Multiphase machines and drives - Revisited

Although the concept of a multiphase drive system dates back to the middle of the 20th century, the initial pace of development was rather slow, as witnessed by the first two surveys of the area published in the beginning of this century. However, considerably new developments have resulted in the last decade of the 20th century and the beginning of this century, leading to an authoritative survey of the asymmetrical six-phase drive control and subsequently of the review of the complete area. This also initiated the organization and subsequent publication of the first IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics "Special Section on Multiphase Machines and Drives" in May 2008, which commenced with another survey paper, and that contained 12 original research papers. Since the publication of this Special Section in May 2008, the level of interest and pace of developments in the area have further accelerated and substantial new knowledge has been generatedwith an ever-increasing number of published research papers and reported new industrial applications. Such a trend has been emphasized in a recent paper. It therefore seemed appropriate to revisit the area and organize this Special Section as a sequel to the first one. The call for the Special Section papers resulted in 51 submissions, almost twice as many as the total back in 2008, thus confirming a substantial growth of the area. Indeed, the amount of new knowledge acquired since the publication of the first Special Section in 2008 has meant that it was not possible to provide a complete and thorough survey of the field in a single review paper.