Induction Motor Drive for Low Cost EV with Improved Performance using A Three-Level VSC

The cost of an electric vehicle (EV) mostly covers the drive motor and battery. This paper presents use of an induction motor (IM) for EV fed through a three-level voltage source converter (VSC) with v/f control. The three-level VSC facilitates switch stress reduction while v/f control gives reduced control burden and simplest algorithm to implement. The proposed control concept is validated on a laboratory hardware setup under the extra urban driving cycle (EUDC). An EUDC is one of the most used driving cycles which reflects the aggressive behavior of drive cycle applied to an EV with high-speed driving modes. The complete control scheme is designed using real time interface blocks of MATLAB Simulink and implemented through dSPACE CLP 1104. The experimental performance results of IM drive with v/f control under EUDC are recorded on a digital storage oscilloscope and presented for validation of effective and improved performance of complete IM-based EV drive system.