Experimental Motor Controller

Abstract

The objective of this study is to conduct a low-cost and low-scale experiment for creating an ideal model for an ultra-high-speed switched reluctance motor (SRM) generator for automotive turbocharger assistance and energy recovery. For this purpose, a switched reluctance motor is selected for a controlled experiment. The experiment was implemented that consists of an 800 W, 35,000 rpm SRM coupled with a secondary SRM and a heat gun to exemplify the turbine load. The second major component is the controller and drive. Two controllers were selected for the experiment, which consist of a general low-cost solution and an optimized development board for prototyping optimization. The low-cost control solution is implemented with an Arduino uno and an assortment of relays configured into an asymmetrical half bridge. The second controller is the Digilent ZedBoard Zynq-7000 ARM/FPGA SoC Development Board (Zedboard). The Zedboard was selected due to its wide range of functions and its ease of programming using MatLab/Simulink. The Zedboard can control the gate driver signals, monitoring of phase current and voltage waveforms, display of the motor/generator states, observe and display the charge percentage, input encoder readings, control the optical sensor, and track rotor position. These various I/O functions will be implemented with Xilinx’s onboard analog digital converter (XADC) and five peripheral modules (Pmods). Pmods are expansion headers the can be utilized for a wide range of I/O functions. Debugging can be done with JTAG, UART, and Hardware-in-the-Loop testing can also be utilized.