Electronic Control of Switched Reluctance Machines (Newnes Power Engineering Series) [Kindle Edition]

This book is edited by Professor T J E Miller of the University of Glasgow, who has also contributed to two key chapters. One is on energy conversion in switched reluctance (SR) motors (pointing out that saturation cannot be ignored, which then leads on to a good treatment of the "standard" non-linear analysis method using magnetization curves); and the other is on average torque control. There are other chapters on history, noise, instantaneous torque control, sensorless control, a practical application, drive development and testing, and the SR generator.

In spite of the tsunami of disinformation still washing over the subject of free energy, there is growing awareness that the so-called "magnet motors" which have been known since at least the 1970s are as good a bet as any for the first practical free energy devices. (This assumes that the reasons for their suppression, which are political, not technological, can ever be overcome). Magnet motors require electronic controllers similar, in many respects, to the SR motor controllers covered in this book. For example a motor exploiting electromagnet-to-permanent magnet repulsion (i.e. shape changes in opposing magnetic fields), like the Kure Tekko motor, will require energy stored in the electromagnet's field to be returned to the source via some kind of regeneration circuit at the end of a stroke, just as is done for the stored magnetic energy of a SR motor.

For a while, towards the end of the 20th century, successful magnet motor inventors in both Japan and the US sought and were granted patents. Examples are JP55053160, JP55114172 and especially JP55144783 for precursors to the Kure Tekko motor, and US Pat 5,436,518 for the Japan Science Research Laboratory motor, which featured on the Fuji television network program broadcast on 20 October 1993, where it was endorsed as a free energy motor by professors of electrical engineering from Meiji and Waseda universities (among others). The US inventors were always more equivocal; see e.g. US Pat 5,625,241 for the Galtech motor.

Remarkably, this book cites as a "significant patent" an important US magnet motor patent, the 1994 Lipo/Liao patent (US Pat 5,304,882), issued to the prestigious EPRI (Electric Power Research Institute).

There have of course been further developments in the control of SR motors in the decade since this book was first published, but it still remains a very useful reference.