Power Converters and Electric Motor Drives

Dear Colleagues,

With the increasing demand for environmentally friendlier and higher fuel economy vehicles, automotive companies are on the track to replace conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles with all electric vehicles (AEVs), hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). These vehicles would also have more stringent requirements around vehicle performance, fuel economy, emissions, passenger comfort, and safety. The main challenges are to achieve high efficiency, ruggedness, small sizes, and low costs in power converters and electric machines, as well as in associated electronics. In addition, the technology of electric motor drives and power converter modulations and controls also play crucial roles in vehicles’ dynamics and operating characteristics.

The power electronics system should be efficient to improve the range in EVs and fuel economy in HEVs. The selection of power semiconductor devices, types of converters/inverters, control and switching schemes, the packing of the individual units, and system integration are vital to the development of efficient and high-performance vehicles. To meet the requirements of the automotive environment, technical challenges from the device level to the system level are listed below:

1. Switches and diodes for high-switching-frequency, high-power, and high-temperature applications;
2. Power switch packaging technologies;
3. Other passive components, such as capacitors, inductor, bus bar, and thermal systems;
4. Fault-tolerant topology and new switching schemes;
5. Robust sensorless control methods for electric motor drives and power converters;
6. Low-cost high-temperature magnets for permanent magnet motors as propulsion machines.

Dr. Hang Gao
Guest Editor

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