and competitive in the market of drive systems for industrial processes. Experimental tests were done in order to validate the theoretical development. The performance and dynamic behaviour of the SRM system with angular position control is presented and discussed.