Simulation Analysis of the 5-Leg Inverter for a Fault-Tolerant Dual-Motor Drive System

This paper presents a compact, cost-effective, and reliable fault tolerant dual-motor drive solution utilising the 5-leg inverter topology. A simple PI-based field weakening control scheme allowing simultaneous and correlated control of both motors is proposed. This enhances the voltage limitations of the 5-leg inverter and extends the speed range of the motors. Additionally, A system-level short-circuit detection method and a fault localisation algorithm are proposed. These methods reduce the size and complexity of the drive and improve its reliability. The system is modelled using physical system models in Simulink/Simscape. Different scenarios are analysed verifying the performance of the field weakening control and the effectiveness of the fault-tolerant control. Preliminary experimental results are included validating the proposed ideas.