Fault-Tolerant Optimal-Current Torque-Controlled Five-Phase PMSMs with Open-Circuited Phases: Position Self-Sensing Operation

All-electric vehicles should be made more reliable in such way one can continue driving even after the event of one or more faults in the electrical drive. For this, the use of multiphase (more than 3 phases) electrical machines is considered here due to its redundant feature. An additional technique to increase reliability is to replace sensors by observers. This paper studies the feasibility to control the torque in multi-phase permanent magnet synchronous drives without a position sensor, with the lowest Joule losses, and this for a healthy as well as for a faulty operation with one or more phases open-circuited.