Ant colony optimization for the topological design of interior permanent magnet (IPM) machines

  • Lucas S. Batista
  • , Felipe Campelo
  • , Frederico G. Guimarães
  • , Jaime A. Ramírez
  • , Min Li
  • , David A. Lowther

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to apply an Ant Colony Optimization approach for the solution of the topological design of interior permanent magnet (IPM) machines.

Design/methodology/approach – The IPM motor design domain is discretised into a suitable equivalent graph representation and an Ant System (AS) algorithm is employed to achieve an efficient distribution of materials into this graph.

Findings – The single-objective problems associated with the maximization of the torque and with the maximization of the shape smoothness of the IPM are investigated. The rotor of the device is discretised into a 9x18 grid in both cases, and three different materials are considered: air, iron and permanent magnet.

Research limitations/implications – The graph representation used enables the solution of topological design problems with an arbitrary number of materials, which is relevant for 2 and 3D problems.

Originality/value – From the numerical experiments, the AS algorithm was able to achieve reasonable shapes and torque values for both design problems. The results show the relevance of the mechanism for multi-domain topology optimization of electromagnetic devices.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)927-940
Number of pages14
JournalCOMPEL - The international journal for computation and mathematics in electrical and electronic engineering
Volume33
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 29 Apr 2014

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