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Part IV. Plug-in Electric Vehicles: Power Electronics, Topologies and
Energy Management

Power Electronics and Drives Used In Automotive Applications

Ersan Kabalci
Electrical and Electronics Engineering Dept., Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Nevsehir
University, Turkey
e-mail: kabalci@nevsehir.edu.tr

Chapter 9. Power Electronics and Drives Used in Automotive Applications

(Ersan Kabalci, Electrical and Electronics Engineering Dept., Faculty of Engineering and Architecture,
Nevsehir University, Turkey)pp.249-274

Series:
Engineering Tools, Techniques and Tables
Binding: Hardcover
Pub. Date: 2014 - 3rd Quarter
Pages: 560. 7x10 - (NBC-C)
ISBN: 978-1-63321-324-1

1
Abstract- This chapter deals with power electronics and drives used in electric vehicles (EV). The
power electronic devices are classified in four categories as rectifier, inverter, dc-dc converter, and
cycloconverter according to ac and dc conversions together and vice versa. The converters are mostly
utilized after the rectifier block to ensure supplying the battery charger with a stable dc voltage, at the
output of battery or fuel cell, and before dc motor drives. The propulsion systems of electric, hybrid
electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles are based on electrical machines. An electric machine used
in an EV is chosen according to its construction structure, efficiency, maintenance requirements,
electromagnetic interference (EMI), reliability, and speed range parameters. The rapid improvements
seen in electrical machines and power electronics devices also contribute the development of EVs.
There are a few electric motors among others are known as workhorse in power-train applications. The
induction machines (IM), permanent magnet synchronous machines (PMSM), and brushless dc
machines (BLDC) are the several electric machine types used in EV power-train applications with
specific controllers. The machine controllers are power electronics systems that are combined with
sensors and observers in order to ensure the wide speed range in constant torque situations and
extended speed range for constant power requirements. Although the power electronics devices and
motor drives cover a wide research area, this chapter is dedicated to specific applications used in EV
technology The related topics are arranged from plug to propulsion system for an EV.

Keywords-Power electronics, converter, inverter, cycloconverter, electric vehicle, electric machines,

PMSM, BLDC, ACIM.

1- Introduction

The plug-in electric vehicles (PEV) are known as a subcategory of electric vehicles that also
include pure electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs). Furthermore, the PEVs are
defined as electric vehicle conversions of hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) and conventional internal
combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. Although a HEV has battery configuration that is consistently
recharged by using the power obtained from the ICE and regenerative braking. Since HEVs cannot be
recharged from any off-vehicle electric energy source, they are not categorized in plug-in electric
vehicles. A PEV can be defined as an electric motor vehicle that obtains the required energy for
propulsion over the electric grid and/or the charged batteries located on board [1-3].
The PEVs require a detailed power electronics and electrical machines (PEEM) control to operate
efficiently as other advanced electric drive vehicles such as HEVs, PHEVs, fuel cell electric vehicles
(FCVs), and EVs. The power electronics devices convert the grid electricity to the required ratings and
various current waveforms as direct or alternating. The electric drive system in EVs is based on direct
current (dc) and alternative current (ac) energy conversion stages. The complete drive system is
defined with functions of converter, battery, inverter, electric motor, and wheels. The inverter converts
the dc line voltage to ac and supplies the electric motor to generate propulsion in wheels [3,4]. On the
other hand, the power electronics and electrical machine stages of PHEVs are more complex according
to HEVs. This vehicle configuration uses two electrical machines; one as a generator connected to the
engine and another as a motor to drive the wheels. Each of these machines is connected to an inverter
that runs at a higher voltage levels comparing to the battery. The boost converter increases the dc
voltage that will be applied to inverter. Main components of an hybrid and an electric vehicle include
motors, motor controllers, dc-dc converters, and inverters that condition the electrical energy between
the power supply (a fuel cell or battery) and electric motor to provide power to various components,
sensors, control systems, and other interface electronics. The electric motor drive converts the stiff dc
battery voltage to dc (for dc motor) or ac (for ac motor) voltage levels with controllable amplitude and
frequency. Besides performing the propulsion of PEVs with induction motors, the dc motors are used
in order to manage the auxiliary systems such as air conditioning (A/C) compressor and pumps [5-7].
The input command of the motor drive is converted to torque command that sets the operating
point parameters of the electric motor. The torque command, in conjunction with the feedback signals
from sensors, performs by adjusting the turn-on and turn-off transitions of the power switches through

2
the drive system. The motor drive then shifts the power at the desired voltage and frequency to the
motor, which in turn delivers the desired torque and speed for propulsion [7,8].
This section covers power electronic converters and inverters, dc and ac electric motors that are
most widely utilized in vehicle technology and motor drives specifically for PEVs. The PEEM
subsections focus on actual and practical electric vehicle technologies instead of pure power
electronics and introduces the application areas of widely known power electronics in PEVs.

2- Power Electronics Used in PEVs

Power electronics is a wide research area owing to its circuit topologies converting the power from
ac to dc or vice versa. In addition to current waveform conversions, ac-ac cycloconverters or dc-dc
converters are used to generate the required various frequency, current, and voltage levels. The power
electronics circuits and components used in a PEV are depicted in Fig.1 where all the components are
introduced in the following subsections. Even though the electric motor in the figure is shown as
actuating the rear wheels, the front wheel propulsion is widely used referring to actual automotive
technology.
The main topics of power electronics required for a PEV design cover;
 Rectifiers: The rectifiers are used in ac-dc conversion stages of PEVs where the grid
electricity is firstly met with this device. The grid voltage obtained from plug is 110V/60Hz or
220V/50Hz single-phase ac input in household application of PEV. Rectifiers are analysed in ideal
circuit topology and uncontrolled or controlled power switch topologies. Since the automotive
applications are mostly based on uncontrolled rectifiers, controlled rectifiers will not be analysed in
this section.
 Power Converters: Power converters are classified according to their input and output types
namely dc-dc converters and ac-ac cycloconverters. dc-dc converters are designed to increase or
decrease the input voltage stage to desired value at the output. Therefore, a device known as buck
or step-up converter decreases the output value according to a high input voltage while boost or
step-up converter generates an increased output voltage. The cycloconverters are used to meet high
voltage and high power requirements of large motors where frequency and voltage levels are
adjusted by converter. The ac-ac converters are not used in electric vehicles and the frequency or ac
voltage requirements are provided by inverters that may be named as dc-ac converters. The
cascaded inverter topologies are introduced in brief besides widely used full bridge inverters in
PEVs. Control techniques of inverters are also focused in a following subsection.

Figure 1. Power electronics and electrical components used in a PEV

3
  Motors and Motor Controllers: Motors or electric drives used in electric vehicles are
classified in two main categories as brushed or brushless. Induction motors, brushless dc motors
(BLDC), and permanent magnet brushless (PMBL) motors that are widely used PEV electric drives
are analysed in terms of physical structures and controllers in a separate subsection.
 Controller and sensors: Almost all the power electronics in PEV require control signals as
met in industrial applications. The required control signals are generated by microcontrollers and
commutate power electronic devices with switches to provide fixed speed or torque. To obtain the
instant control action, interface electronic devices are used besides current and voltage sensors
located in the related parts.
The power electronic as being a discipline of electronics itself, the devices mentioned above are
mostly known by anyone who is familiar to this research area. Therefore, the following topics are
dedicated to specific power electronics used in PEVs instead of analysing entire variations of devices.

3- Rectifiers

The rectifier is a circuit that converts ac to dc owing to diodes in uncontrolled structure or

thyristors in controlled structure. A general overview is given in Fig.2 where the input utility voltage is
shown with Vin, while f and q stand for line frequency (50Hz/60Hz) and phase number, respectively.

Figure 2. General rectifier overview

The half-wave rectifiers are used in low power or industrial applications to isolate load from
power line and are widely preferred because of its low cost installation. The power output and
therefore, the rectification efficiency is quite low besides its low transformer utilization ratio and high
ripple factor requiring a robust filtering[9-11]. The full-wave or bridge rectifiers generate dc output
voltage during each half cycle of a period on the contrary of half-wave rectifiers [12, 13].
The full-wave rectifiers can be accomplished with two different circuit topologies that are known
as center-tapped and bridge rectifier. The bridge rectifier depicted in Fig.3 requires four diodes while it
is enough to use two diodes in the center-tapped rectifier due to transformer structure [9]. In the full-
wave rectifier with center-tapped transformer, each diode acts as a half-wave rectifier using the tapped
half of line transformer and output generates a full-wave waveform to supply the load [11]. The
average value of the load voltage (vL) is defined as Vdα in Fig.3 and calculated as given below;

Figure 3. Single phase full-wave rectifier

4
 T
1
T 0
Vd  vL (t )dt (1)

If this generic equation is rearranged for full-wave bridge rectifier;


1
Vd 
 V
0
m sin t dt (2)

is obtained. Therefore,
2Vm
Vd   0.636  Vm (3)

The root mean square (rms) value of load voltage,
Vm
VL _ rms   0.707  Vm (4)
2

The rms value of a full-wave rectified voltage should be equal to that of the original ac voltage as
proved in Eq. (5) [11-13]. The supply and load waveforms of rectifier with RL load are seen in Fig.4.
Each diode pairs (D1D3-D2D4) are switched on during positive and negative half cycles of source
voltage (Vd) provided by transformer. Therefore, the output current flow is continuously obtained in
sinusoidal waveform and there is not any phase shift occurred with output voltage. The load current
waveform seen in Fig.4 is obtained with an R-L load where a 2mH inductance is selected to observe
effect of the inductance on current waveform.

Figure 4. Single-phase full-wave rectifier simulations with RL loads

The load voltage is seen in sinusoidal waveform while Id is distorted by odd harmonics and a
phase shift is occurred between Vd and Id. There a distortion is also seen in source current because of
source inductance. The bridge diode currents are seen in square waveform in high inductive loads that
is a usual case seen in industrial applications [9,11,13].

4- DC-DC Converters

The dc-dc converters in PEVs are required to keep the output voltages stable against varying
source voltages supplied by fuel cells or batteries. Furthermore, the variable and/or stable torque and
speed requirements under several conditions also involve dc-dc converters. All the electronic
equipments in PEVs require a fixed dc input voltage. This requirement is accomplished by decreasing
or increasing the input voltage of the converter and performing circuit is called with its operating

5
principle where a buck converter (step-down) adjusts the output voltage by decreasing the source
voltage or a boost converter (step-up) that increases the output voltage to a fixed value. There is a third
type of converter namely buck-boost is widely used in PEVs that performs specific features of both
buck and boost converters together. These converters are constituted with a high frequency switching
devices and reactive components to ensure operating in the continuous conduction mode [14,15].
The converters are mostly utilized after the rectifier block to ensure supplying the battery charger
with a stable dc voltage, at the output of battery or fuel cell, and before dc motor drives that are fed by
auxiliary batteries as illustrated in Fig.1 [16-17]. The following subsections deals with the most widely
used converter topologies such as buck converter, boost converter and buck-boost converter with
design criteria for PEVs.

4.1. Buck (Step-down) Converter

The buck converter, which is also known as step-down converter, is shown in Fig.5. It involves
input source (Vs), controlled switching device (S), a diode (D), low-pass filter with L and C, and load
resistance. Inductor and capacitor ensure to generate output voltage at a limited ripple ratio and filters
the output according to requirements of the load. The filtering operation affects the circuit analysis
mode depending to inductor value. The inductor current never drops to zero if the inductor value is
high enough and this analysis mode is called continuous conduction mode (CCM). In case of
inadequate inductor values, inductor current drops to zero for a while in each half-cycle where this
mode is known as discontinuous conduction mode (DCM). There are separate analysis required for
CCM and DCM and the relation between these modes is described with boundary analysis method.

Figure 5. Circuit diagram of buck converter

The relationship among the input voltage, output voltage, and the switch duty ratio D can be
derived from the inductor voltage VL waveform. The DT in Fig.6 expresses duty ratio or the interval
where the switch is on while the left interval shows off state. Inductor and output currents are seen in
the first curve of Fig.6 [9-11].
The voltage equation of the circuit is calculated by using maximum and minimum inductor
currents,
 V  VC 
I max  I min   S  DT (5)
 L 
 V 
I min  I max    C  (1  D)T (6)
 L 
VC  DV
. S (7)

The minimum inductor value providing the converter to operate in CCM is determined as,
 TR 
L  1  D  (8)
 2 

6
 Figure 6. Waveforms of buck converter

4.2. Boost (Step-up) Converter

A boost converter, which the circuit diagram is shown in Fig.7, is a power converter with an
output dc voltage greater than its input dc voltage. It is a class of switching-mode power supply
containing at least two semiconductor switches (a diode and a controlled switch) and at least one
energy storage element (capacitor and/or inductor). Filters made of capacitors are normally added to
the output of the converter to reduce output voltage ripple and the inductor connected in series with
the input dc source in order to reduce the current ripple. The diode is reverse biased when the switch is
on and therefore conduction does not occur in this state. The load is supplied in the off state of power
switch. The value of output capacitor should be high enough to obtain a stable output voltage in
steady-state analysis [18,19].
The maximum and minimum values of inductor currents are seen in Fig.8 where currents of
switch, capacitor, and load voltage are also given respectively.

Figure 7. Circuit diagram of boost converter

The boost converter is also analysed for CCM and DCM, and the relation between these modes is
described with boundary analysis method. The inductor current (i L) is differentially increased during
on state,
diL VS
 (9)
dt L
The capacitor voltage (Vc) should be greater than Vs in order to decrease the inductor current. The
inductor current in the off state of switch is calculated as follows,

7
 Figure 8. Waveforms of boost converter

diL VS  VC
 (10)
dt L
Since the increment and decrement of i L should be equal in on and off states, the voltage relation
of converter is defined as,
VS
VC  VO  (11)
1 D

4.3. Buck-Boost Converter

The buck-boost converter namely step-up/down is a popular non-isolated, inverting power stage
topology as shown in Fig. 9. The buck-boost converter is selected because of the output voltage is
inverted from the input voltage, and the output voltage can be either higher or lower than the input
voltage. The diode voltage is reversed when the switch is turned to on state and the diode current (iD)
is obtained at zero value in this case. Furthermore, the source voltage is transferred to inductor and iL
increases as a function of time in conduction mode. The connection between the source and inductor is
leaved by switching off the S and iD gets equal to iL in this state. The mentioned on and off states are
used in steady state analysis as given in the following equation for each operation mode [18,19].

Figure 9. Circuit diagram of buck-boost converter

The output voltage equation is obtained by equalling the variations of inductor currents as given in
Eq. 12

8
 D
VC  VS (12)
1 D

Figure 10. Waveforms of buck-boost converter

The operation mode is determined according to value of D where higher values than 0.5 provides
to operate in boost mode and lower values to operate in buck mode. The output voltage is negative as
seen in Fig.10.

5- Inverters

The main objective of the power inverters is to generate an ac output waveform by using the dc
input. Several industrial applications such as uninterruptible power supplies (UPS), static VAR
compensators, active filters, flexible ac transmission systems (FACTS), and voltage compensator
require ac waveforms. The magnitude, frequency, and phase should be controllable for sinusoidal ac
outputs. In electric vehicles, inverters are used to provide the required voltage and/or current for ac
motors, and consequently the inverter control algorithms perform motor control operations in terms of
torque and speed. Inverters are considered as voltage source inverters (VSI) and current source
inverters (CSI) according to the type of output generation where VSIs are widely used in many
industrial applications and novel topologies are developed to meet the power requirements.
The efficiency parameters of an inverter such as switching losses and harmonic reduction are
principally depended on the modulation strategies used to control the inverter [19-21]. There is various
control techniques that can be classified into two groups such as feed-back and feed-forward control
have been proposed to reduce the switching losses and harmonics in occurred in dc link inverters [22-
24]. A complete ac motor drive and control system is shown in Fig.11, where a microcontroller
dynamically controls the three-phase full bridge inverter according to feedback data inherited from
sensors. The switches of any phase leg in the inverter (S1 and S4, S3 and S6, or S5 and S2) cannot be
switched on simultaneously to prevent a short circuit across the dc link voltage supply as considered in
the single-phase VSIs. Similarly, the switches of any leg in the inverter cannot be switched off
simultaneously in order to avoid undefined switching states and undefined ac output line voltages in
the VSI. The phase outputs are mutually phase shifted by 120º angles. The line voltage rates of
inverter are determined according to modulation indexes (m i) which define the operating area as in
linear modulation (mi≤1) or as over-modulation (mi>1) range. The line voltages are limited to (

9
 3V 2 )
d
of dc line in linear modulation range and are limited to (4/π).( 3Vd 2 ) in over modulation
range [25-27].

Figure 11. A complete ac motor drive system with full-bridge inverter for EVs

The Sinusoidal PWM (SPWM) modulator acts as an amplifier in the linear modulation range with
the gain parameter (G) seen as in Eq. (16).

0.5miVd 0.5Vd
G  (13)
Vp Vt

The closed loop control operation is performed to ensure torque or speed stabilisation of ac motor.
In recent years, multilevel inverters have gained much attention in the application areas of medium
voltage and high power owing to their various advantages such as lower common mode voltage, lower
voltage stress on power switches, lower dv/dt ratio to eliminate higher harmonic contents in output
voltage and current. The multilevel inverters (MLIs) also have the advantages of lower harmonic ratios
of line-to-line voltages fed to load are reduced owing to its switching frequencies when compared to
two-level inverter topologies at the same power ratings. The most common MLI topologies classified
into three types are diode clamped MLI (DC-MLI), flying capacitor MLI (FC-MLI), and cascaded H-
bridge MLI (CHB-MLI). Since MLIs are mostly used in large hybrid electric vehicles instead of EV or
PEVs, these topologies are not analyzed in this section. Further information about MLIs can be found
in [25].

6- Electrical Machines and Controllers

The propulsion systems of electric, hybrid electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles are based
on electrical machines. The rapid improvements seen in electrical machines and power electronics
devices also contribute the development of EVs. There are a few electric motors among others are
known as workhorse in power-train applications. Induction machines (IM), permanent magnet
synchronous machines (PMSM), and brushless dc machines (BLDC) are the several electric machine

10
types used in EV power-train applications with specific controllers. Due to the developments met in
power electronics, various machine control techniques are implemented to increase the efficiency [28-
30].
An electric machine used in an EV is chosen according to its construction structure, efficiency,
maintenance requirements, electromagnetic interference (EMI), reliability, and speed range
parameters. The machine controllers are power electronics systems that are combined with sensors and
observers in order to ensure the wide speed range in constant torque situations and extended speed
range for constant power requirements [3]. Fixing the gear ratio allows to easily adjust the speed
where a high speed electric machine can be used due to its smaller size and weights less in contrast to
low speed machines. This section deals with electrical equivalents and controllers of IMs, PMSMs,
and BLDCs for EVs. Furthermore, there are various textbooks and application notes introducing
electrical machines in detail can be found in literature.

6.1. AC Induction Motor (ACIM) and Controllers

The induction machine, which has two separate operation mode as generator or motor, is used in
motor mode for power-train applications. An equivalent circuit can be used to model the induction
motor for electric vehicles. The efficiency of the motor can be easily calculated, if the parameters of
the equivalent circuit model seen in Fig. 12 are known. Besides the starting and maximum torque
characteristics of an induction motor, some other steady-state performance characteristics include the
variation of current, speed, and losses as the load-torque requirements.
The rotor of an induction motor can be wounded or squirrel-cage type. A wound rotor is built with
a poly-phase winding similar to the stator where the rotor terminals are externally available on the
motor. On the other hand, a squirrel-cage rotor has a winding that consists of conductor bars
embedded on the rotor iron, which are short-circuited at each end by conducting end rings. The wound
rotor is the most common type of ACIM in sizes ranging from fractional horsepower on up. The
difference between synchronous speed and the rotor speed is commonly referred to the slip of the rotor
[29,31]. The rational slip factor (s) is defined as
ns  nr
s % (14)
ns
where the synchronous speed is ns and the rotor speed is depicted with nr both in terms of revolutions
per minute (rpm). The synchronous speed is calculated with Eq. 15.
120  f
ns  (15)
P
where f is the line frequency in hertz and P is the number of poles in the machine. The equivalent
circuit shown in Fig. 12 contains the electrical and mechanical power conversion properties of an
induction motor in a schematic diagram.
The stator equivalent circuit that is seen on the left hand side up to R m//Xm magnetizing circuit of
Fig. 12 is combined with stator resistance (R s) and stator inductance (Xls). The core losses of stator and
rotor are depicted in the magnetizing circuit. The power flow diagram of a polyphase induction motor
is shown in Fig. 13 by considering input power (P i), air gap power (P g), mechanical converted power
(Pm), and mechanical output power (P 0). The m parameter is the number of phase applied to motor
while T is torque, and ωm is the angular velocity.

11
 Figure 12. Modified equivalent circuit model of an induction motor

An induction motor can be operated by vector controls with appropriate feedback signals that are
obtained from encoders. This method performs the speed control by a PWM synthesized sinusoidal
waveform.

Figure 13. Power flow diagram of an induction motor

The vector controlled motors that are typically designed include a high efficiency winding, an
efficient lamination design, and high-temperature insulation materials. The tighter speed regulation
approaching to 0.01% of fixed speed can be attained by vector control according to scalar control
methods. A vector controller allows obtaining controllable speed ranges from zero to five times of
base speed. The constant horsepower range is also about 3.5 times of the base speed. The smooth
stopping and highly efficient operation is obtained by using a vector control. Standard vector controls
with dynamic brake resistor are used in many applications.

The advantages of this approach include low initial cost, reliability, the capability of providing full
rated torque from rated speed down to zero, precise speed and torque control, constant output power
above the rated speed, and such programmable features as controlling acceleration/deceleration time
and tuning. The vector control of an ACIM can be applied with high-performance adjustable-speed
applications of EVs. The block diagram of a vector control system is shown in Fig. 14. The speed
controller is based on a PI regulator that controls the motor slip ratio where the value computed by the
regulator is added to the motor speed in order to generate the demand frequency. The latter frequency
is also used to generate the demanded voltage in order to maintain the constant V/f ratio of the motor.

The space vector PWM modulator contains three-phase generator, low-pass bus filter, α-β
transformation, α-β vector sector, ramp generator, and switching time calculator[32,33]. Three-phase
generator provides the modulating signals in 120° degree phase shift and the α-β transformer generates
three-phase to two-phase conversion in order to be used in sector preparation. The low-pass bus filter

12
is used to remove fast transients from the dc bus voltage measurement. The feed-forward method is
used to compute the voltage vector applied to the motor [34,35].

Figure 14. Vector control block diagram of an ac induction motor

Another widely used control technique of the induction motor is known as field-oriented control
(FOC). The FOC of an induction motor achieves torque (T) and rotor flux (ψr) dynamics in a
decoupled way by orthogonal projection of the stator current into torque (T) and flux (ψr) generating
components. The orientation angle that allows a complete decoupling between those two variables is
the rotor flux angle, θ. This technique is performed by two basic methods that are namely direct and
indirect vector control. The required instant value is obtained by direct measurements using flux
sensors or flux estimators in direct field orientation, whereas indirect field orientation is based on the
inverse flux model dynamics and there are three possible implementation based on the stator, rotor or
air gap flux orientation. The indirect control technique of rotor flux is the most widely used due to its
simplicity. Although the FOC methods are attractive, they suffer from one major disadvantage that is
related to sensitivity.
The FOC methods are sensitive to parameter variations such as rotor time constant and incorrect
flux measurement or estimation at low speeds. The field oriented control block diagram of an ACIM is
shown in Fig. 15 [36-38]. Since all variables of Fig. 15 are expressed in terms of rotating coordinate
frame, the electromagnetic torque can be controlled via the imaginary component of the stator current
isq [39,40].

Figure 15. Field oriented control block diagram of an ac induction motor

13
 The rotor flux can be commanded by its real part isd according to a first order dynamic with a time
constant τr, as shown in the following equations [37];
Lm
r   isd (16)
 r  s 1
3 Lm
T p  r  isq (17)
2 Lr
Eq. 16 expresses the flux estimation while torque estimation is given in Eq. 17. The θ calculation
is used to find the phase angle of the rotor flux-rotating field [41-43].

6.2. Brushless DC Motor and Controllers

Two separate brushless motor types are known as brushless dc motor (BLDC) and permanent
magnet synchronous motor (PMSM). The brushless motors are widely used as in-wheel motors due to
their high efficiency in electric vehicles. The BLDC term means an ac motor with combination of
semiconductor inverter control and rotor position sensor. This combination provides a stable and linear
moment-speed characteristic such as classical dc motors. The major advantages of BLDC are
compactness, easy control and cooling, low maintenance and low noise, and high reliability besides its
efficiency. The BLDC commutation is performed by using simple hall-effect sensors that are
compactly located on the motor and provides appropriate current waveforms. The permanent-magnet
dc machines are widely found in a wide variety of low-power applications. The field winding is
replaced by a permanent magnet, resulting in simpler construction. The permanent magnets provide a
number of benefits in these applications. However, a high-resolution encoder is required for the
PMSM control mode to generate sinusoidal currents comparing to BLDC [11,12].
The permanent magnets provide the dc excitation of the field winding in a synchronous. By
replacing, the electrical excitation with permanent magnet ensures to eliminate the copper losses. The
BLDC machines can be categorized by the position of rotor permanent magnet in which the magnets
are mounted on the rotor. The magnets can either be surface mounted or interior mounted. There are
several textbooks and publications define the physical structure of BLDC in terms of rotor and stator
[28,31,40].

Figure 16. Idealized back EMFs (EA, EB, EC) and current signals (IA, IB, IC) of a three-phase BLDC motor

14
 Therefore, this part will focus on back electromagnetic force (EMF) properties of BLDC and
PMSM and control techniques of brushless motors. The back EMF of BLDC motors are classified in
two ways such as trapezoidal-shaped and sinusoidal-shaped. The basic torque and voltage equations of
BLDC closely resemble those of brushed dc motors. The PMSM is sinusoidal excited while the BLDC
is trapezoidal excited machine motor.
The construction differences between are that while the stator windings of the trapezoidal PM
machines are concentrated into a narrow-phase pole, the windings of a sinusoidal machine are
typically distributed over multiple slots to approximate a sinusoidal distribution. These differences in
construction are reflected in their corresponding motion characteristics. This implies the consequence
that the first type of PMSM provides sinusoidal back-electromotive force (back-EMF) generation, and
the second type provides trapezoidal back-EMF. The Back EMF is directly proportional to the motor
speed while the torque production is almost directly proportional to the phase current. The idealized
back EMF and current waveforms are seen in Fig.16 where the BLDC is operating during half cycles
of each three-phase. The back EMF waveforms indicate the switching orders of three-phase inverter in
torque or speed controller that are shown in Fig. 17 and Fig.18 respectively.
Fig. 17 depicts a torque control scheme for a BLDC motor drive. The desired current I* is derived
from the commanded torque T* through a torque controller. The current controller and commutation
sequencer acquires the desired current I* from limiter, the position information from the position
sensors, and the required current feedback through current transducers, and then generates gating
signals. The gating signals are applied to the three-phase inverter to generate the desired phase current
to the BLDC machine.

Figure 17. Block diagram of the torque control of a three-phase BLDC motor

The three-phase inverter is widely used in full-bridge topology. Most of the high-performance
traction control systems require torque control to sustain required performance. The speed control of a
BLDC shown in Fig. 18 is based on torque controller with additional equipments such as speed sensor
and speed controller block. The speed control is used in cruise control of traction application where
stabilizing the speed is required. The speed sensors acquire the actual rpm (ωr) value of the BLDC to
compare the desired reference speed (ωr*). The speed controller block is constituted with classical
proportional-integral (PI), proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controllers or advanced software
controllers such as artificial intelligence or neural network controllers.

15
 Figure 18. Block diagram of the speed control of a three-phase BLDC motor

The remainder blocks in the controller perform as in torque controller. The switching signals are
generated according to inherited values and are applied to inverter in order to generate three-phase line
voltage of BLDC [40,44,45].

7- The Latest Power Electronics in EVs

The circuit diagram seen in Fig.19 is known as resonant inverter application used for ac motor
driving operations. The additional switches located between phase legs and neutral points constitutes
the auxiliary resonant commutated pole (ARCP) that provides to operate the inverter in soft switching
mode to decrease the switching losses and to increase the efficiency. The auxiliary circuit helps enable
the load to be swung to the opposite rail to assure zero turn-on voltage. If the auxiliary circuit is not
included, then there is a load current constraint to insure zero turn-on voltage.

Figure 19. A zero-voltage-transition inverter for ac motors

Emerging power electronics in electric vehicles also cover the dc-dc converter topologies. There
are several topologies developed to increase the conversion efficiency and decrease the switching
losses. Besides the unidirectional dc-dc converters introduced in 4 th section, the novel applications
seen in electric vehicles are based on bidirectional converter topologies. The bi-directional dc-dc

16
converter plays an important role in the four-quadrant EV propulsion system where it covers motoring
and generator modes. While the EV drive operates in motoring mode, it consumes supply energy from
the batteries. On the other hand, when the EV driver switched into braking mode the batteries are
charged by electric motor owing to bidirectional structure of converter. Therefore, the bi-directional
dc-dc converter will be the key device in EVs. Bidirectional converters can operate in both motoring
and regenerative braking modes, and it is therefore dedicated to four-quadrant operation of EV
propulsion systems. The most widely used bidirectional converters are shown in Fig. 20 where
Fig.20.a illustrates the cascaded buck-boost while half-bridge and split-π configurations are seen in
Fig.20.b and Fig.20.c, respectively [46,47].
Although the cascaded buck-boost converter topology decreases the electrical and thermal stresses
on switching devices, it requires twice of the active devices according to regular buck-boost topology.
The required switch number can be decreased by using half-bridge topology seen in Fig.20.b where
the passive components are at the same number.

(a) (b)

(c)

Figure 20. Bidirectional DC–DC converter configurations; (a) cascaded buck-boost, (b) half-bridge,(c) split-π.

The split-π configuration is relatively a new topology among other dc-dc converters, and has
numerous application areas as regenerative braking in electric vehicles. The passive components that
are used in a split-π converter are quite smaller in terms of sizes and yields efficiency over 97%.
Furthermore, the switching losses, distortions, and ripples on the output current waveform are reduced
owing to the topological configuration [46,47].

8- Conclusion

This chapter is dedicated to specific applications used in EV technology although the power
electronics devices and motor drives cover a wide research area. The related topics are arranged from
plug to propulsion system for a PEV as shown in Fig.1. The rectifier circuits are used to convert ac
grid voltage to dc voltage, and supplies the converted voltage to dc/dc converters as introduced in
fourth subsection. There are several novel converter topologies are also announced in the literature to

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decrease costs and increase the efficiency besides the introduced main topologies. A converter ensures
the charge control of battery system and allows getting the batteries charged in several modes by
controlling rectifier output and regenerative braking feedbacks. Furthermore, dc-dc converters also
manage the dc motor controls. Inverters cover a wide research area in medium and high power
application due to proposed topologies such as full bridge, multilevel and resonant structures.
Multilevel inverters generate output voltage in staircase levels that increases the number of voltage
steps and decreases the electromagnetic interference (EMI) rates. Low cost topologies such as full-
bridge or resonant types are widely used in EVs since the inverters are used in motor drive operations.
Three-phase full-bridge inverter that is analyzed in 5th subsection is the main energy conversion part of
motor control applications shown in Fig. 14, Fig.15, Fig. 17, and Fig. 18. Resonant inverters, namely
soft switching inverters, tackle switching power losses by managing commutating intervals during
zero voltage or zero current transitions.
All the power electronics devices introduced up to 6 th section require a microcontroller or
microprocessor to generate switching signals considering the reference values obtained from voltage
or current sensors. The most widely used electric motors in EVs are surveyed in 6 th section with drive
methods and systems. Induction machines (IM), permanent magnet synchronous machines (PMSM),
and brushless dc machines (BLDC) are considered as several electric machine types used in EV
powertrain applications with specific controllers. The machine control techniques and controllers are
implemented to increase the efficiency of the machine due to developments met in power electronics.
Speed or torque control systems can be summarized as a synthesis of electric motor, observers
(position and/or speed sensors), and inverter. The microcontroller unit (MCU) manages the closed
loop control by acquiring the reference values form sensors, determining the required arrangements,
and generating the required switching signals for inverter. The efficiency of closed loop is mostly
based on the algorithm that runs on MCU besides self-performance of each device. The estimating
algorithms, which allows to sensorless control are developed to remove the sensor requirement in
speed and torque control. Other widely known algorithms such as Park, Clarke and Inverse Park,
Inverse Clark provide 3-phase/2-phase conversion and generate d-q reference values in current control.
BLDC and PMSM motors are frequently used in propulsion systems due to their higher rpm rates
comparing to IMs. The BLDCs with 230V supply can generate up to 20000 rpm and 250 HP power.
The internal sensor and tachometer options are evaluated as an important advantage. Furthermore, hub
or in-wheel BLDCs provide independent control for each wheels as a 4x4-like application.

9- Discussion

The power electronics and drives have the key role on traction control of electric vehicle
technologies. The latest trends involve the most efficient power flow that is realized from battery
through the entire vehicle. In order to achieve this, there are numerous studies performed on
innovative issues such as highly efficient converters, bidirectional power control, dynamic feedback,
and regenerative braking. On the other hand, motor drives are also extensively studied owing to
emerging magnetic and electrical materials. This chapter covers the most widely used power
electronics and motor drives referring to classical circuit topologies and presenting the novel
configurations. It is seen that the energy efficient converters such as resonant or hybrid ones sustain
their popularity due to reliable switching specifications at higher frequencies. Another important issue
discussed for converter circuits is bidirectional configuration that allows to operate the traction motor
as a generator during the braking mode. In this mode, the generated energy is used to charge the
batteries if there is a convenient converter configuration used. Consequently, more efficient and high
power electric vehicles depend on high performance power electronics.

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