Design and Analysis of Current-Source Inverter Based Integrated-Motor Drive for EV Traction Applications

The utilization of emerging wide bandgap (WBG) devices facilitates an increased switching frequency of motor drives, consequently leading to significant power density improvement. However, there are some challenges for the voltage-source inverter (VSI) when Si-based switches are directly replaced by WBG switches, such as high dv/dt at the output terminal, high electromagnetic interference (EMI), motor terminal overvoltage, and bearing current risk. The combination of wide-bandgap (WBG)-enabled current-source inverter (CSI) and integrated motor drive (IMD) has been shown to provide several advantages and address the problems of VSI-based motor drives. This paper provides a comprehensive system design and development of a WBG-enabled high-power-density IMD based on CSI for electric vehicle (EV) traction. The performance of the proposed IMD system is analyzed in detail through a combination of simulations and experimental evaluations. The realization of the prototype IMD based on CSI and WBG devices provides a promising candidate traction drive configuration for improving the performance of future EV traction drive systems.