Multiphase electrical machines and drives: A viable solution for energy generation and transportation electrification

Multiphase drives are convenient for high power/high current applications as they allow the reduction of the phase current for given rated power and phase voltage. In addition, they possess inherent fault-tolerant capability due to their redundant structure. Therefore, the multiphase drives represent a promising solution for safety-critical applications, such electrical ship propulsion, railway traction, Hybrid/Electrical Vehicles (HEV/EV), wind power generation, More Electric Engine (MEE) and More Electric Aircraft (MEA) applications. Moreover, the additional “degrees of freedom” can be exploited for integrated battery chargers. Although the literature reports many machine design solutions and control techniques for multiphase drives, the penetration of the multiphase solutions in transportation electrification and energy production is still too limited. For this reason, the paper contains a brief overview of the multiphase solutions for transportation electrification and energy production. In addition, the paper includes a generic modeling approach of multi-three-phase machines that can be used when the multiphase drive is treated as modular independent three-phase units. Experimental results are provided for a reduced scale prototype of a twelve-phase multiphase induction motor drive using a control scheme based on the multi-three phase approach.