An approach to eliminating high-frequency shaft voltage and ground leakage current from an inverter-driven motor

This paper proposes a small-sized passive electromagnetic interference (EMI) filter for the purpose of eliminating high-frequency shaft voltage and ground leakage current from an ac motor driven by a voltage-source pulsewidth-modulation inverter. The filter requires access to the neutral point of the motor. A common-mode inductor is connected between the inverter and the motor. The neutral point of the motor is connected to the dc-bus midpoint via a resistor. The dc-bus midpoint is created by using two capacitors in series across the dc positive and negative buses. This unique circuit configuration makes the common-mode inductor effective in reducing the common-mode voltage appearing at the motor terminals. The validity and effectiveness of the EMI filter is verified by experimental results obtained from a 5-kVA laboratory system.