Motors & Drives Information

The Center for Rapid Transit Systems at Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, VA) is an internationally recognized drive systems and motion control research group with expertise in the design, simulation, and control of switched reluctance motor (SRM) drives and power converter topologies.

Because of its mechanical simplicity and low cost, the SRM has become the subject of great interest in the field of electrical motor drives. Virginia Tech sought to develop a realtime speed control system for SRM drives, which involved designing, prototyping, and deploying an experimental environment for developing new SRM simulation, control system, and drive technology.

The Center chose LabVIEW graphical development software from National Instruments (Austin, TX) to create a design and simulation platform for developing new control algorithms and power electronics. With the LabMEW Simulation Module, the engineers simulated the closed-loop system dynamics of the SRM, and used the LabVIEW Control Design Toolkit to design the motor current and speed control loops. The lookup table (LUT) functions in LabVIEW represented nonlinear relationships in the simulation model.

SRMs have a nonlinear, three-dimensional relationship that relates inductance and torque to current and position. A model was added for the power electronics N+l converter, which was invented by Virginia Tech professor Krishnan Ramu. A LabVIEW block (for the commutation logic used to control the converter) was added to the model and the block was validated using simulation.

# posted by Medical Information : 11:27 PM