New direct drive electric propulsion systems

The central point of the proposed project is the solution of an important problem in direct drives: development and construction of a high-power electric motor and power electronics. Required characteristics of this special synchronous electric motor are very high specific torque, good efficiency and reasonable price of production. Such a motor will find wide use (e.g., in DD electric vehicles and other machines) and will have a great economic success, but until now no one has yet solved this problem successfully. We have successfully solved this same problem with smaller motors and our new prototype of larger motor has also showed that we work in the right direction. The most important elements of the proposed project are: inventing appropriate constructions, calculus, determination of dimensions and working parameters of prototypes, development of suitable power electronics, preparation of drawings, manufacturing of prototypes, and testing of prototypes. As an example of good working models according to our solutions and patents, we intend to present motors with peak torque between 50 and 300 Nm (power around 10 kW) that are the most attractive for mass production and hence, will most easily find producers. The specialty of the driving machine (synchronous motor with a high number of poles and high instant power) and, fundamentally, a battery source with a possibility of recuperation during breaking demands a novel concept of inverters that are to be developed at Faculty of Electrical Engineering. Additional challenges are foreseen in the field of microprocessor control due to high sinusoidal frequencies (and consequently fast control) ranging up to several hundreds Hz. High supply frequency demands a high sampling frequency i.e. very fast signal processing and control algorithm. An additional economical request posed on hardware dictates an application of specific low-cost digital signal processors. For this purpose the research team will apply the revolutionary control approach, which, due to its simplicity, requires a minimal processing time, producing a precise flux control. The mentioned principle (Immediate Flux Control with Predictive Torque Control) was already presented to the world academic community by the team at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering.