FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to the field of electronic controllers for controlling a switched reluctance machine.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Electric motors turn electrical energy into mechanical energy to produce work. Electric motors work by applying a voltage across one or more inductors, typically a machine winding, thereby energizing the inductor(s) to produce a resultant magnetic field. Mechanical forces of attraction or repulsion caused by the magnetic field cause a rotor in an electric motor to move. The efficiency of the electrical motor depends in part on the timing and magnitude of each application of voltage to the motor. Timing of the voltage being applied is particularly important in the case of switched reluctance motors.

Historically, the switched reluctance motor was thought to be incapable of competing effectively with other types of motors. More recently, however, a better understanding of motor design and the application of electronically controlled switching has resulted in a robust switched reluctance drive capable of high levels of performance over a wide range of sizes, powers and speeds. Note that the term ‘motor’ is used here, but it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the term covers the same machine in a generating mode unless a particular distinction is made.

The switched reluctance motor is generally constructed without conductive windings or permanent magnets on the rotating part (called the rotor) and includes electronically-switched windings carrying unidirectional currents on the stationary part (called the stator). Commonly, pairs of diametrically opposed stator poles may be connected in series or parallel to form one phase of a potentially multi-phase switched reluctance motor. Motoring torque is developed by applying voltage to each of the phase windings in a predetermined sequence that is synchronized with the angular position of the rotor so that a magnetic force of attraction results between poles of the rotor and stator as they approach each other. Similarly, generating action is produced by positioning the voltage pulse in the part of the cycle where the poles are moving away from each other.

The general theory of design and operation of switched reluctance motors is well known and discussed, for example, in

The Characteristics Design and Applications of Switched Reluctance Motors and Drives

, by Stephenson and Blake and presented at the PCIM '93 Conference and Exhibition at Nuremberg, Germany, Jun. 21-24, 1993.

The control of the torque of a switched reluctance machine (and hence speed and rotor position) is made possible by the positioning and wave-shaping of the excitation currents in the motor windings with respect to the rotor positions. In certain known switched reluctance machine systems, the positioning and shaping of the excitation currents is controlled through the use of peak current values and turn-ON and turn-OFF angles where: (i) a peak current value represents a desired peak current level over a given interval of rotor rotation; (ii) a turn-ON angle defines a point during the rotor's rotation when voltage is applied to the phase winding (referred to as the “turn-ON angle”); and (iii) a turn-OFF angle defines a point during the rotor's rotation when the application of voltage to the winding is halted. Various control schemes (e.g., pulse width modulation, bang-bang current chopping and others) may be used to control the voltage that is applied to a phase winding during the intervals defined by the turn-ON and turn-OFF angles for that phase winding.

The relationships of the control inputs for a switched reluctance machine system (e.g., turn-on angles, turn-off angles, current levels, current wave-shapes, etc.) with the outputs (speed, torque, rotor position, etc.) are complicated, and a full utilization of all the control inputs to maximize performance represents a non-linear many-to-many mapping problem that is difficult for conventional control design. As such, in known switched reluctance motor systems, this complex relationship is typically implemented through the use of a relatively complex circuit that stores signals representative of the relationship between the speed, torque demand, and turn-ON and turn-OFF angles of the motor. Circuits of this type are commonly referred to as “control law tables.”

In many known controllers for switched reluctance motors, the control law table comprises a circuit that includes turn-ON and turn-OFF angle information for various rotor speed and torque demand combinations. In most systems, the information that is stored in the control law table is derived empirically through a process commonly known as “characterization” in which the appropriate turn-ON and turn-OFF angles required to produce the torque demand are determined for a number of different rotor speeds. The empirically derived information is then stored in the control-law table, sometimes together with information from non-tested speeds and torque demands which has been interpolated from the empirically derived information.

One disadvantage of conventional controllers that use control law tables is the necessity of providing for the control law circuitry. For a switched reluctance machine system that works in a wide speed range and a wide torque range and for stability purpose, the control law table must be densely populated, which means that a large data memory is needed. Moreover, because each control law table is the result of the characterization of a particular switched reluctance machine, a control law based controller is a motor-specific controller and cannot be properly used with other switched reluctance machines having designs and sizes different from the machine used to generate the data in the control law table. As such, control law based controllers adds to the cost and time required to develop a new control system, in that, the process of characterizing the machine used in the system may be required for each new motor and controller.

The present invention provides a circuit and a method for controlling a switched reluctance motor without the use of large, costly control law tables. The present invention also provides a compact and generalized controller and control technique for intelligent control of a switched reluctance machine that satisfies desired control requirements and that has lower development and construction costs and better performance than conventional switched reluctance controllers and control techniques.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Aspects of the present invention provide a compact and generalized technique for intelligent control of a switched reluctance machine that can be easily implemented in a low cost digital signal processor or microcontroller. Such aspects of the present invention allow for the construction of a low-cost high-performance controller.

In accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, a controller for a switched reluctance machine is provided that includes a fuzzy-logic control circuit that: (i) receives as an input a signal representing the difference between a desired operating characteristic of the switched reluctance machine and the actual operating characteristic of the switched reluctance machine; and (ii) provides at its output an intermediate control signal corresponding to the desired output torque of the reluctance machine; and (iii) a multi-layer neural network circuit that receives at its input the intermediate control signal from the fuzzy-logic control circuit and a signal representing the rotational speed of the switched reluctance machine and provides at its output control signals for controlling energization of the switched reluctance machine.

In accordance with another embodiment of the present invention, a controller for a switched reluctance machine is provided that includes a proportional-integral control circuit that receives as input a speed error signal representing the difference between the desired operating speed of the switched reluctance machine and the operating speed of the switched reluctance machine, the proportional-integral controller providing output signals that is the sum of a component proportional to the input and a component proportional to the integral of the input; and a multi-layer neural network circuit that receives at one input the outputs from the proportional-integral control circuit and at another input a signal representing the rotational speed of the switched reluctance machine, the neural network providing at its output control signals for controlling energization of the switched reluctance machine.

In accordance with yet another embodiment of the present invention, a fuzzy logic control circuit for controlling the energization of a switched reluctance machine is provided where the control circuit includes fuzzification means for receiving a signal corresponding to the difference between a desired output characteristic of the switched reluctance machine and the actual output characteristic of the machine and for generating a fuzzy set representing the input signal; a knowledge-based fuzzy inference engine that receives at its inputs the fuzzy set generated by the fuzzification means, the inference-engine generating a fuzzy output control set utilizing a rule-base that corresponds to the general operating characteristics of switched reluctance machines; and de-fuzzification means for receiving the output of the fuzzy inference engine and providing output control signals for controlling the energization of the switched reluctance machine.

Other exemplary embodiments of the present invention and other features of the present invention will be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of this disclosure.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1

illustrates a reluctance machine and a machine controller constructed according to aspects of the present invention.

FIG. 2

illustrates one embodiment of a switched reluctance machine that may be used in the system of FIG.

1

.

FIGS. 3

a

-

3

b

illustrate in greater detail one exemplary construction of a controller that may be used to construct the system of FIG.

1

.

FIG. 4

illustrates, in functional block form, the operation of one novel control approach that may be implemented in a data processor forming part of the controller of

FIGS. 3

a

and

3

b.

FIGS. 5

a

-

5

c

provide a detailed illustration of one of the constructions of an embodiment of a fuzzy logic block that may be used to implement the control approach of FIG.

4

.

FIGS. 6

a

-

6

c

illustrate components that may be used to form a neural network that may be used to implement the control approach of FIG.

4

.

FIGS. 7

a

-

7

c

illustrate one exemplary training data set that may be used to train the neural network of

FIGS. 6

a

-

6

c.

FIG. 8

illustrates a controller similar to that illustrated in

FIG. 4

in which the fuzzy logic block is replaced with a conventional proportional-integral (“PI”) block.

FIG. 9

illustrates a still further embodiment of the present invention comprising a controller for a switched reluctance machine that is similar to that illustrated in

FIG. 4

but that does not utilize a neural network.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Turning to the drawings and, in particular, to

FIG. 1

, a switched reluctance machine system

10

is disclosed. The system

10

includes a switched reluctance machine

12

and a machine controller

14

. The switched reluctance machine comprises a stationary stator defining a number of salient stator poles, and one or more phase windings wound about the poles. The machine

12

also includes a rotor defining a number of rotor poles that is adapted to rotate relative to the stator when electric power is supplied to the phase windings of the machine

14

. The precise construction of the switched reluctance machine

12

(e.g., in terms of the number of stator and rotor poles, the number of phase windings, or the size of the machine) is not essential to the present invention. In general, any switched reluctance machine may be used to practice and implement the subject matter described herein.

FIG. 2

illustrates one embodiment of switched reluctance machine

12

that includes twelve stator poles

20

, eight rotor poles

21

and three phase windings. The winding configuration for only one phase is shown to have four of its coils

22

surrounding four stator poles, and the other two phases are just displaced by one or two stator pole pitches. When the stator pole group of a phase is not aligned to rotor poles, coils of the phase can be excited by applying electric power to the coils to create a magnetic flux path through the excited stator poles, air-gaps and the nearest rotor poles. The flux path established by the energization of the phase coils

22

with the rotor in the illustrated position are generally illustrated by lines

26

. Due to the tendency for the reluctance of the flux path to minimize, the rotor poles are attracted to these stator poles, hence torque is produced. Then when the rotor poles become aligned or nearly aligned with these stator poles, excitation to the active coils is removed so that torque is not produced in the reversed direction; instead, the coils of the adjacent stator poles that belong to the second phase are excited so that the rotor poles are attracted to the second group of stator poles, since they are not aligned.

By selectively exciting the stator pole group to attract rotor poles, continuous motion and continuous torque are produced.

Referring back to

FIG. 1

, machine controller

14

receives electric power from a power source such as the power utility (not shown) through input power lines

16

, and applies such electric power to the phase windings of the switched reluctance machine

12

in a controlled manner so as to control the operation of the machine

12

. The controller

14

may be used to control the output torque of machine

12

or, alternatively, the rotational speed of the rotor of machine

12

or the position of the rotor of machine

12

.

FIGS. 3

a

and

3

b

illustrate in greater detail one exemplary construction of controller

14

. Referring to

FIG. 3

a,

the illustrated controller includes a control board containing a data processor having memory

30

. The data processor

30

receives as inputs various command control signals (e.g., desired speed, desired torque, etc.) and feedback signals (actual speed, actual torque, rotor position, etc.) on input lines

31

. The control and feedback signals may be preprocessed (e.g., amplified, converted from analog to digital or from serial to parallel) before being provided to the data processor

30

by circuit elements not illustrated in

FIG. 3

a.

Data processor

30

may be constructed using any of a number of microcontrollers, microprocessors, application-specific integrated circuits and other devices that may be constructed and/or programmed to digitally implement the control techniques described herein. The selection and programming such a data processor

30

will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of this disclosure.

As will be described below, the data processor

30

processes the input signal to generate control signals in the form of gate drive signals that are used to control the application of electric power to the phase windings of the electric machine. In the illustrated example, the data processor

30

generates gate drive signals Q

1

, Q

2

, Q

3

, Q

4

, Q

5

and Q

6

that are applied to gate drivers. Gate drivers

32

convert the gate drive signals from the data processor

30

into drive signals suitable for controlling the conductivity of power semiconductor switching devices such as those illustrated in

FIG. 3

b.

Referring to

FIG. 3

b,

a power control circuit

33

for controlling the application of electric power to the phase windings of the switched reluctance machine

12

is illustrated. As illustrated, the power control circuit includes a rectifier

35

that receives input power through power lines

16

. The rectifier circuit

35

converts the input power (which in the illustrated embodiment is in the form of AC power) into DC power that is regulated to some extent by a DC bus capacitor

34

. Each phase winding of the switched reluctance machine

12

is coupled to the DC bus through semiconductor switching devices Q

1

-Q

6

(e.g., semiconductor switching devices such as MOSFETS, IGBTs, etc.) and two diodes

36

(both in serial with the phase winding). The control inputs to the switches Q

1

-Q

6

are coupled to the outputs from the data processor

30

to control the state of the switches. The switches Q

1

-Q

6

may be placed in a conductive (or “ON”) state or a non-conductive (or “OFF”) state.

For each phase winding, the state of its associated switches determines the energization of the phase winding: turning on the switch pair puts current in the connected winding, while turning off the switch pair removes current through the pair of free-wheeling diodes. The turning on of one switch and the turning off of the other allows current to freewheel through the phase winding and the conductive switch. In the illustrated embodiment, the turning on and off instants of the phase winding are synchronized by data processor

30

with the rotor position. The rotor position may be either directly measured by an optical or hall-effect magnetic sensor or calculated by an estimation algorithm using voltage and current measurements or utilizing other approaches for measuring, calculating or estimating rotor position as is known in the art. Alternate embodiments are envisioned, where the turning on and turning off instances are not synchronized with actual or calculated rotor positions and the instances are determined without reference to actual rotor position.

As described above, the data processor

30

is programmed to implement a novel control technique corresponding to certain aspects of the present invention.

FIG. 4

illustrates, in functional block form, the operation of one novel control approach that may be implemented in data processor

30

. The functions represented by the various blocks of

FIG. 4

may be implemented through appropriate programming of data processor

30

or through appropriate hardware. The implementation of the function blocks in FIG.

4

through software (programming of a data processor) or hardware (discrete circuit components) will be within the abilities of those of ordinary skill having the benefit of this disclosure.

Referring to

FIG. 4

, the illustrated control system

40

receives as inputs a desired speed signal

41

and a signal

42

representing the actual rotational speed of the switched reluctance machine

12

. The signal

42

representing the actual rotational speed of the switched reluctance machine

12

is derived from the output of a sensor set

43

. In the illustrated embodiment, the sensor set

43

includes a rotor position detector or rotor position estimator for providing an output

44

representing the angular position of the rotor relative to the stator. The precise form of the rotor position detector (or rotor position estimator) is not critical and any appropriate sensor or method may be used to provide the rotor position signal

44

.

In the illustrated embodiment, the rate of change of the rotor position signal

44

is determined by function block

45

to provide signal

42

that, as described above, corresponds to the actual rotational speed of the rotor.

In the illustrated embodiment, sensor set

43

also includes current sensors coupled to the phase windings of reluctance machine

12

. These current sensors provide output signals Ia, Ib, Ic that correspond to the currents in the various phase windings. Any appropriate current sensors may be used.

As illustrated in

FIG. 4

, the signal

42

representing the actual rotational speed of the rotor is compared to a signal

41

representing the desired rotational speed of the motor at comparator

46

to provide at the output of the comparator a speed error signal. The speed error signal is applied as one input to fuzzy logic block

50

. The speed error signal is also applied to a trending block

49

that provides at its output a signal corresponding the trend of the speed error signal over time. The trend output from trending block

49

is applied as a second input to fuzzy logic block

50

.

In the illustrated embodiment, fuzzy logic block

50

follows a two-input single-output design where the two inputs correspond to the speed error and its trend as described above and the output corresponds to a torque demand signal. In general, the construction of the fuzzy logic block

50

may follow general fuzzy logic controller structure as described in, for example, L. Tsoukalas, R. Urig,

Fuzzy and Neural Approaches in Engineering,

John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (1997). While a general fuzzy logic structure may be used to implement fuzzy logic block

50

, the fuzzy logic rules and fuzzification/de-fuzzification methods are preferably based on the dynamic characteristics of a switched reluctance machine.

FIG. 5

a

provides a more detailed illustration of one embodiment of the fuzzy logic block

50

. Referring to

FIG. 5

a,

the inputs to the fuzzy logic block

50

are applied to a normalizing block

51

. Normalizing block

51

is utilized in the illustrated embodiment because the knowledge-base for the fuzzy logic block

50

was developed using scaled data. The normalization block

51

should be selected to accommodate the differences between the reluctance machine

12

to which controller

14

is coupled and the scaled data used to develop the knowledge base of the fuzzy logic block.

Once the input signals are normalized by normalizing block

51

they are applied as inputs to fuzzification block

52

. Fuzzification block

52

“fuzzifies” the input signals using any appropriate fuzzification method. One method that may be used to fuzzify the input signals is the singleton fuzzification method which interprets an input as a fuzzy set with the membership function equal to zero except at the point where the membership function equals one. This fuzzification method may be used with standard triangular membership functions such as those illustrated in

FIG. 5

b.

From left to right, the exemplified fuzzy sets that have triangular membership functions have the linguistic values of “NEGATIVE LARGE,” NEGATIVE MEDIUM,” “NEGATIVE SMALL,” “ZERO,” “POSITIVE SMALL,” “POSITIVE MEDIUM,” “POSITIVE LARGE,” respectively. For the inputs, the two fuzzy sets at both ends have an open membership function range extending to infinity while for the output the two fuzzy sets at both ends have a closed membership function range since the output (i.e., desired output torque) has a limited range.

The output of fuzzification block

52

is a fuzzy set that is applied as an input to fuzzy inference engine

53

. The fuzzy inference engine utilizes conventional fuzzy logic techniques and fuzzy rules provided by a knowledge base

54

to generate a fuzzy output set that is applied to a defuzzification block

55

. The fuzzy rules from knowledge base

54

are based on the characteristics of a switched reluctance machine. One exemplary set of such fuzzy rules is provided in

FIG. 5

c,

which are fuzzy rules that may be utilized with various variable speed rotating machines. The linguistic values of the fuzzy sets are used in the fuzzy rule table in

FIG. 5C

, including NL (Negative Large), NM (Negative Medium), NS (Negative Small), ZE (Zero), PS (Positive Small), PM (Positive Medium), PL (Positive Large). Therefore, as an example, the first entry in the table reads: If input #

1

is NL and input #

2

is NL, then output is PL. The use of fuzzy rules, such as are illustrated in

FIG. 5

c

to implement a fuzzy logic function, is described in greater detail in Tang and Xu,

Fuzzy Logic Application for Intelligent Control of a Variable Speed Drive,

IEEE/PES (1994, Winter/New York).

The fuzzy output set from fuzzy inference engine

53

is applied as an input to defuzzification block

55

which converts the fuzzy output set to a single desired torque output signal. In the illustrated embodiment, the defuzzification block

55

utilizes a standard Center of Gravity defuzzification method to provide the appropriate torque demand output signal. The torque output signal from defuzzification block

55

may be de-normalized in de-normalization block

56

to provide a de-normalized torque demand signal that more closely relates to the torque production range of the controlled motor and represents a torque that is achievable.

Referring back to

FIG. 4

, the torque demand output from fuzzy logic block is one input to a feedforward neural network

47

. A second input to the feedforward neural network

47

is either the speed demand signal or the actual speed signal. The choice between the two signals has less effect on the machine performance in steady-state, while in the transient-state, generally the use of the speed demand signal results in faster dynamics while the use of the actual speed signal results in better stability. In general, neural network

47

receives the speed signal (either speed demand signal or actual speed signal) and torque demand signals and provides at its output signals corresponding to appropriate turn-ON and turn-OFF angles and a desired peak current value. The turn-ON, turn-OFF and peak current signals are then applied to a gating signal generator

48

that also receives as an input the rotor position and phase current information from sensor set

43

. The construction and operation of gating signal generator

48

may utilize conventional switched reluctance control circuits for receiving rotor position, turn-ON, turn-OFF, peak current, and actual phase current information and generating gating signals Q

1

-Q

6

. The gating signals from the gating signal generator

48

are applied to gate drivers

32

to control the application of electric power by power circuit

33

to the phase windings as described above. The construction of gating signal generator

48

is well within the ability of those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of this disclosure and will not be further discussed herein.

FIG. 6

a

generally illustrates the construction of an exemplary neural network

47

that may be used to implement one controller constructed according to teachings of the present invention. Referring to

FIG. 6

a

the illustrated neural network comprises three parts: normalizing of inputs and de-normalizing of outputs, tapped delay line that allows for adaptive filtering of the input signals to the neural network, the basic neural network. The normalization adjusts for the speed range and torque range of the controlled motor, and the de-normalization adjusts for the ranges of the control angles and the range of the peak current of the controlled motor.

The tapped delay line forms a type of finite impulse response filter that may be used to improve the performance of the neural network

47

.

FIG. 6

b

generally illustrates an exemplary tapped delay line

60

that may be used to form the first part of neural network

47

. Although only one tapped delay line

60

is illustrated, it will be appreciated that a tapped delay line may exist for each of the inputs to the neural network

47

. Referring to

FIG. 6

b,

the tapped delay line includes a first delay layer

61

that provides delayed input signals where the number of delayed input signals corresponds to the number of delay elements in delay layer

61

. The outputs from each delay element are then multiplied by varying weighting factors to produce weighted output delayed signals. While the weighting factors may be selected according to any appropriate process, in general the weighting factors for the present and more recent input signals should be greater than those for more distance signals. Alternately, the weighting factors may be selected through the use of training process akin to those used to train neural networks. The weighted output delayed signals are all applied to a summing block

62

that sums the various signals. A bias may be added as an input to the summing block to allow for easy tuning or adjustment of the tapped delay line

60

.

The output of the summing block

62

may be applied to a transfer function block

63

to implement an appropriate transfer function to produce an adaptively filtered input for application to the basic portion of the neural network.

While the embodiment of

FIGS. 6

a

-

6

b

utilizes a tapped delay line as described above, it should be understood that alternate embodiments may eliminate the tapped delay line and apply the torque demand and speed signals directly to a structure such as that described herein as the basic portion of neural network

47

.

While the precise construction of the basic portion of neural network

47

(referred to hereafter as the “neural network”) may vary, preferably, it is designed and constructed by following the following process: (1) select a topology for the neural network; (2) design the neural network and data structures; (3) obtain training sets for training the neural network; (4) preprocess the training data; (5) train the network using the training data; (6) validate the training of the neural network; and (7) evaluate the performance of the neural network.

The structure of the neural network should be based on the evaluation of various candidate topologies and various trials. For real-time control purpose, one preferred design utilizes a feedforward back-propagation network with two layers, i.e., one hidden layer and one output layer. One such neural network is illustrated in

FIG. 6

c.

In the illustrated embodiment of

FIG. 6

c,

there are only eight neurons in the hidden layer and three neurons in the output layer. Elements of a neuron include weights, a bias, a summer and a transfer function. The transfer functions utilized in neural network are the hyperbolic tangent sigmoid function and the linear function, for the neurons in the hidden layer and the ones in the output layer, respectively. Higher number of neurons (such as twelve neurons in the hidden layer) may give better modeling precision and further minimize the Mean Square Error on training data sets when compared to the network of

FIG. 6

c;

however, for the control of a typical switched reluctance motor, the network of

FIG. 6

b

can learn correctly off-line (for the training data used) and perform adequately on-line without the necessary overhead that would be required to implement a network having greater than eight neurons. The construction of a two layer neural network as described above will be within the ability of one of ordinary skill having the benefit of this disclosure.

While many training approaches may be used to train the neural network of

FIG. 6

c,

one preferred method is a training method utilizing the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm and multiple training data sets. Other training algorithms may be used such as the gradient descent with momentum approach, the conjugate gradient approach and the quasi-Newton approach.

The training data for training the neural network may be obtained from laboratory testing of a plurality of switched reluctance machines of potentially differing sizes and constructions. For example, one exemplary training data set may be obtained from two motors that are 10-15 HP (about 50 N.m thermally continuous torque at 1500 rpm), both in NEMA 215T industrial frame size. A more desirable approach, and one that would likely lead to a neural network more adapted to handle a variety of motor constructions and sizes would be to train the neural network utilizing data sets obtained from a number of differing switched reluctance machines having a number of different sizes and constructions. When a large number of machines are utilized to obtain test data which is then highly correlated with redundancy, rapid convergence during the training process may be enhanced by the following Principle Component Analysis: (i) orthogonalizing the obtained data sets; (ii) arranging the orthogonal components of the sets; and (iii) truncating those data points that contribute little to variations in the collected data.

In general, the training data should be collected with the aim of modeling the relationship between the control inputs (i.e., turn-on angle, turn-off angle, peak current level) and the outputs (speed, torque). Because there are many possible combinations of the control inputs to obtain the same outputs, the sets of relationship that give maximum system efficiency should be collected throughout the speed and torque ranges to obtain a training data set. One exemplary training data set collected over such a range is illustrated in

FIGS. 7

a

-

7

c

which illustrate training data in terms of the speed/torque/turn-ON angle (

FIG. 7

a

); the speed/torque/turn-OFF angle (

FIG. 7

b

) and the speed/torque/peak current signal (

FIG. 7

c

). Before the training process is performed, the training data may be preprocessed by sequencing and normalizing the raw test data to standard normalized values handled by the neural network.

With the training data, the trained neural network will exhibit a control characteristic that tends to optimize the system's efficiency. Likewise, the sets of relationship that give lowest torque ripples or lowest acoustic noises can be collected and used alternatively through the speed and torque ranges to obtain the training data set. System efficiency, torque ripples and acoustic noises are all measurable quantities representing motor performance.

In general, the neural network may be trained by first initializing the weights and biases of the network and then applying test data in the form of network inputs to generate network outputs. The weights and biases should then be adjusted to minimize the mean square error between the network outputs and the target outputs that are part of the test data. The gradient of the mean square error may be calculated utilizing backpropogation and the weights and biases may be adjusted to move in the direction of a negative gradient. The process of adjustment continues until the above mean square error falls within a small convergence limit.

Once a neural network is trained as described herein, it will not need to be retrained for different switched reluctance motor designs; however, the normalizing factors may need to be adjusted according to the ranges of the inputs and outputs as described earlier.

Once the network is trained, the operation of the system may be verified by utilizing the controller

14

containing the trained network to control a switched reluctance machine under the speed and torque conditions utilized to generate the test data, and under certain untested conditions due to the fact that the trained network has some limited ability of extrapolation. Dynamic performance can then be evaluated, including transient response, stability and robustness.

While the fuzzy-neural control system described above has many advantages over conventional controllers, alternate controllers are envisioned in which the fuzzy logic block

50

is replaced with a conventional proportional-integral (“PI”) block that receives at its input the speed error signal and provides as output signal control signal that is the sum of a component proportional to the input and a component proportional to the integral of the input. An exemplary embodiment of such a controller, including PI block

70

is illustrated in FIG.

8

. In the embodiment of

FIG. 8

, the neural network

47

should be trained using inputs like that provided by PI block

70

.

FIG. 9

illustrates a still further embodiment of the present invention comprising a controller for a switched reluctance machine that is similar to that discussed above in connection with

FIG. 4

but that does not utilize a neural network. Instead, the system of

FIG. 9

utilizes a fuzzy logic controller

80

alone to receive the speed error and speed error trend data and directly provide the turn-ON, turn-OFF and peak current control signals to the gating signal generator

48

. Because the fuzzy logic controller

80

of

FIG. 9

provides the turn-ON, turn-OFF and peak current control signals directly, it is important that the knowledge-base of the system

81

implement appropriate relationships between the inputs of the fuzzy logic controller and the outputs. In general, some relationships that may be implemented include the relationship that as the speed error and speed error trend signals are positive and large, the value of the peak current will increase, the value of the turn-ON angle will decrease and the value of the turn-OFF angle will increase (so as to produce larger torque). Another relationship that may be implemented is that as the speed error and speed error trend signals are negative and their absolute values are large, the value of the peak current will decrease, the value of the turn-ON angle will increase and the value of the turn-OFF angle will decrease so as to produce less torque. Still another relationship that may be implemented is that as the speed error and speed error trend signals remain approximately zero, the values of the peak current, turn-ON angle and turn-OFF angle will remain approximately unchanged. There are many other relationships in the similar format that indicate the relative values of the inputs and the degrees of increase or decrease of the outputs, such as “POSITIVE LARGE,” “POSITIVE MEDIUM,” “POSITIVE SMALL,” “ABOUT ZERO,” “NEGATIVE SMALL,” “NEGATIVE MEDIUM,” “NEGATIVE LARGE.” The full fuzzy rule table contains all the relationships using the fuzzy variables representing such degrees of membership. The implementation of the rule table, membership functions and fuzzy data processing will be within the abilities of those of ordinary skill having the benefit of this disclosure.

The above description of several embodiments is made by way of example and not for purposes of limitation. The present invention is intended to be limited only by the spirit and scope of the following claims.