New measurement approach to variable speed drive testing based on multilevel multivariable experiments theory

The authors firstly accomplish a description of the implemented automatic measurement station for efficiency measurements on high and low power electrical drives. Then, the adopted testing procedure, based on central composite rotatable design for multilevel multivariables, implemented to obtain the information requested to minimize the amount of measurements necessary to fully evaluate VSD performance, is discussed in detail. The paper is completed with a trial of the proposed methodology by means of experimental results obtained on a 380 V, 5 kW variable speed drive.