International Journal of Advanced Engineering Research and Technology (IJAERT) 290

Volume 3 Issue 9, September 2015, ISSN No.: 2348 8190

Control of Switched Reluctance Generator for Wind Energy Applications

A.Y. Anekunu
Electrical Engineering Dept.,
University of Cape Town, South Africa.
Email: yusuf.anekunu@gmail.com

ABSTRACT
This paper discusses how the switched reluctance
generator (SRG) converts mechanical energy from wind
via turbine into electrical energy as directed by an
electronic controller. Starting with a review of the
electromechanical energy conversion principles, the
paper examines the implications of the energy
conversion process on how the SRG is controlled. The
structure of the SRG controller for speed-control and
power-control applications is discussed. The methods for
commutation of the SRG are discussed. Concepts are
illustrated with a 5-kW SRG designed for wind energy
applications where low speed high torque is required.
Keywords- Switched Reluctance Generator (SRG),
SRG Control, SRG Converter Circuit, SRG Structure,
Turbine, Wind Energy Converter

I.

INTRODUCTION

The worldwide increase in the share of electricity

generated by wind energy converters (WECs) has in
recent times influenced researchers motivation to search
for the most suitable machines in terms of economy,
efficiency, power density and reliability [1]. A variety of
principles of Physics are used to create wind turbines
that can efficiently capture energy from the wind and
turn it to electricity by means of turbine generator
systems. Amongst other electrical machines that could
be used for wind energy conversion system, the switched
reluctance generator (SRG) stands the chance of
achieving better performance because of its mechanical
constructional simplicity, extremely low cost, reliability,
high fault tolerance, high torque to inertia ratio, wide
range of speed variation, high power density and high
efficiency. However, the design and control of SRG
particularly for wind energy application can be very
difficult because of the doubly saliency of the machine
poles and the consequent nonlinear magnetic
characteristics of the machine [2]. The combined effects
of the machine topology and the non-uniform

distribution of flux in the airgap result in production of

excessive vibration and acoustic noise.
This paper discusses the switched reluctance generator
(SRG) and the applicable various control techniques.
Even though there are some important differences in
control objectives and control implementation of SRG,
yet it can be considered for dual as the switched
reluctance motor (SRM). The focus of this paper is on
the control issues for the SRG and presents the
characteristics of typical SRG behavior. In selecting the
control strategy and designing the control of SRG
important features such as the mechanical topology and
converter type must be considered.
The SRG is in developmental stage for variable-speed
applications where its inherent characteristics offer it
advantage for commercialization. As at now, the SRG
has its applications aerospace power systems,
starter/alternators for hybrid vehicles [and wind energy
converters [3]. While the wind energy application is
characterized by low-speed high-torque operation, the
aerospace and automotive applications are generally
characterized by high-speed operation. The SRG is
compatible with demanding applications. The absence of
windings and permanent magnets on the rotor allow for
both high rotational speeds and high-temperature
operation. Further, the absence of windings on the rotor
helps to reduces copper loss in the machine and thereby
increasing the energy density of the machine [4]. The
switched nature of the SRG makes it compatible with
any application that requires variable-speed operation. In
the case of aerospace and automotive applications,
variable-speed operation is needed for compatibility with
the engine that drives the SRG. In wind energy
applications, variable speed operation is needed to
extract additional energy from the wind stream and to
lessen the mechanical stresses within the system.
As with motor systems, the proper application of a
generator to a system requires an understanding of the
characteristics of the prime mover. In the aerospace and
automotive applications, the prime mover is able to
provide essentially constant power over a wide speed
range and in the case of the wind energy application; the
shaft power is proportional to the cube of speed,

www.ijaert.org

International Journal of Advanced Engineering Research and Technology (IJAERT) 291

Volume 3 Issue 9, September 2015, ISSN No.: 2348 8190

implying a substantial increase in torque and power as

the speed increases [5].

Fig.2. SRG wind energy conversion system

Fig.1. Three-phase 6/4 SRG

The consideration of prime mover torquespeed
characteristic is important when determining the
electromechanical specifications of the machine. Also
essential to consider are the characteristics of the electric
power converter into which the SRG provides energy.
Section II focuses on the electromechanical energy
conversion of the SRG. This includes brief description
of torque production and the energy conversion
processes with the intension of providing insight into the
operation of the SRG control issues. Section III
addresses the control strategy and its implementation.
This builds on the electromechanical concepts developed
in Section II. Many of the concepts discussed in the
paper are illustrated through examples with an SRG
designed for wind energy conversion system. Section IV
is for conclusion. It discusses the results obtained from
simulation using 2D and 3D finite element analysis
(FEA) of Maxwell, Rmxprt and Simplorer software of
Ansys in conclusive approach.

II.

ELECTROMECHANICAL
CONVERSION

ENERGY

The wind turbine which extracts energy from the wind

through the turbine blades that are attached to rotor shaft
of the turbine is mechanically coupled to rotor shaft of
the switched reluctance generator. Thus the translational
form of mechanical energy of the wind is converted into
rotational

form of mechanical energy by the turbine. The converter

supplies the electrical energy needed by stator coil to
produce magnetic flux in the stator core. Both the stator
and the rotor of SRG are made of soft iron lamination
materials and the both have salient poles. Only the stator
poles are wound with copper coils, the rotor poles carry
no coil. The figure below shows the doubly salient pole
structure of 6/4 SRG.

Fig.3. Doubly salient pole structure of 6/4 SRG

The overall performance of the SRG system depends
largely on the efficiency of the wind turbine SR machine
the power converter and the control unit. Usually, three
blades are attached to the turbine rotor shaft on
horizontal axis (as shown in Fig.2 above) but there are
those with vertical axis as shown in fig.4 below. For a
horizontal axis wind turbine (HAWT), the plane of the
rotor turns so that the wind is perpendicular to it and can
flow around the blades to make them rotates around the
hub as shown fig. 4 below. For vertical axis wind turbine
(VAWT) the orientation of the rotor shaft is in vertical
position as show in fig. 4. In other words turbine types
are determined by the orientation of the rotor shaft. The
efficiency of HAWT is found to be higher than that of
VAWT of equal capacity.

www.ijaert.org

International Journal of Advanced Engineering Research and Technology (IJAERT) 292

Volume 3 Issue 9, September 2015, ISSN No.: 2348 8190

Fig.4. The two main types of turbines, horizontal axis

(HAWT) on the left and vertical axis on the right
(VAWT) and their respective components. The axis
refers to the orientation of the rotor shaft. HAWTs are
more common because they are intrinsically more
efficient.
The SRG supplies electrical power to the load via the
converter. The switching action of the converter is
initiated and controlled by the electronic control unit.
The SRG of Fig. 1 is a three-phase design having 6
stator poles and 4 rotor poles, a 6/4 SRG has been
designed for wind energy application and its
performance has been analyzed.
Figure 3 above shows the structure of SRG. The core is
made of steel laminations on the rotor and stator. There
are concentrated windings placed around each salient
pole on the stator. The coils around the individual poles
are connected to form the phase windings. There is
neither winding nor permanent magnet on the rotor,
making the structural integrity of the rotor compatible
with operation at very high speeds. The structural design
and sizing of the laminations and phase windings is not
presented in this paper.
The SRG of Fig. 1 is excited through a common
asymmetric bridge converter connected to the windings
of Fig. 1. Each phase of the inverter is connected to a
common dc source for exciting each SRG phase through
two controllable switches and demagnetizing the same
phase through the diodes. There are other inverter
topologies that can separate the excitation and
demagnetization functions. The phase excitation is based
on a turn-on angle (on) and a turn-off angle (off ). The
conduction angle (c ) which is otherwise known as
dwell angle is the interval over which the phase is
excited.
The electronic switching devices and commutating
diodes within the inverter circuit must support the
maximum dc-bus voltage and the maximum phase
current.

As a generator, the SRG is designed to convert

mechanical energy from the prime mover to electrical
energy. The Switched Reluctance Generator drive
consists of the machine itself, the converter and also the
controller as depicted in Fig. 1. The operation of the
machine is based on the principle that the rotor, driven
by a prime mover, is free to move to a position of
minimum reluctance to the flow of flux in a magnetic
circuit. This is achieved by energizing and de-energizing
a set of windings on the stator poles. Since an external
circuit is required to provide excitation to the stator
winding of the machine, it does not allow direct
connection to an AC or DC supply.
The operation cycle of the machine can be classified as
excitation stage and generation stage. An essential
component of the machine to perform switching
sequence, exciting the stator phase in synchronism with
the rotor position is the power converter. In generating
operation, the machine is controlled in such a way that it
operates along the decreasing inductance profile.

Figure 5. Variation of inductance with respect to movement of

rotor. (a) Rotor movement with respect to stator pole: (i)
Maximum inductance, minimum reluctance (full alignment);
(ii) Inductance decreasing linearly; (iii) Minimum inductance
(mis-alignment); (b) Complete inductance profile with respect
to rotor position.

The switched reluctance motor, in contrast, is excited

along the increasing inductance profile before the rotor
pole aligns with the state pole.
The electromagnetic torque in the SRG, as in the SRM,
is developed naturally as the rotor pole moves from the
region of high reluctance to the region of low reluctance.
If the phase is excited before the rotor poles come into
alignment with the stator poles, the rotor experiences
torque in the direction of rotation consistent with
operation as a motor. If the phase is excited as the rotor
poles move through the aligned position, the rotor
experiences torque opposing rotation consistent with
generator operation. The inductance is at maximum

www.ijaert.org

International Journal of Advanced Engineering Research and Technology (IJAERT) 293

Volume 3 Issue 9, September 2015, ISSN No.: 2348 8190

when the rotor pole aligned completely with the excited

stator pole and at minimum when it completely
unaligned. For any value of excitation current, the
inductance varies with the relative position of the rotor
[6]. The torque is independent of the direction of the
current in the stator coil but a function of the magnitude
of the current and the relative angular position of the
rotor. At base speed the phase back electromotive force
(EMF) balances the source voltage and resistive drop in
the coil.
In general, the inductance-current characteristic of SRG
has both spatial and magnetic nonlinearity parts which
must be taken into consideration in the design process.
The magnetic nonlinearity is evident particularly near
the aligned position; there is no evidence nonlinearity in
the unaligned position.
Machines having the same number of turns, current
density in the winding and stator dimensions, the
inductance profile of the higher rotor poles is narrow as
compared to the machine with lower number of rotor
poles. Therefore, a higher number of rotor poles machine
will require more excitation than the one with lower
number of poles. Nevertheless, it gives better torque
profile than the machine with lower number of poles.
The torque equation (T) relating the excitation current
(i), inductance (L) and the rotor position () I given by
equation (1) below.

For multiphase SRM the instantaneous torque equation

becomes the summation of individual torque value for
each phase and is expressed as:
(2)
or
(3)
where n is the phase number and k is the total
number of phases
The exponential function

(4)
can be used to represent the magnetisation curve of SRM
because of its natural fitness to typical magnetization
curve. This function consists of three exponential terms
and a linear term.
where a, a1, a2,a3 are coefficients and
are
constants.
A nonlinear least square analysis is used to calculate
the coefficients and the constants are obtained from
curve.

(1)

Fig. 6. Phase flux linkage as a function of current and rotor position for the SRG of Fig. 1.
www.ijaert.org

International Journal of Advanced Engineering Research and Technology (IJAERT) 294

Volume 3 Issue 9, September 2015, ISSN No.: 2348 8190

III.

CONTROL STRATEGY

Similar control strategies of SRM can be adopted for

SRG with different control objectives and
implementations. In motoring mode, the excitation of the
phase windings is made in the period of minimum
inductance profile. At this time, a high rise of current is
expected hence at low speed current chopping mode is
employed for overcurrent protection. In contrast to the
generating operation, the excitation is made during
maximum or increasing inductance profile. The phase
current will be low at starting and will slowly increase as
the rotor moves away from the stator pole, decreasing
the inductance value. Once the signal reaches the turn
off angle, the increase in phase current can no longer be
controlled. Therefore, the current chopping mode is not
suitable for generating operation especially at low speed
and under heavy load conditions.
The electronic control unit is responsible for switching
operation of the electronic switches. By the switching
action the coil is excited or de-energized [7]. The
electronic control unit is the heart of the SRG as it
controls every unit the SRG system. It controls the
magnitude of the current and voltage needed for
excitation. It also gets information of the rotor pole from
the position sensor and selects the phase to energise at a
particular time. The firing angle depends on the
information available to the controller

These main control variables depend indirectly on the

threshold of the exciting current [8]-[10]. Excitation
process may be controlled through regulating turn-on
and turn-off angles. At low and medium speed
operations the SRG phase current is regulated using
PWM control method of magnetizing voltage and for
high speeds it is controlled using a single pulse mode.

IV.

CONCLUSION

Switched reluctance generator is a good potential

candidate for wind energy conversion systems. Its
ruggedness, low cost and wide range of speed variation
makes it suitable for wind energy application since wind
speed changes from time to time. With the right choice
of converter topology and control strategy, SRG can be
made to operate with very high efficiency thereby
minimizing losses and overall cost of electricity
generation. As there will be variation in wind velocity,
the best strategy is to vary both the turn on and turn off
angles in order to achieve optimum performance. At low
and medium speed operations of SRG, as in the case of
wind energy application, phase current is regulated using
PWM control method.

REFERENCES

Figure 7. Basic control model for SRG

Figure 6 above describes the control links between the
different segments in the entire SRG system. The
difference lies in the control strategies applied. Unlike in
motoring single pulse mode is used for high speed
whereas pulse width modulation (PWM) is use for low
speed. SRG control strategy based on the determination
of the firing angles could be classified into three groups.
These groups are:
fixing both the turn on and turn off angles

one of the angles may be fixed whilst varying the

other
vary both turn on and turn off angles
As there will be variation in wind velocity, the best
strategy is to vary both the turn on and turn off angles in
order to achieve optimum performance.
Four control techniques available for SRG are
1) angle position control ;
2) chopping-current control ;
3) PWM control ; and
4) direct extinction voltage control .

[1] Eleonora Darie, Costin Cepisca and Emanuel

Darie, The use oof Switched Reluctance Machine for
Wind Energy Applications, Online Journal Publication
of intech, December 1, 2009. Pp.447-462
[2] Amissa Arifin and Ibrahim Al-Bahadly,
Switched Reluctance Generator for Variable Speed
Wind Energy Applications, Smart Grid and Renewable
Energy, 2011, 2, 27-36, Published Online February
2011 (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/sgre)
[3] David A. Torrey, Switched Reluctance
Generators And Their Control, IEEE Transactions on

www.ijaert.org

International Journal of Advanced Engineering Research and Technology (IJAERT) 295

Volume 3 Issue 9, September 2015, ISSN No.: 2348 8190

Industrial Electronics, Vol.49, No.1, February2002,

pp. 3-14.
[4] R. Cardenas, W. F. Ray, G.M.
Asher,
Switched Reluctance Generators for Wind Energy,
IEEE Power Electronics Specialists Conf., 1995.
[5] M. A. Mueller, Design and Performance of a
20kW, 100rpm, Switched Reluctance Generator for a
Direct Drive Wind Energy Converter, IEEE
International Conferece on Electric Machines and
Drives, 2005, Pp 56-63.
[6] Coelho, A., Oliveira, E. S. L., Suetake, M.,
Aguiar, M. L. Experimental Performance Comparison
Between Single phase And Three-Phase Switched
Reluctance Generator IEEE Conference on Power
Electronics 2011, Pp 479 485.
[7] Guojun Tan, Guangchao Li, Yanping Zhao,
Songyan Kuai and Xulong Zhang, Sensorless Control
of Switched Reluctance Generator Drive Based on
Neural Networks, Proceedings of the 2010 IEEE
International Conference on Information and
Automation June 20 - 23, Harbin, China, Pp2126-2130
[8] Hao Chen, Chao Zhang And Xucheng Zhao,
Research on the Switched Reluctance Wind Generator
System, 2001 IEEE International Conference on
Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Pp1936-1941, Vol3.
[9] Nikolay Radimov, Natan Ben-Hail, and Raul
Rabinovici, Switched Reluctance Machines as ThreePhase AC Autonomous Generator, IEEE Transactions
On Magnetics, Vol. 42, No. 11, November 2006, Pp
3760-3764.
[10] Hoang Le-Huy and Mohamed Chakir,
Optimizing the performance of a Switched Reluctance
Generator by simulation, 2010 XIX International
Conference on Electrical Machines (ICEM), Pp1-6.
[11] Amissa Arifin, Ibrahim Al-Bahadly, Subhas
Chandra Mukhopadhyay, State of the Art of Switched
Reluctance Generator, Energy and Power Engineering
Vol. 4 No. 6 (2012) , Article ID: 25035 , 12
pagesDOI:10.4236/epe.2012.46059.

www.ijaert.org