This paper improves a permanent magnet (PM) machine saliency-based drive performance based on the selection of a suitable injection signal. For the saliency-based position estimation, a persistently high-frequency (HF) voltage signal is injected to obtain a measurable spatial saliency feedback signal. The injection signal can be sine-wave or square-wave alternating current (AC) voltage manipulated by the inverter’s pulse width modulation (PWM). Due to the PWM dead-time effect, these HF voltage injection signals might be distorted, leading to secondary harmonics on the saliency signal. In addition, the flux saturation in machine rotors also results in other saliency harmonics. These nonlinear attributes cause position estimation errors on saliency-based drives. In this paper, two different voltage signals are analyzed to find a suited voltage which is less sensitive to these nonlinear attributes. Considering the inverter dead-time, a sine-wave voltage signal reduces its influence on the saliency signal. By contrast, the flux saturation causes the same amount of error on two injection signals. Analytical equations are developed to investigate position errors caused by the dead-time and flux saturation. An interior PM machine with the saliency ratio of 1.41 is tested for the experimental verification.

No abstract