Design and manufacturing of an unconventional variable reluctance machine

Doubly-salient variable reluctance machines present several interesting aspects, such as winding simplicity, no need of expensive permanent magnets, robustness etc. An innovative machine of such type, featuring a simple modular, multi- stack, axial-flux, homopolar magnetic structure, was recently proposed. This paper provides considerations about the features, design and manufacturing options for such machine, finally describing the first prototype realized.