Improving anti-slip performance in multi-motor single inverter based heavy electric vehicle

Multiple motors are used in heavy commercial electric vehicles (EV s) to meet their large torque requirements. For multi-motor single inverter (MMSI) operation of induction motors, one motor is selected as primary and the other as secondary. Conventionally, the primary motor is selected to prevent any motor from becoming over-saturated. However, this method leads to a significant overshoot in the velocity of the slipping wheel. Further, the stator current of the motor connected in parallel to the slipping wheel may also rise to a large value in case of a wheel slip. Thus, the appropriate selection of the primary motor becomes crucial during wheel slips. This paper proposes a selection strategy to mitigate the above challenges and improve the anti-slip performance. The performance of the proposed method and the conventional method is compared through detailed simulations. The proposed controller shows a lower overshoot in the speed of the slipping wheel, lower energy loss in heat, and increased average acceleration of the EV.