Instantaneous shaft radial force control with sinusoidal excitations for switched reluctance motors

Unbalanced radial forces acting on a rotor shaft exist in motor applications where the external load is not balanced or when the rotor is not centered causing a nonuniform air gap. These forces are undesirable as they cause motor vibrations. In view of its special structure, the shaft radial force and the torque of a three-phase 12/8 pole switched reluctance motor (SRM) can be separately controlled by proper pole current selection in the energized phase. Therefore, radial forces can be produced intentionally to cancel the existing radial force produced by rotor eccentricity and the unbalanced load inertia. The motor vibrations are thereby reduced. In this paper, a sinusoidal current excitation scheme is proposed for the torque and radial force control of a 12/8 pole SRM. When controlled with the selected sinusoidal currents, the SRM can simultaneously produce the desired shaft radial force in any rotational plane direction and the required rotational torque. As all pole currents are individually controlled, a more sophisticated phase commutation strategy is also proposed that provides smoother torques and radial force ripples.