An Overview of Fault-Diagnosis and Fault-Tolerance Techniques for Switched Reluctance Machine Systems

This paper presents a technical overview for fault diagnosis and fault-tolerant strategies of switched reluctance machine (SRM) systems. With the widespread utilization of electrical motors, stability and reliability become the most important considerations for safety. SRMs are famous for their great robustness, wide speed range, and high fault-tolerant capability, which are much suitable for high-speed and safety-critical applications. Although the SRM drive have some fault tolerance ability, the fault still seriously affects the system performance. The faults happening in different parts, such as converter, motor winding, sensors, and rotor, may lead to low torque, large torque ripple, overcurrent, insulation damage, and even system broken-down, without any fault-tolerant consideration. Therefore, it is important and urgent to improve the motor system reliability and robustness for SRM drives. Aiming at offering novel solutions to the faults in SRM drives, this paper begins with mathematical modeling of the SRM, and then concentrates on the state-of-art fault diagnosis and fault tolerance techniques to enhance the fault ride-through ability. Two categories, containing fault diagnosis and fault tolerance technologies are emphasized for fast faults locating and stable post-fault operation. Advanced technologies are reviewed, classified, and compared comprehensively. Besides, several fault diagnosis and tolerance schemes that have been developed by authors are presented and discussed as well. Finally, the research status and outlooks on this topic are put forward. It is our target to offer a global vision on fault-related strategies and bring out promising ideas about fault-related techniques in SRM drives.