PWM investigation of a Field-oriented controlled Five-Phase PMSM under two-phase open faults

Abstract

The decoupled model of Five-Phase Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motors (5Ph PMSMs) under a two-phase open circuit has been developed recently, yet the corresponding PWM has not been fully exploited. The Pulse Width Modulation (PWM), which is straightforward for a balanced system, can be problematic to fit a 5Ph PMSM under faulty conditions. During the open faults, the neutral voltage is drifting over the mid-point of DC bus, thus, the PWM typically designed for a balanced system always fails. In this paper, an affine transformation is first presented to offset the drifting neutral effect, and only then PWMs can be effective. A quasi-sinusoidal PWM, a Space Vector PWM, and a min-max Carrier-based PWM are presented and compared experimentally. Each method has its own merits and demerits, and their effectiveness or rather the proposed affine transformation is validated by the experimental results.