AN EFFICIENCY OPTIMIZED OPERATION OF INDUCTION MOTOR DRIVE SYSTEMS FOR ELECTRIC VEHICLES

The induction motor of the electric vehicles is controlled based on the vector control method to obtain good torque control characteristics. In the conventional vector control system, the field exciting current should be kept on a constant value to keep a stable flux level. This method has a liability that core loss becomes increasing at the light load region. To solve this liability, the efficiency maximizing control method of the vector controlled induction motor is proposed in thid paper. We developed light weight water cooled 60kW induction motor drive system which adopts our method and fabricated a conversion electric car for actual vehicle test. We demonstrate the usefulness of drive system by comparing its driving mode with conventional field oriented system and an efficiency maximizing controlled induction motor.