Wound-Rotor Synchronous Motor with Toroidal Windings for UAV Propulsion Systems

Recently, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) based on electric propulsion systems are being increasingly adopted in various fields, including industrial and military applications. Outer-rotor surface-mounted permanent magnet synchronous motors (SPMSMs) are predominantly applied in UAV propulsion systems. However, these motors are vulnerable to the price fluctuations of rare-earth materials and supply chain instability. In addition, the magnets in these motors are prone to detachment at high rotational speeds, and demagnetization under high-temperature conditions may reduce output performance. To address these limitations, research is being actively conducted on non-permanent magnet motors, among which, wound-rotor synchronous motors (WRSMs) offer the advantage of controllable field excitation at high speeds. Furthermore, WRSMs can use both magnetic and reluctance torques, thereby increasing power density relative to other non-permanent magnet motors. However, the adoption of an additional field winding increases copper loss, thus reducing motor efficiency. This study investigates the application of the toroidal winding structure, which is already widely applied in permanent magnet and brushless direct current machines, to WRSMs. The performance of these motors is compared with that of motors using conventional tooth-coil windings. The toroidal windings are circumferentially distributed along both the inner and outer stator yoke paths, effectively reducing the end-turn length relative to that of conventional tooth-coil windings. Two WRSMs, one with tooth-coil and another with toroidal windings, are designed using identical specifications to compare performances via finite element analysis. The armature copper loss in the proposed model decreased by approximately 28% because the toroidal winding structure reduced the end-turn length. As a result, the efficiency increased by about 1.9% due to the reductions in copper, core, and eddy current losses.