Universal motor efficiency improvement using evolutionary optimization

We present a new design procedure that improves the efficiency of a universal motor, the type of motor that is typically used in home appliances and power tools. The goal of our optimization was to find the independent geometrical parameters of the rotor and the stator with the aim of reducing the motor’s power losses, which occur in the iron and the copper. Our procedure is based on a genetic algorithm (GA) and by using this procedure we were able to significantly improve the motor’s efficiency—the ratio of the motor’s output power to its input power. The GA proved to be a simple and efficient search-and-optimization method for solving this day-to-day design problem in industry. It significantly outperformed a conventional “direct” design procedure that we had used previously.