DC-link Capacitor Reduction in Low Voltage and High Power Integrated Modular Motor Drives

The development of 48V high power (>15 kW) automotive propulsion drives demands close integration of the power electronics and the electrical machine. Due to the large operating currents distributed multi-phase topologies are needed and physically separating the power converter from the e-machine would involve heavy cabling and costly connections. The volume and cost of the filter capacitor represents a major challenge in closely integrated high power integrated modular motor drives and techniques are needed to minimize this. The DC-link capacitor requires a large ripple current handling capability and cost, size and reliability limitations result in suitable candidate technologies being those with low volumetric energy densities. Use of interleaved multi three-phase machines are attractive due to the associated capacitor ripple current reduction. Discontinuous modulation schemes may also be employed as a technique for reducing the current ripple. In this paper techniques for capacitor ripple reduction are assessed through simulation and compared.