Modeling, simulation and performance analysis of high efficient permanent magnet machine for UAV applications

Purpose Unmanned aerial vehicles are becoming integral across various sectors such as defense, security, industrial, commercial, agriculture and disaster management. Permanent magnet (PM) machines are a crucial component in the propulsion system of UAV due to their high efficiency, power density and compact design. This work proposes the modeling, simulation, performance and harmonic analysis of a PM machine to evaluate its suitability for electric UAV applications. Design/methodology/approach This paper presents the Finite element analysis of 400 V, 40 W and 1000rpm machine. The motor is designed with 18 stator slots and 16 rotor poles using Altair Flux software. The parameters such as mass, phase resistance, inductance, flux density distribution and electromagnetic torque were estimated. Harmonic analysis was performed for magnetomotive force (MMF) winding factor, phase voltage, line-to-line and air-gap flux density to evaluate the machine with respect to vibration and acoustic noise minimization. Findings The PM motor achieved an efficiency of 95.4% with losses of 1.9 W. The phase resistance is 171.65 O, inductance is 0.104 H, mass is 2.449 kg and average electromagnetic torque is 0.37 N-m. The MMF harmonic spectrum has a higher-order harmonics remaining below 0.1 A and the maximum winding factor is 0.95 for the fundamental harmonic. The higher-order harmonics are below 12 V and the flux density of the 5th harmonics is 0.18 T. Originality/value This provides a better way to predict and visualize the performance of the PM motor for electric UAV systems requiring low-vibration, low-noise and energy-efficient performance.