The aims and the control structure of the Italian poly-current Pendolino

The drive of the Italian poly-current Pendolino (3 kV DC-25 kV 50 Hz-15 kV 16 2/3 Hz), has been developed combining a four quadrant input power converter (which is transformed into a chopper in the case of DC feeding) and an inverter-fed asynchronous motor drive. The system has been designed using 4.5 kV-3 kA GTO valves and avoiding any parallel of the valves themselves; in this way a new 2 MW traction unit has been made which presents: (i) two four quadrant (or four choppers) power converters; (ii) an intermediate DC constant voltage of 2.4 kV and an impressed voltage inverter connected to four asynchronous motors in parallel. This paper presents the main features of the new train and the structure of the controllers