Comparison of the power semiconductor design rating of different inverter topologies for the drive inverter of electric vehicles

A comparison of the two-level voltage-source inverter, the three-level Neutral-Point-Clamped inverter and the T-Type inverter based on the power semiconductor rating is presented for drive inverters of electric vehicles. The comparison of the power semiconductor design rating is done for four different drive train configurations: normal operation with a constant DC-link voltage, an overload capability, a varying DC-link due to the state-of-charge of the battery and a variable DC-link voltage which can be generated by an additional DC-DC converter. The design is based on operation performance and power loss calculation. The power losses of the two three-level topologies are evaluated experimentally.