Control of a Cascaded Permanent Magnet Switched Reluctance Generator for Automobile Generation Application

Aiming at the problems of the low efficiency of electro-magnetic generator, and the difficulty in the regulation of magnetic field intensity for the permanent magnet generator, a new cascaded permanent magnet switched reluctance generator (CPMSRG) is proposed for the automobile generation application. The generator has the advantages of simple structure, wide effective power generation speed, adjustable excitation, high efficiency, and low risk of demagnetization. The structure and basic principles of the CPMSRG are introduced firstly. Secondly, the topology of the power converter, the generation control method and the battery free starting generation control method are studied according to the operation characteristics of the generator, and the CPMSRG sensorless generation control strategy is proposed based on the full conduction generation control method. Finally, the prototype experiment platform is built, and the sensorless power generation experiments of the CPMSRG are completed under the conditions of different speeds, different loads and different battery residual powers. The experimental results show that the new cascaded generator proposed can generate power efficiently and stably in a wide speed range, and can realize the battery free power generation at very low speed, which verifies the effectiveness of the designed system and its control methods.