Abstract

This paper describes the techniques applied to maximise the torque en- velope of the permanent magnet AC (PMAC) motor operating under current and voltage constraints. Standard steady-state descriptions of the system are often suitable for control purposes when the rotor velocity is varying rela- tively slowly. In low inertia applications such as clutchless gearchange opera- tions, where in the pursuit of driveability, the motor is required to accelerate and decelerate its own rotor inertia as quickly as possible. In this case, the voltage drop due to the current dynamics start to become significant. This paper presents a method to reserve voltage headroom dynamically in the field-weakening region in order to maximise the torque envelope when the effective inertia is low. Experimental results show the effectiveness of this approach.