Comparison of SPWM multilevel inverter fed PMSM drive with two level inverter fed drive

Permanent magnet synchronous motors (PMSM) are becoming popular over Induction machines in the field of modern variable speed AC drives especially in electric vehicle (EV) and hybrid EV. Its advantages include high power density, high torque to current ratio, high efficiency and ease of control. Field Oriented Control of PMSM can be easily implemented using dynamic model. Torque ripple in permanent-magnet synchronous motors is generally undesirable. Superior performance of MultiLevel Inverter (MLI) over two-level inverter can be utilized to improve the performance of the PMSM drive system. Inthis study both SPWM (Sinusoidal Pulse Width Modulation)based 2-level, 3-level and 5-level inverter fed PMSM drive were considered. These techniques are studied through simulation in MATLAB/SIMULINK environment and the performances of both the techniques are compared. The effectiveness of MLI fed drive over 2-level are verified from the simulation results.