Evaluation of the Efficiency Performance of 3-Phase and 6-Phase Voltage Source Inverter

Abstract

Potential future trends led to the automobile industry's proposal for six-phase powertrains. Due to this fact, the article deals with the power analysis, which is devoted to topologies, used within powertrain of the vehicle, i.e. Voltage Source Inverter (VSI) topology in standard 3-phase and extended 6-phase configuration. The simulation program PLECS analyzes topologies, calculates the power losses of semiconductor devices, and processes the data gathered from each investigated topology. The goal of the power parameter analysis is to determine which of the topologies, given the identical input parameters, results in the inverter system's maximum efficiency at different power levels.