Impact of Silicon Carbide Devices on the Dynamic Performance of Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor Drive Systems for Electric Vehicles

This paper investigates the impact of silicon carbide (SiC) metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs) on the dynamic performance of permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) drive systems. The characteristics of SiC MOSFETs are evaluated experimentally taking into account temperature variations. Then the switching characteristics are firstly introduced into the transfer function of a SiC-inverter fed PMSM drive system. The main contribution of this paper is the investigation of the dynamic control performance features such as the fast response, the stability and the robustness of the drive system considering the characteristics of SiC MOSFETs. All the results of the SiC-drive system are compared to the silicon-(Si) insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) drive system counterpart, and the SiC-drive system manifests a higher dynamic performance than the Si-drive system. The analytical results have been effectively validated by experiments on a test bench.