A Hybrid Modular Cascade Machines System for Electric Vehicles Using Induction Machine and Permanent Magnet Synchronous Machine

Modular Cascade Machines (MCM) system is a multi-machine system for the traction systems of electrified vehicles. Currently, MCM is composed of several machines of the same type, generally, several Permanent Magnet Synchronous Machines (PMSM). This paper proposes a hybrid MCM system, which is composed of a PMSM and an Induction Machine (IM). This combination aims to fully benefit the properties of different machines. This hybrid MCM is compared with other traction systems, namely, PMSM-based MCM and single PMSM drive. For a fair comparison, the design specifications of all the traction systems are optimally sized by a specific sizing method, which can maximize the system high-efficiency area. Then, different traction systems are designed by Finite Element Method (FEM), in order to have accurate material consumptions and efficiency maps. The comparison study shows that the proposed hybrid MCM is competitive for energy saving. Therefore this new drive saves about 5% of energy in comparison with a single PMSM derive. The hybrid MCM energy saving is very close to the one of a PMSM-based MCM. Moreover, the hybrid MCM system reduces the PM volume (reduced by 53%) while increases the usage amount of winding copper, steel and aluminum, due to the existence of IM. Fortunately, the cost estimation proves that the hybrid MCM (not include inverters) has almost the same cost as the single PMSM. Hence the proposed hybrid MCM is a competitive alternative of the single PMSM than the PMSM-based MCM.