Motor Drive Power Hardware Design a Complete Design Workflow from Loss-Comparison to EMI Considerations

Designing the power stage of a motor drive poses several interesting design and optimization tradeoffs. And what makes it even more complex is that you typically require a working motor drive control algorithm to drive the motor at the shaft speed and at your developed torque set points of interest.

Some major design decisions involve:

- Comparing switching and conduction losses of specific devices

- Comparing losses and performance at different switching speeds

- Evaluate losses in different PWM schemes (DPWM, SVPWM, etc)

- Optimizing DC bus capacitor size and rating

- Determining the total system efficiency as a function of developed torque and shaft speed

- Evaluate flyback voltages under inverter faults at different operating speeds

- Conducted EMI considerations

- Linking to Simulink for co-simulation

One typical challenge is getting a working control algorithm from the control design group.

Another time-wasting activity is setting up and running the many simulations that are required to compare these dependent design variables.

And then, What if someone wants to evaluate performance at a lower switching speed?

The control loops likely need to be totally redesigned to accommodate this and then everything needs to be re-simulated.

Do you have time for this?

Using PSIM's design and automation tools we will show you how to enable even someone with little knowledge of motor control algorithms to quickly design and verify the performance of the power stage without requiring input from a separate controls group:

- Use the Motor Control Design Suite to get stable current, torque, and speed controllers for your motor and operating conditions.

- Utilize Scripting Automation to define different simulation attributes and compile interpreted results. This could save you days of back and forth with your colleagues and many hours of manual simulation setup.

- Generate motor drive efficiency maps by linking with JMAG-RT which will calculate the copper and iron losses of your motor. The iron losses are broken into eddy current and hysteresis losses.

- Convert ideal switch models into non-ideal switches and define parasitic bus inductance, common-mode capacitors, and other parasitic elements to start getting an understanding of your system's conducted EMI.

- After that, use automation again to understand the sensitivity to certain parasitic values and their impact on the differential mode and common mode noise.

- Finally, you just compare your results against your desired EMI standard to ensure compliance. If you're not compliant, use the automated filter design tool provided in the EMI Design Suite to fix it.

It almost couldn't be more convenient and easy to use.

We will demonstrate PSIM's link to Simulink as this is another typical approach to power stage design: PSIM simulates the power stage while the control is in Simulink.

PSIM functionality that we cover in this webinar:

- PSIM Motor Drive Package

- Motor Control Design Suite

- EMI Design Suite

- JMAG-RT link (MagCoupler RT module)