Power Factor Improvement in Switched Reluctance Motor Drive

Abstract

A Switched Reluctance Motor (SRM) drive is a variable speed motor drive system with unique characteristics. The switching of voltage into the phase winding and pulsating AC input current leads to low power factor and high harmonic contents. In this paper, the power factor is improved using boost converter. The hardware results are taken for a DC input voltage of 60 V to the SRM with different load currents. From the results, it is found that the total current harmonic distortion and individual current harmonics are less with Power Factor Controller (PFC). The power factor of the circuit is improved with the proposed power factor controller.

Keywords

• switched reluctance motor
• boost converter
• power factor control
• harmonics