Rotor position detection at standstill and low speeds using a low power permanent magnet machine

摘要

For a multiphase alternating current (AC) wound field synchronous machine (WFSM) that has a stator with a selected number of poles, the WFSM having an associated exciter and multiphase AC permanent magnet machine (PMM) directly coupled to the WFSM, a method of sensing the position of a rotor in the WFSM comprises the steps of: configuring a stator for the PMM to have a number of poles that is a sub-multiple of the selected number of WFSM stator poles; configuring a rotor for the PMM to have high saliency; applying multiphase AC power of a selected frequency to the PMM stator: detecting at least one set of stator harmonic currents of the multiphase AC power resulting from the rotor saliency; converting the detected PMM harmonic stator currents from their multiphase coordinates to alphabeta coordinates; rotating the converted PMM stator currents into a reference frame for at least one selected harmonic to generate alphabeta coordinate harmonic current vectors; and estimating the position of the WFSM rotor based on the values of the alphabeta coordinate harmonic current vectors in the selected harmonic reference frame.