Improved transistorized ac motor controller for battery powered urban electric passenger vehicles

Technical Report · Wed Sep 01 04:00:00 EDT 1982

OSTI ID:6165008

Peak, S C

The objectives of this program for an improved ac motor controller for battery powered urban electric passenger vehicles were: the design, fabrication, test, evaluation and cost analysis of an engineering model controller for an ac induction motor drive system, the investigation of a power level expansion to a family of horsepower and battery system voltages, and the investigation of the applicability of the ac controller for use as an on-board battery charger and for providing the function of motor reversal. Additional vehicle specifications, e.g., acceleration and pulling out of potholes, were added to the NASA vehicle specifications. Then, a vehicle performance analysis was done to establish the vehicle tractive effort-speed requirements. These requirements were then converted into a set of ac motor and ac controller requirements. The General Electric ac induction motor used in the drive is optimized to operate as a vehicle traction motor with a pulse width modulated (PWM) inverter as a power source. The motor is nominally rated 20 hp and 41 hp peak. The power inverter design is a three-phase transistorized bridge configuration with feedback diodes. The transistors are a special design General Electric high-power Darlington transistor rated 450 volts and 200 amps. The battery system voltage chosen was 108 volts. The control strategy is a constant torque profile by PWM operation to base speed and a constant horsepower profile by square-wave operation to maximum speed. A gear shifting transmission is not required. An advanced current-controlled PWM technique is used to control the motor voltage. The primary feedback control is a motor angle control, with voltage and torque outer loop controls.

• Research Organization: General Electric Co., Schenectady, NY (USA). Corporate Research and Development Center
• DOE Contract Number: AI01-77CS51044
• OSTI ID: 6165008
• Report Number(s): DOE/NASA/0059-1; NASA-CR-167978; SRD-81-088; ON: DE83011771
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS
330300* -- Advanced Propulsion Systems-- Electric-Powered Systems
CONTROL EQUIPMENT
DESIGN
ELECTRIC BATTERIES
ELECTRIC MOTORS
ELECTRIC-POWERED VEHICLES
ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT
ELECTROCHEMICAL CELLS
EQUIPMENT
FEEDBACK
INVERTERS
MOTORS
SPECIFICATIONS
VEHICLES