Optimal Coil Design for Coreless Linear Motors Based on the Extended Stream-Function Method

This article concerns a coil design technique for coreless linear motors that is based on the stream-function methodology. This method allows for the synthesis of the optimal conductor shape on a source surface based on constraints and objectives in an optimization problem. The method is extended to allow for motion and multi-phase commutation and is applied to the design of coils for coreless linear motors with concentrated and distributed winding configurations. A manufacturable conductor is extracted for a motor with a concentrated coil configuration. The resulting coil is compared to a traditional concentrated coil set by a simulation of a coreless linear motor, in which the windings are produced using printed circuit board (PCB) technology. It shows an increase in force production for the geometry with the conductor designed using the stream-function method (SFM), whereas the average temperatures in the coils of both geometries are identical.