Simultaneous Tuning of Rotor Shape and Phase Current of Switched Reluctance Motors for Eliminating Input Current and Torque Ripples with Reduced Copper Loss

Switched reluctance motor (SRM) is recently emerging as a cost-effective but mechanically and thermally robust motor for vehicle propulsion. However, the conventional driving method of the SRM causes a large input current and torque ripples, both of which are scarcely acceptable for vehicle application. Recently, a promising driving method has been proposed that tunes the phase current to eliminate the input current and torque ripples simultaneously, although this method suffers from large copper loss when applied to the normal SRMs. To solve this problem, this article proposes simultaneous tuning of the rotor shape in combination with the recently proposed driving method, which includes only tuning of the phase current. Tuning of the rotor shape is targeted at minimizing the copper loss. Meanwhile, the stator structure is the same as the normal SRM design. The proposed approach was revealed to reduce the effective value of the phase current by 18% in simulation and by 23% in experiment compared with the recently proposed driving method, without increasing the input current and torque ripples. This result suggests the effectiveness of tuning both the rotor shape and the phase current for applying SRMs to vehicle propulsion.