Solar PV-Powered SRM Drive for EVs With Flexible Energy Control Functions

Electric vehicles (EVs) provide a feasible solution to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and thus become a hot topic for research and development. Switched reluctance motors (SRMs) are one of the promised motors for EV applications. In order to extend the EVs' driving miles, the use of photovoltaic (PV) panels on the vehicle helps to decrease the reliance on vehicle batteries. Based on the phase winding characteristics of SRMs, a tri-port converter is proposed in this paper to control the energy flow among the PV panel, battery, and SRM. Six operating modes are presented, four of which are developed for driving and two for standstill onboard charging. In the driving modes, the energy decoupling control for maximum power point tracking (MPPT) of the PV panel and speed control of the SRM are realized. In the standstill charging modes, a grid-connected charging topology is developed without a need for external hardware. When the PV panel directly charges the battery, a multisection charging control strategy is used to optimize energy utilization. Simulation results based on MATLAB/Simulink and experiments prove the effectiveness of the proposed tri-port converter, which have potential economic implications to improve the market acceptance of EVs.