A five-leg inverter for driving a traction motor and a compressor motor

This paper presents an integrated inverter for speed control of a traction motor and a compressor motor to reduce the compressor drive cost in electric vehicle/hybrid electric vehicle applications. The inverter comprises five phase-legs; three of which are for control of a three-phase traction motor and the remaining two for a two-phase compressor motor with three terminals. The common terminal of the two-phase motor is tied to the neutral point of the three-phase traction motor to eliminate the requirement of a third phase leg. Further component reduction is made possible by sharing the switching devices, dc bus filter capacitors, gate drive power supplies, and control circuit. Simulation and experimental results are included to verify that speed control of the two motors is independent from each other.