Motor and drives for automotive auxiliaries

• One of the first project about automotive applications was the design and the development of the motor and drive for the cooling water pump of a high level car. Both motor and drive were integrated in the pump body. Permanent magnet DC brushless motor has been chosen and designed, fed by a sensolress Power Mosfet drive. Rotor position was estimated from stator voltages and currents by and Extended Kalman Filter. Motor and drive were succesfully prototyped and tested by EDLab-PD and at the manufacturer laboratory.

• EDLab-PD was financed by Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research for the design and development of motors and drives for full Electric Power Steering according to the steer-by-wire concept. The project was part of a larger research project of advanced applications of electrical motor drives in the filed of automotive. Partners were Polytechnic of Torino and University of Bologna, involved in the design of other innovative applications of drives (brakes, continuously variable transmission, …). Reference car was an Alfa Rome model. EDLab designed the motors for both the wheel steering mechanism and the hand-whell reflection torque. Interior PM synchronous motors were used for the former and Surface-mounted PM motor for the latter. Intensive investigation about fault tollerance issues was triggered by the project as well as about vehicle dynamic and steer-by-wire control algorithms, both tested by a laboratory test bench. The experience was appreciated by an US company manufacturing Electric Power Steering which committed further studies on the issue by a confidential research contract on the topic "Analysis, Design and Prototyping of Interior PM Motors for Electric Power Steering".

• EDLab young researchers participated to the 2007 IEEE International Future Energy Challenge on the tipic Design of an innovative Integrated Starter/Alternator-Motor Drive for Automotive Applications. They won two of the four prizes. Details are in Page Awards and Recognitions, Sect Ifec-2007