Research on Torque Modeling of the Reluctance Spherical Motor Based on Magnetic Equivalent Circuit Method

Torque modeling is an important research aspect of multi-degree of freedom (multi-DOF) spherical motors, and it is the key to realizing the accurate control of multi-DOF spherical motors. In this paper, a torque modeling method of the reluctance spherical motor (RSPM) based on the magnetic equivalent circuit (MEC) method is proposed. Firstly, the structure of the RSPM is introduced, and the MEC topology of the RSPM is obtained. The calculation formulas of the reluctances in this topology are given. Then the magnetic flux of the RSPM is solved by the mesh analysis method, and the torque is calculated based on the magnetic field energy storage. Finally, the calculated torque is verified by the finite element method (FEM). The verification results show that the torque modeling of the RSPM based on the MEC method is correct, which consumes less memory and time than the three-dimensional finite element method.