Upon the ongoing profound revolution in the automotive industry, this book is primarily intended to give guidance on the practical design of traction motor control for pure electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs). An overview of the state-of-the-art motor types is provided to help understanding the background of automotive motor drives and the EV/HEV motor control specifications. Using AC induction motor control as a benchmark example, it addresses the motor control techniques by means of design, analysis, examples with MATLAB scripts wherever applicable, and practical control software architecture diagrams. In particular, an extensive analysis and discussion are made on the widely used vector control method together with multiple optimization schemes. As such, it gives coverage of the electric traction control including dynamics, efficiency, and the high-speed power capability, taking into account the constraints of vehicle configuration and requirements. The vector control and optimization strategies presented in this book can be ported across to other AC motor types without losing much generality.

This book tries to bridge the gap between theory and practicality. Beginning with basic motor theory and completing the motor control design by introducing voltage source inverter (VSI) pulse width modulation (PWM) techniques, it helps the reader take a step-by-step approach from understanding fundamental motor characteristics through to practical design of in-depth motor control strategies.