Experimental evaluation of a loss-minimization control of induction motors used in EV

Battery-powered electric vehicle appear to be one of the viable solutions for the growing concerns for environmental protection and the fast rate of depletion of world fuel oil supply. This type of vehicle can become a viable alternative to the internal combustion engine only if they are able to meet certain reliability, safety, performance, and cost criteria. In addition, this type of electrical vehicles have serious disadvantages because of the limitation on cruising range imposed by weight, capacity of the electric accumulators and long recharging time. Improvement of efficiency of induction motor traction drives is an important issue in pure electric vehicles to improve the running distance on one charge. In this paper, the authors evaluate a loss-minimization algorithm (LMA) by considering their influence on the performance of the vehicle. The evaluation of the proposed LMA is demonstrated experimentally under different operating conditions of the vehicle.