Preface

Brushless Motors: Magnetic Design, Performance and Control is an outgrowth of the author’s two previous books on this subject. Rather than identify it as a third edition, this book adopts a new title to reflect its greater scope. In addition to the content of Brushless Permanent Magnet Motor Design, Second Edition, this book contains significant additional material covering further aspects of magnetic design, performance, and electrical control.

The primary goal of this book is to meet the needs of working engineers who have little or no experience in electric motor design and control. From my experience, there are too many books that assume much greater familiarity and expertise. These other books commonly presume a level of expertise that many working engineers simply do not have. As a result, they are often confusing and difficult to comprehend, making learning a struggle rather than an engaging and productive experience.

The content here starts with basic concepts, provides intuitive reasoning for them, and gradually builds a set of understandable concepts that foster the development of usable knowledge. There is no attempt to be comprehensive. That is impossible, considering the many hundreds of technical articles published each year in this area. There is no attempt to convey all the viable approaches, nor the most accurate or most comprehensive approaches to solving the many problems and issues involved in electric motor design and control. That too is impossible. What this book strives to do is to provide a basis of knowledge that non-experts can use to develop practical expertise, making them more productive in their work and allowing them to productively explore other approaches to motor design, performance, and electrical control.

Much of the content of this book comes from all that I have learned from my many interactions with others over the past decades. At this point, I hesitate to try to name them all, for I would certainly inadvertently forget some of them. In any case, I am deeply indebted to all those that I have had the pleasure of working with and learning from. This book would not exist if it were not for you.