Motor Drive

Electric/Hybrid propulsion systems and electrification of other non-propulsion vehicle motors are requiring large investments. Automotive OEMs and suppliers seek to achieve optimized efficiency and control characteristics for all vehicle motors. Therefore, power electronics converters, inverters and drives are used in new vehicles.

Power electronics systems utilize power semiconductors in various half-, full (H)-, or cascaded H-bridge designs to provide optimized control and efficiency of propulsion and other motors. Complex Vector FOC or direct torque control systems, including those that monitor and control power flow based on analysis of a single device switching period, are used. Motor speed and torque feedback signals provide important information for control and power flow. All inverter subsection, control system, motor feedback, and system level devices need extensive validation, often under complex dynamic conditions.

Common Motor Drive Issues:

  • Dynamic motor/drive operation not well understood
  • Control system operation not well correlated to drive behaviors
  • System level debug and validation taking too much time
  • Inability of R+D engineers to validate system operation at their bench
  • “Static” power analysis providing an incomplete picture of “dynamic” operations

Common Use Cases

  • Peak delivered per-cycle power needed to be understood for a windshield wiper motor drive application for better motor/drive design to real-world snow loads and frozen to glass conditions.
  • A headlight system needed serial data control packets correlated to headlight movement and position.
  • An electric steering system needed to understand dynamic drive behavior and correlate activity to a KMZ60 angle sensor
  • Electric motor turbocharger boost system test
  • Propulsion system dynamic power flow during regenerative braking conditions.

The Teledyne LeCroy Solution

The Motor Drive Analyzer (MDA) provides comprehensive and complete test capability for all control, inverter subsection, and system level operations. The MDA is based on the Teledyne LeCroy’s 8 channel, 12 bit, 1 GHz oscilloscope platform, and also incorporates single and three-phase electrical and mechanical power analysis. It uniquely measures and graphically displays dynamic power behaviors.

It is one test instrument to correlate all control, inverter subsection and motor mechanical behaviors in order to better understand, validate, and debug complex dynamic behaviors.

Automotive Technology Center

The Teledyne LeCroy Automotive Technology Center is the premier Bluetooth device testing and services partner, with an enormous device library comprising 3000+ devices including coverage for every major car model.

Teledyne LeCroy Automotive Technology Center
27007 Hills Tech Court
Farmington Hills, Michigan 48331

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