Experimental force characterization of linear switched reluctance machine

High performance control of Switched Reluctance Machines (SRM) dictates the need for an accurate electromagnetic characterization which can be obtained either by analytical, finite elements (FE) or experimental methods. Physically SRM's present a double salient structure and are intended to operate in deep magnetic saturation in function of phase current and rotor position. As a result SRM's characteristics exhibit its nonlinear nature rendering the analysis, modeling and control rather stimulating. In this paper the authors present a semi-automatic data gathering process that is used in the Force Characterization of a three phase 6/4 type Linear Switched Reluctance Actuator (LSRA). The acquisition system is based on a low cost load cell, 24-bit analog to digital converter and signal conditioning HX711 module, encoder and Hall Effect current sensors. The used microcontroller TMS320f28335 from Texas Instruments collects and sends data information to Host computer running Matlab-Simulink software for processing and analysis.