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A new active gate drive for Silicon carbide (SiC) metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) is proposed in this paper. The SiC MOSFET as an attractive replacement for insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) has been regarded in many high power density converters. The proposed driver is based on a feedforward control method. This simple analog gate driver (GD) improves switching transient with minimum undesirable effect on the efficiency. This paper involves the entire switching condition (turn on/off), and the GD is applied to the SiC base technology of MOSFET. To evaluate the performance of the proposed GD, it will be compared with a conventional gate driver. The presented GD is validated by experimental tests. All the evaluations are carried out in a hard switching condition and at high-frequency operation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The trend in the industrial power electronics electrical drives is to reach high power density and high efficiency in variable load conditions at cost-effective unwasteful designs. Currently, motors with permanent magnets (such as IPMSM and PMaSynRM) are of great interest because of compactness, low losses, and high-torque capability. The performance of a drive system can be predicted with a motor electromagnetic authentic nonlinear model. In this article, a novel, fast, and precise motor model of PMaSynRM based on virtual reluctance (VR) is proposed. It takes into account the cross saturation, winding distribution, space harmonics, slotting effect, and stepped skewing. The VRs are identified by finite element analysis (FEA) and implemented in the time-stepping simulation. The flux inversion is not required. The proposed concept is useful in the rotating field or phase quantities (for open phase simulation). The model is also discretized for SiL and HiL applications. Finally, the validation in FEA and experimental setup was performed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents a method to improve the output power of five‐phase brushless direct current (BLDC) motors under different faulty conditions. Different machine connections are considered while having open‐circuit fault in one and two stator phases, and both fundamental and third harmonic component of stator currents are controlled to improve the amplitude and quality of generated torque under faulty conditions. Rated root‐mean‐square value of stator phase currents is considered as the main limiting factor of generated electrical torque. Genetic algorithm is used in the optimisation procedure of stator reference currents to gain more output power under the fault. Automotive applications are kept in mind, and to verify the theoretical developments, experimental tests are conducted on a five‐phase BLDC motor with in‐wheel outer‐rotor configuration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increase of the switching speed in power semiconductors leads to converters with better efficiency and high power density. On the other hand, fast switching generates some consequences like overshoots and higher switching transient, which provoke electromagnetic interference (EMI). This paper proposes a new closed-loop gate driver to improve switching trajectory in insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) at the hard switching condition. The proposed closed-loop gate driver is based on an active gate voltage control method, which deals with emitter voltage (VEe) for controlling diC/dt and gets feedback from the output voltage (vCE) in order to control dvCE/dt. The sampled voltage signals modify the profile of the applied gate voltage (vgg). As a result, the desired gate driver (GD) improves the switching transients with minimum switching loss. The operation principle and implementation of the controller in the GD are thoroughly described. It can be observed that the new GD controls both dvCE/dt and diC/dt accurately independent of the variable parameters. The new control method is verified by experimental results. As a current issue, the known trade-off between switching losses and EMI is improved by this simple and effective control method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]