Abstract: A rotor position detection method for the sensorless control of brushless DC motor with single-phase inductance detection was proposed. By using the saliency effect of the motor, the phase inductance was detected by applying a fixed-time voltage vector to the three-phase windings of the motor and detecting the corresponding single-phase current responses. The inductance values determined the commutation points based on the relationships between the rotor position of the motor and the phase inductance. In addition, an improved cyclical freewheeling method was proposed to reduce the reactive power and increase the electromagnetic torque, which used the motor inductive energy to maintain the motor drive current. Compared with the traditional inductance method, this method only had one detection vector, which reduced the detection time. Further, the detection vector and the drive vector were adjacent vectors, the inductive energy also drove the motor continuously in freewheeling stage, which improved the motor acceleration ability. Experimental results verified the effectiveness and advancement of the proposed control method.