In this study, wide overview of the existing line start permanent magnet synchronous motors literature is presented. The treatment of the subject has been effectively subdivided in to five sections; (i) rotor topologies and design, (ii) steady state analysis, (iii) transient state analysis, (iv) parameter estimation and (v) high efficiency standards. Although, there are numerous papers published in each category, only those important papers which have made significant contributions in the developments and thus triggered research in this field are discussed here. 2 Rotor topologies and design The performance of the Merrill's PM excited synchronous motor [1] was found to be comparable with that of induction motor (IM). Fig. 1 shows the Merrill's rotor configuration. The four sets of flux loops (i.e. A, B, C and D) as shown in the figure, show the corresponding flux patterns under different operating conditions; and should not be taken as a complete flux distribution pattern for a single condition. The machine has negligible reluctance torque component. Alger's discussion on this paper is quite informative and he had postulated that LSPMSM will gain popularity if the future research produces a magnet of higher stored energy and coercive force. Douglas [2], then in 1959, derived the current loci of Merrill's motor by using Blondel's two-reactance theory and predicted that with improved magnet materials, the machine performance would be better. Subsequently, based on the guidelines by Merrill in his paper, a 2 pole, 0.5 hp machine was developed as shown in Fig. 2, and reported by Cahill and Adkins [3]. They found that the rated and the pull-out torque of this machine were less than those of IM of the same frame size because of the lower value of air gap flux density. Moreover, authors observed that this www.ietdl.org