A backstepping based computed torque controller for switched reluctance motors driving inertial loads

An integrator backstepping technique is used to design a voltage level controller for switched reluctance (SR) motors driving inertial loads. The results cannot be inferred from similar approaches applied to other machines due to the SR motor's unique modeling and need for electronic commutation. An interesting feature of the proposed controller is the incorporation of a backstepping based "smooth" commutation strategy for the "shared" specification of the individual SR motor phase currents. The closed loop trajectory tracking error is theoretically shown to be globally uniformly asymptotically stable (GUAS) under the proposed controller given exact model knowledge and full state feedback. Performance of the proposed controller is verified using computer simulation and an experimental setup.