Reluctance motor control for fault-tolerant capability

While it is not difficult to operate a synchronous reluctance motor (SynRM) with a one phase open-circuit, it is not a trivial task to operate a SynRM under a short-circuit fault condition. SynRM fault-tolerant operation, especially in the situation of one phase short-circuit, is investigated in this paper. This work suggests that for a normal SynRM, fault-tolerant operation, which is important for high-performance applications, can be achieved by proper control of the currents fed to the machine to produce a satisfactory average torque. Both computer simulation and hardware experiment are carried out based upon a theoretical analysis. Furthermore, a control strategy with torque optimization is also explored.