Digital Twin for Intelligent and SiC-based Drive Systems

Reliable and efficient electric motor and inverter solutions are essential for a variety of applications. Validated digital twin, based on a co-simulation of all drive components, can contribute to these development goals at an early stage of development. Especially for modern SiC-based drive systems, these tools help to analyze the impact of fast-switching inverters and their higher switching frequencies. Within this paper, the development, the experimental validation and the use of a digital twin for an automotive traction drive system is described. The digital twin combines a FEM -based electric machine model with a SiC-inverter circuit simulation. The analyzed drive system consists of an interior permanent magnet synchronous machine (IPMSM) with 175 kW and an 800 V SiC-based inverter. It is shown that the described co-simulation tool leads to more accurate efficiency and overall machine behavior predictions.