Maximum Torque Per Ampere Strategy for a Bi-harmonic Five-phase Synchronous Machine

The paper studies the impact of first and third current-harmonic repartition in a five-phase Permanent Magnet machine whose Electromotive Forces (emfs) have first and third harmonics of the same amplitude. With a five-phase machine, it is possible for the torque production to achieve independent controls of the first and third harmonics of currents by using a vector control in each one of the two characteristic orthogonal sub-spaces of the machine. The same torque quality as obtained with a three-phase machine with sinusoidal emf can be thus obtained with a non-sinusoidal emf and with one more supplementary degree of freedom for the control. Based on the Maximum Torque Per Ampere (MTPA) strategy used for three-phase machines, a comparison of the obtained torque/speed characteristics of the machine is achieved using either one or two harmonics. The voltage limits imposed by the Voltage Source Inverter and two different values of the maximum allowed current densities are taken into account for obtaining the optimum repartition between first and third harmonics of currents: it appears that at first, from the point of view of efficiency, the MTPA is not optimal except for low speeds and secondly that the repartition of currents is not trivial and depends for example on the considered maximum current densities.