Sensorless characteristics of hybrid PM machines at zero and low speed

Sensorless methods for zero and low speed operation in drives with hybrid PM machines make use of the machine saliency to determine the rotor position in an indirect fashion. When integrating the position measurement in the electrical power supply to the machine, i.e. make the machine self-sensing, the sensorless obtained position can be affected by the actual operation conditions of the machine e.g. the stator currents. This may deteriorate the machine self-sensing suitability using injection methods. In this paper an analysis method based on accurate knowledge of the machine flux linkages is proposed for analysing the suitability for sensorless control at zero and low speed. The method can be used to evaluate a particular machine design so the self-sensing characteristics for sensorless control of machine can be found. The characteristics can be obtained from finite element simulation data or experimental data.