Dual stator winding induction machine drive

A new dual stator winding induction machine drive is described in this paper. The proposed induction machine consists of a standard squirrel-cage rotor and a stator with two separate windings wound for a dissimilar number of poles. Each stator winding is fed from an independent variable-frequency variable-voltage inverter. The proposed drive offers such advantages as speed sensorless operation, better reliability, and more flexibility to manipulate the resultant torque-speed curve of the motor. In the proposed drive, zero-speed operation is achieved by independently controlling the two sets of stator currents, hence, maintaining a minimum electrical frequency independent of the mechanical speed. This feature is especially important to minimize the negative impact of the stator resistance influence at low-speed operation and it greatly simplifies the implementation of speed sensorless control schemes. The drive is well suited for either constant volts per hertz or field-oriented (FO) operation. Circulating harmonic currents, common to most dual stator machines, are eliminated by the dissimilar pole number in each stator winding.