Fault Tolerant Multilevel Converter Based on a Reduced Switch Configuration for a 8/6 Switch Reluctance Motor Drive

Despite their inherent robustness, Switched Reluctance Motors (SRMs) are not immune to faults. A fault within any part of the motor drive can have severe system-level implications, potentially causing unexpected shutdowns if not quickly addressed. Among drive components, the power converter exhibits the highest vulnerability to failure. Consequently, extensive research has been conducted on hardware structure reconfiguration for drive fault handling in safety-critical applications. These techniques include adding redundant switches, modifying the power converter topology, and employing multilevel converters with inherent fault-tolerance capabilities. However, ensuring full fault tolerance in multilevel converters typically requires a high number of switches. Thus, in order to minimize the increase in component count, a new fault-tolerant power converter topology for 8/6 SRM drives is proposed. The operation of the drive will be analyzed under normal and fault-tolerant conditions. The validity of the claimed system characteristics will be substantiated through a series of simulation studies.