Fault-Tolerant Interior-Permanent-Magnet Machines for Hybrid Electric Vehicle Applications

Multiphase interior permanent magnet (IPM) motors are very good candidates for hybrid electric vehicle applications. High torque pulsation is the major disadvantage of most IPM motor configurations. A five-phase IPM motor with low torque pulsation is discussed. The mathematical model of the five-phase motor is given. A control strategy that provides fault tolerance to five-phase permanent-magnet motors is introduced. In this scheme, the five-phase system continues operating safely under loss of up to two phases without any additional hardware connections. This feature is very important in traction and propulsion applications where high reliability is of major importance. The system that is introduced in this paper will guarantee high efficiency, high performance, and high reliability, which are required for automotive applications A prototype four-pole IPM motor with 15 stator slots has been built and is used for experimental verification.