DC-Assisted Bipolar Switched Reluctance Machine

In this paper, a sinusoidal excited four-phase switched reluctance machine (SRM) with modified dc-assisted windings is presented. The proposed four-phase SRM configuration with modified dc windings has a reduced number of controllable phases and power converter devices. The dc winding configuration is modified from its traditional form by taking advantage of the machine's inherent 90° phase shift between adjacent phases to achieve the desired simplification in the drive. Different power electronic converters for the proposed winding configuration have also been investigated. The proposed concepts are then verified through finite element analysis and an experimental prototype.