Experimental Investigation on the Self-Sensing Capability of Synchronous Machines for Signal Injection Sensorless Drives

Signal injection sensor-less control for synchronous machines is known to be afflicted by an estimation error dependent on the load current. The estimation error is related to the cross-saturarion and the saliency of the adopted synchronous machine. A motor can be more or less suitable for signal injection sensorless control compared to other motors with different designs or sizes. A sensorless drive can even be afflicted by the control divergence when the machine is highly saturated, resulting in a useless drive. Moreover, even when the control converges, the actual current control trajectory is different from the given reference. In this paper, a measurement procedure of the convergence region, i.e. the operating points where the motor can be successfully controlled without a position sensor, of a permanent magnet assisted synchronous reluctance motor sensorless drive, is presented and validated.