A New PWM Strategy with Reduced Common Mode Voltage for Five-Phase PWM Inverter

Five-phase motor drives have been studied in the literature as an alternative for three-phase drives. The greater number of phases gives some extra advantages to the drive system, such as power and torque densities and higher reliability. As is the case for every pulse width modulated (PWM) inverters, the high frequency voltage components always find a low impedance path to the ground through the stray capacitors. This effect can be reduced by minimizing the common mode voltages through modifications in the PWM strategy. Several PWM strategies have been presented in the literature to mitigate the bearing currents problem in motor drive applications. In this paper is presented a new PWM technique to reduce the common mode voltage in a five-phase PWM inverter.