Electrical losses minimization of linear induction motors considering the dynamic end-effects

This paper proposes an original electrical losses minimization technique (ELMT) suitably devised for field oriented controlled (FOC) linear induction motor (LIM) drives, taking into consideration the LIM's dynamic end-effects. The proposed technique improves the very few approaches in the scientific literature dealing with ELMTs applied to LIMs in the following aspects: 1) it accounts for the LIM dynamic end-effects not only considering the variation of the LIM parameters with speed but also including the braking force caused by the end-effects in the ELMT formulation; 2) it also considers the iron losses. The proposed approach has been tested in numerical simulation and validated experimentally on a suitably developed test set-up. Results show that the application of the proposed ELMT permits a consistent losses reduction of about 22% even at low speed (0.75 m/s), as well as an increase in the overall drive efficiency from 18%, at rated constant flux, up to 24% with the ELMT.