Intelligent Electric Motor Drives with Improved Performance and Reliability for Electrified Vehicles

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In an effort to improve the fuel economy of vehicles and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, automotive companies are increasing the electrification of their vehicles including passenger cars, public transit vehicles, trucks and trains. The electric powertrain components, such as the energy source, traction electric machines and their drives are important subsystems providing the traction power for electrified vehicles. In the past decade, significant advances have been made to these traction electric powertrain components, such as low cost and lightweight batteries, more efficient electric motors and compact electric drives. However, the automotive industry and government still call for innovative research and developments to improve the electric powertrain efficiency, performance, reliability and durability. This research proposal focuses on developing the next-generation intelligent electric motor drives to improve the overall performance and reliability of the traction electric powertrain at a system level. The intelligence will make the proposed motor drive to be the "brain" instead of one component in the electric powertrain system. More specifically, through analyzing the inputs and observing the outputs of the powertrain system, the proposed intelligent electric motor drive is capable of self-learning and decision making during operation to achieve an improved performance and reliability. Among various traction electric machines, the permanent magnet synchronous machine (PMSM) is dominantly used in electrified vehicle applications, so the proposed research will be primarily focused on PMSM drives. The specific topics of the proposed research encompass comprehensive modeling, accurate machine and drive parameter identification, fault detection and fault tolerant control, and maximum efficiency/torque control strategies for the PMSM drives as well as a possible extension to other electric machine drives. More importantly, intelligent control theory will be investigated and applied in the proposed electric machine drive to exceed the current standard of technology. Therefore, the proposed research will help advance electrified vehicle technologies and provide the Canadian automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEM) and suppliers with product implementable solutions in the near-term with an ultimate aim of making transportation electrification widely acceptable to the consumers.