2002 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 44, NO.

8, AUGUST 2008

Analysis and Improvement on the Structure of Variable

Reluctance Resolvers
Lizhi Sun
Department of Electrical Engineering and Automation, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China

Resolvers are often used in inverter-driven permanent magnet synchronous motors as the rotor position sensors. This paper analyzes
a variable–reluctance (VR) resolver structure capable of generating absolute position signals on the basis of a review of conventional
multipole VR resolvers. The analyzed VR resolver is made by varying rotor-pole shape according to a certain waveform, which can be
determined by solving an inverse electromagnetic field problem. Finally, the paper proposes several procedures, based on the samples
tested and an error analysis, to improve the accuracy of the VR resolver.
Index Terms—Position sensor, reluctance, resolver.

I. INTRODUCTION

I N inverter-driven motors such as permanent-magnet syn-

chronous motors (PMSM), continuous rotor position sig-
nals are needed to realize commutation and control algorithms.
Among various existing sensors, optical encoders and resolvers
are the most commonly used position sensors [1].
Optical incremental encoders have found wide application
because of their easily processed digital outputs and precise in-
cremental position information. Nevertheless, position sensing
applications for commutation prefer an absolute output signals
instead of an incremental one. This requires the adoption of ab-
solute encoders, which are much more complicated, of larger
size, and expensive. Furthermore, besides their fragility, optical
encoders are more difficult to be mechanically installed and in-
tegrated into the motor, compared to frameless resolvers.
Compared with optical encoders, most resolvers have the ca-
pability to generate absolute position signals with high preci-
sion. Except the most traditional brushed resolver, the brushless
resolver and the variable–reluctance (VR) resolver are types that
can be easily made frameless, mounted, and integrated into the
motor.
Moreover, the VR resolver is of the simplest structures and
has the smallest axial dimension, as it consists of one stator
and one non-wound rotor, without any additional devices like
brushes and slip-rings existing in the traditional brushed struc-
tures, or the coupling transformer in brushless ones. The most
commonly found VR resolver is the conventional multipole
type. But in this conventional VR multipole structure, enough
teeth must be maintained both for the stator main poles and
rotor to obtain certain mechanical precision. That means that
no absolute position information can be provided.
This paper gives some review on resolver concepts and the
conventional multipole VR resolver structure, then analyzes one
VR resolver structure that is capable of outputting an absolute
position signal or position signals of the same electrical period
as the inverter-driven motors. After the testing results and the
error analysis, some procedures are proposed to improve the
accuracy of the absolute VR resolver.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TMAG.2008.923315
0018-9464/$25.00 © 2008 IEEE
Fig. 1. Main principle of one resolver.
II. REVIEW OF CONVENTIONAL MULTIPOLE VR RESOLVERS
A. Resolver Concepts and Brushless Resolver
A resolver generally outputs sinusoidal modulated wave-
forms that reflect the shaft position. The main principle of a
resolver is shown in Fig. 1. One primary winding, called ref-
erence winding, is placed in the rotor or the stator and excited
by a high-frequency ac voltage ranging from 1 to 20 kHz; two
secondary windings, called SIN and COS windings (or signal
windings), are mechanically displaced 90 electrical degrees
from each other in the stator or the rotor. When the shaft rotates,
voltage signals can be induced in the signal windings that are
the products of the reference voltage multiplied by the SIN or
COS functions of the rotating angle. Then the signals can be de-
modulated and processed in circuits like one resolver-to-digital
converter (RDC) to give continuous shaft position angles [2].
Among various resolvers, the brushless resolver is the most
commonly used. It eliminates the brushes and slip rings that
supply voltage to the reference winding in the rotor by adopting
one coupling transformer, which consists of two concentric coils
sharing one common magnet circuit, and one coil rotates with
half of the magnet circuit while the other one remains still. Thus,
the reference voltage is coupled to the rotor and there is no direct
mechanical contact. Thus, reliability is increased.
The brushless resolver is the most accurate. However, the
brushless resolver, with the addition of the coupling transformer,
has a more complex structure and the axial dimension cannot be
further reduced [3].
SUN: ANALYSIS AND IMPROVEMENT ON THE STRUCTURE OF VARIABLE RELUCTANCE RESOLVERS
Fig. 2. Conventional multipole VR resolver laminations.
B. Conventional Multipole VR Resolver
Unlike the brushless resolver, the VR resolver has both pri-
mary and secondary windings in the stator and thus no coupling
transformer is required.
The typical structure of a conventional multipole VR resolver
is shown in Fig. 2. In the stator lamination, there exist main poles
and the windings are wound around them. On the main poles,
there are still sub-teeth. When the resolver rotor rotates together
with the motor rotor, the air-gap reluctance between the stator
sub-teeth and the rotor poles will be varying, and a sinusoidal
modulated voltage will be induced in the signal windings under
the excitation of a reference voltage.
The most important feature of this VR resolver is the multi-
pole numbers on rotor. The rotor pole number determines the
period number of the output signal. When the rotor turns one
revolution, the period number of the output signals will be the
same as the rotor pole number. Generally the higher the rotor
pole number, the more position accuracy the VR resolver can
achieve. The limit is determined by several factors including
size constraints, winding area requirements, magnetic circuit
design, as well as manufactured accuracy.
Also the accuracy is tightly related with the lamination de-
sign. There are some design guildlines on the selection of pole
numbers and the magnetic circuit [4].
Assume the rotor pole number is , the stator main pole
number is , the total stator sub-teeth number is . Generally
the rotor pole number should be selected as high as possible.
No strict rules that must be followed. But sometimes the
following equation can be followed to produce outputs as one
incremental encoder:
(1)
The larger is, the more accurate the position signal will be.
The stator main pole number should be the times of 4 to
form two symmetrical phases. As for the total stator sub-teeth
number , has great influence on the reluctance harmonic con-
tents as well as the precision. The following rules should be fol-
lowed when selecting this number:
(2)
Generally, this number can be selected as one similar to the
rotor pole number but not equal. This will be helpful to increase
2003
Fig. 3. Principle of the absolute VR resolver structure.
the amplitude of the air-gap reluctance fundamental wave while
suppressing other harmonics.
As for the magnetic circuit design, D. C. Hanselman ana-
lyzed the optimum magnetic circuit design dimensions in terms
of tooth width, etc. [5].
From the above review, it can be concluded the conventional
multipole resolver is more like an incremental encoder rather
than an absolute one. However, the commutation or control al-
gorithms of PMSMs generally require absolute position infor-
mation, or position signals of the same electrical period as the
motor. That is to say, the resolver must have only one pole pairs
or the same pole pair as the PMSM. But generally this is hard to
be realized, as the pole numbers of PMSM cannot be selected
too high.
III. ONE TYPE OF ABSOLUTE-POSITION VR RESOLVER
The following VR resolver directly utilizes the salient pole
effects. Concretely, the reference and signal windings are put
in the stator; while the rotor pole shape is designed to make
the air gap permeance to be a biased sinusoidal function of the
rotor-position angle, as expressed below [6]:
(3)
where is the average permeance, is the amplitude of the
sinusoidal function, is the rotating angle, and is the salient
pole number of the rotor. The principle is shown in Fig. 3.
If the slot number on the stator is and there are phases of
the signal windings in total, then can be selected as 2 . The
reference coils are connected in series to form pairs of the
poles. The signal windings are formed by connecting the coils
distributed slots apart each in series. The polarity of coils
will be positive/negative alternatively, as shown in Fig. 4. Only
one phase of signal winding is drawn.
As the resolver is actually a rotating transformer, the
transformer equations can be directly used to describe its
performance. However, in order to simplify the analysis of this
structure, it is assumed that:
1) the impedance of the output load is large enough that the
output currents can be neglected, and the signal output volt-
ages are the back-EMFs;
2) the stator and rotor iron are infinitely permeable, and the
iron losses are omitted;
3) the leakage flux is neglected.
2004 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 44, NO. 8, AUGUST 2008

Fig. 5. First calculating shape.

Fig. 4. Winding diagram of VR resolvers.

The pole shape can be calculated by solving the inverse
electromagnetic field problem [7]. That is, to determine the
There will be a sinusoidal voltage applied on the refer- geometry shape according to the given air-gap flux-density
ence winding. It can be described as or back-EMF waveforms. Generally speaking, the process of
solving such an inverse electromagnetic field problem will be,
(4) firstly, to assume one geometry shape and the corresponding
stimuli distribution in the field area, then to calculate the field
where is the reference current, and and are the resis- by using the finite-element method (FEM), then to optimize the
tance and the reactance of the reference winding, respectively. geometry by employing certain optimization methods.
It is clear that the amplitude of reference current will be con-
stant if the reactance remains unchanged. The reactance A. Pole Shaping by Solving the Inverse Problem
is determined by the connections of the reference coils and To simplify the question, the slots are omitted on the stator
the air-gap permeance, as below: first, and two sheet-currents are added as the sources at the
air-gap edges to represent the reference windings as shown in
Fig. 5. In the calculation area there are fixed -coor-
dinates, only -coordinates will be variables to form the rotor-
pole shape . At the beginning, the rotor-pole shape is
assumed to be one sinusoidal curve as shown.
Considering the flux distribution, the air-gap flux-density
(5) is not only determined by the corresponding air-gap
height , but is also influenced by the adjacent points.
where is the air-gap permeance of the th reference coils,
Therefore, this problem is inherently a multidimensional op-
is the frequency of the reference signal, and is the turns
timization one, and nonlinearity exists. Therefore, traditional
of each reference coil.
optimization methods such as grads method are not suitable for
Then a signal voltage can be expressed as below:
this problem. One way is to use the trial and error method, that
is, to manually revise the shape after each trial. Certainly this
will consume long calculating times with only approximate
results reached. Another way is to adopt global optimization
methods like the Genetic Algorithm (GA).
A typical GA is tried in this case and the objective function
(6) is defined as below [8]:

where is the turns of signal winding per tooth, (7)

represnts the N/S polarity of reference coils, and is the
amplitude.
Clearly in the ideal case, the signal windings can generate where is the ideal flux-density value at the coordi-
precise modulated sinusoidal functions with respect to the rotor nate , and the is the calculated value at the cor-
position. responding coordinate.
Then the ideal flux density waveforms can be calculated by
IV. CALCULATION OF THE ROTOR SHAPE multiplying the sheet-current with the ideal permeance wave-
form, that is
The key issue for the realization of the VR resolver is the pre-
cise calculation of the rotor pole shape, or the air-gap height. If (8)
the flux lines are straight lines distributed in the radial direc-
tion in the air gap, and all the leakage flux and the nonlinearity where is the magnetomotive force value of the sheet current.
are neglected, the permeance will be inversly proportional to According to (8), when the permeance components and
the air-gap height. But considering the real flux distribution as are pre-assumed, there will be one flux-density waveform that
shown in Fig. 3, also the leakage fluxes and the nonlinearity can be determined.
caused by the cores, obviously the above assumption is not real, The following values of genetic operators were used in the
and the permeance cannot be expressed as an explicit equation algorithm.
of the air-gap height, especially in the cases of large air-gap 1) Initial population: ;
height values. 2) Probability of reproduction: ;
SUN: ANALYSIS AND IMPROVEMENT ON THE STRUCTURE OF VARIABLE RELUCTANCE RESOLVERS
Fig. 6. Calculated pole shape.
Fig. 7. Modular resolver calculated by using FEM. (a) Calculated pole shape.
(b) Pre-assumed SIN pole shape. (c) Permeance curves calculated.
3) Probability of mutation: ;
4) Probability of crossover: . (9)
After a certain number of successions, some results were ob-
tained. Generally the results still needs post-processing such as
curve-smoothing. One calculated pole shape is shown in Fig. 6.
To calculate the pole shape, 630 nodes and 826 triangles were
divided. And the problem was calculated using one own-devel-
oped FEM program named HITFEM (had been verified).
Turning the calculated linear pole shape into a radial one,
the modular resolver can be built as shown in Fig. 7(a), while
Fig. 7(b) shows the pre-assumed sinusoidal pole shape. The per-
meance curves under one tooth were calculated, as shown in
Fig. 7(C). It can be concluded that the latter case deviates far
from a sinusoidal curve, while the former is approaching such a
shape.
B. The Influence of Stator Slot Opening
The stator opening will have some influence on the perma-
nence curves. With the air-gap height varying, the flux paths
around the slot openings will change and leads to different rotor
shapes. But to include the slot opening in the calculation would
be time consuming, as the position of slot opens are not fixed
relative to the rotor poles. One method is to identify the influ-
ence of the slot opening after the calculation.
2005
Fig. 8. Coil permeance under different slot opening dimensions (FEM results).
(a) Coil permeance curve (slot pitch is the base value). (b) Harmonic percentage.
When there are slot openings, there will exist the th har-
monics in the air-gap permeance. Only considering the influ-
ence of the th harmonic which is the most important, the output
signal will turn out to be
For one two-phase resolver that outputs sinusoidal signals,
is selected as 4 . In this case, the harmonics in (9) will also turn
out to be the 3 th and 5 th harmonics.
Fig. 8 shows the FEM calculated permeance or inductance
per turn curves of one signal coil under different slot open di-
mensions. Taking the stator slot pitch as the base value, the slot
opening dimensions are 0.125, 0.25, 0.375, 0.5, and 0.625 p.u.
value, respectively, while other parameters remain the same.
With the increase of the slot opening dimensions, the funda-
mental component will drop, and the percentage of har-
monics will increase, as shown in Fig. 8(b). Therefore, to get
rid of the slot opening effect, the slot opening dimension should
be kept as small as possible.
V. TESTING AND ERROR ANALYSIS
First, one 8-pole-pair VR resolver sample was made which
adopted the structure as shown in Fig. 9, including 8 modular
units as shown in Fig. 7(a). The main parameters of the sample
are shown in Table I.
Fig. 10 shows the testing results of the 8-pole-pair VR re-
solver, including the oscilloscope graphs and the root-mean-
square (RMS) value of the resolver signals directly measured.
2006 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 44, NO. 8, AUGUST 2008

Fig. 10. Testing results of the 8-pole-pair VR resolver. (a) oscilloscope graph
Fig. 9. One 8-pole-pair resolver. (a) Topology. (b) One sample installed in one measured (1—reference voltage; 2, 3—output signal). (b) RMS values of the
EV wheel motor. signal EMFs measured.

TABLE I
DESIGN DATA To simplify the problem, assuming the reference reactance is
still constant, the output signals will turn out to be

However, the special structure of the VR resolver results in (12)

different the position errors than traditional resolvers.
A. Harmonic Influence on Position Accuracy
If the rotor-pole is not precisely shaped, there will exist cer-
tain harmonics in the air-gap permeance. In this case, the per-
meance under the th tooth can be expressed as
(10)
where is the amplitude of the th harmonic component.
The reactance in (5) will turn out to be
where . Clearly the even-order harmonics are elim-
inated, but the odd-order harmonics still exist in the outputs pro-
portionally. The 3 th and 5 th harmonics are the most important
and will cause the 4 th position errors.
Fig. 11 shows the errors of the VR resolver signals in one
electrical period. It shows the function deviates from a true si-
nusoidal output voltage. Obviously, apart from the fundamental
component, the main component in the errors is the 3 th har-
monics. This is caused by the existence of the th harmonic in
air-gap permeance, and can be decreased by further refining the
pole shape. In Fig. 11(b), the position errors are changing in the
4 th curve. It is in agreement with the above conclusion that the
3 th function errors will result in the 4 th position errors.

B. Influence of Null Voltages on Position Accuracy

(11)
That is to say, if the reference coils are connected as shown in The null voltages, that is, the residual voltages remaining
Fig. 4, only the th harmonics will exist in the reactance and at zero-positions [9], has great influence on the determination
will influence the reference current. of the zero-positions. Fig. 12 shows the position errors at
SUN: ANALYSIS AND IMPROVEMENT ON THE STRUCTURE OF VARIABLE RELUCTANCE RESOLVERS
Fig. 11. Errors of the 8-pole-pair VR resolver (testing results). (a) Function
errors. (b) Position errors measured.
Fig. 12. Errors at zero-positions measured (Testing results).
zero-position in one revolution directly measured. It can be
observed that the zero position error changes in a zigzag fashion
at different zero positions. That means the zero-position error
is caused by the null-voltages existing in the output signals.
It can be concluded that the null voltage mainly comes from
the following sources. 1) As the reference and signal windings
are put together, the slot leakage flux will induce voltages irrel-
evant to the position signal in the output windings. This is the
main cause of null voltages. 2) Because of the stray capacitance
effect, there will be direct coupling between the windings, which
can also cause null voltages. 3) Other factors like mechanical
imperfection, winding errors, and distortion in the magnetic cir-
cuit, etc. may also contribute to null voltage, but should not be
the main ones.
To conclude, for the 8-pole-pair resolver, tests show that the
function errors are within 1%, zero-position errors are within
2.3E-3 rad and total position errors are within 4.9E-3 rad.
Clearly the precision of the resovler is equivalent to that of the
conventional VR resolver. And compared with the brushless
resolver, the precision is low and needs to be raised further. But
2007
such precision is sufficient for motor commutation applications
[10], [11].
VI. PROPOSAL OF SEVERAL IMPROVEMENT METHODS
As discussed above, the main position errors come from the
harmonics and the null voltage. The following methods are pro-
posed to improve the precision. Detailed analysis and experi-
ments will be presented in an upcoming paper.
A. Increase of Stator Slot Number
It can be concluded from the above tests that the main har-
monics existing in the outputs are the 3 th and 5 th harmonics.
These harmonics come from pole shape imperfection as well
as slot openings when is selected as 4 as was analyzed in
Section IV.
One method to decrease the slot opening effect is to increase
the number of stator slots. If is selected as 4kp for a 2-phase
resolver, must be an integer so the main harmonics existing in
the outputs will be the 3 th and 5 th harmonics. That means
there only will be harmonics with much higher frequency. But
with the increased slot opening, winding patterns shown in
Fig. 4 will also need to be changed. However, the principle is
still similar to what analyzed in Section III.
B. Salient Pole Structure Modification
As analyzed above, the main reasons for null voltages existing
are the leakage flux and stray capacitance effects when all the
windings are put together. To solve this problem, signal and
reference windings should be separated. But in the real winding
process, it is difficult to do so in the above structure as there are
very small slot openings.
One method proposed is to adopt salient pole structure on the
stator. Thus, the windings can be made as separate concentrated
coils first and then installed on the poles, and enough gap can
be kept between them. What’s more, with the adoption of the
salient pole structure, slot leakage flux can be greatly reduced.
Therefore, the null voltages can be reduced to a very low level
and the precision at zero position can be greatly enhanced.
Certainly, with the adoption of the salient pole structure, the
contents of harmonics will increase, as was shown in the slot
opening discussion presented in Section IV. However, the har-
monics can be further reduced with the adoption of a sinusoidaly
distributed winding pattern as analyzed below.
C. Sinusoidal Distributed Winding Pattern
As mentioned above, to reduce the harmonics, sinusoidal
distributed winding patterns can be adopted. That is, the turn
number of each coil is a sinusoidal function of its position. This
winding pattern has been proven to be effective in eliminating
harmonics [3].
In detail, the turn number on the th stator pole of one signal
phase can be decided by the following equation:
(13)
where is a constant number, representing the largest turn
number on a stator pole. is a given adjusting angle. Another
phase will be shifted 90 electrical degrees from the first.
2008
VII. CONCLUSION
This paper presented a review of various VR resolvers and
proposed a VR resolver structure that is capable of outputting an
absolute position signal or position signals of the same electrical
period as the inverter-driven motors. Samples were built and
tests show that the function errors of the 8-pole-pair resolver are
within 1% and total position errors are 4.9E-3 rad. If compared
with the brushless resolver, the precision is low and needs to be
raised further. But such a precision is sufficient for most motor
commutation applications, especially where the system is some-
what tolerant to torque ripple like electric vehicle application.
It can be concluded that the position errors mainly come
from the odd-time harmonics and the null-voltages in the
signals. Several improvement methods are proposed, including
increasing the number of stator poles, changing the stator tooth
shape to the salient one, and adopting a sinusoidaly distributed
winding pattern. Further results will be presented in an up-
coming paper.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author would like to thank Prof. Z.Q. Zhu from the Uni-
versity of Sheffield, for suggestions on the structure of the paper.
Also, the author would like to thank A. A. Rockhill, a Ph.D. can-
didate at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a registered
professional engineer in Wisconsin since 1995, for his sugges-
tions made and his thorough revision of the English writing in
this paper.
REFERENCES
[1] R. Setbacken, “System performance and application tradeoffs deter-
mine the choice between encoders and resolvers in brushless servos,”
Power Convers. Intell. Motion, vol. 22, no. 5, pp. 69–76, 1996.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 44, NO. 8, AUGUST 2008
[2] M. Benammar, L. B. Brahim, and M. A. Alhamadi, “A high precision
resolver-to-dc converter,” IEEE Trans. Instrum. Meas., vol. 54, no. 6,
pp. 2289–2296, Dec. 2005.
[3] J. Wan, X. Li, and G. Hong, “The analysis and design of high-speed
brushless resolver plus R/D converter shaft-angle measurement
system,” in Electr. Mach. Syst., ICEMS, 2001, pp. 289–292.
[4] M. Qiang, “Multi-pole reluctance resolvers,” J. Micro Special Motors,
no. 2, pp. 20–44, 1979.
[5] D. C. Hanselman, R. E. Thibodeau, and D. J. Smith, “Variable-reluc-
tance resolver design guidlines,” in IEEE IECON, 1989, pp. 203–208.
[6] L. Sun and Y. Lu, “Rotor position sensing system based on one type of
variable-reluctance resolver,” in IEEE IECON, 2006, pp. 1162–1165.
[7] C. A. Borghi and M. Fabbri, “A combined technique for the global
optimization of the inverse electromagnetic problem solution,” IEEE
Trans. Magn., vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 1947–1950, Mar. 1997.
[8] L. Sun, G. Zhang, and Y. Ping Lu, “Application of genetic algorithms
to design motor pole shapes,” J. Harbin Inst. Technol., no. 1, pp. 71–74,
2000.
[9] D. C. Hanselman, “Techniques for improving resolver-to-digital
conversion accuracy,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 38, no. 6, pp.
501–504, Dec. 1991.
[10] J. Persson, M. Markovic, and Y. Perriard, “A new standstill position
detection technique for nonsalient permanent-magnet synchronous mo-
tors using the magnetic anisotropy method,” IEEE Trans. Magn., vol.
43, no. 2, pp. 554–560, Feb. 2007.
[11] L. Jolly, M. A. Jabbar, and Q. Liu, “Design optimization of permanent
magnet motors using response surface methodology and genetic algo-
rithms,” IEEE Trans. Magn., vol. 41, no. 10, pp. 3928–3930, Oct. 2005.
Manuscript received November 19, 2007; revised April 7, 2008. Corre-
sponding author: L. Sun (e-mail: to.lzsun@gmail.com).
Lizhi Sun received the B.Sc. degree from Harbin University of Science and
Technology, Harbin, China, in 1993, and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in elec-
trical engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China, in 1995
and 1998, respectively.
Currently, he is an Associate Professor at Harbin Institute of Technology, as
well as a Research Associate at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. From
1998 to 2000, he worked in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Harbin
Institute of Technology as a Lecturer. From 2000 to 2003, he worked at Johnson
Electrical Group, HK, as a Technical Specialist. His current research focuses on
electrical machines and drives.