Modeling and ADRC Control of an Electric Vehicle with a Permanent Magnet Synchronous Machine Fed by an NPC Three-level Inverter

The environmental impact of conventional vehicles, mainly due to the air pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions associated with their operation, has accelerated the development of electric transportation. Among the available alternatives, battery electric vehicles (BEVs) have gained considerable attention as a practical approach to reducing emissions from the transport sector. Most electric traction systems use three-phase permanent magnet synchronous machines (PMSMs), mainly because they provide high efficiency, compact size, and accurate torque control. Their performance can be further improved by supplying them through a three-phase, three-level neutral-point-clamped (NPC) inverter. Compared with a conventional two-level inverter, this topology reduces the voltage stress applied to each semiconductor device and produces output voltages with lower harmonic distortion. It can also limit switching losses and improve the quality of the currents supplied to the machine. In this work, Active Disturbance Rejection Control (ADRC) is applied to the current and speed control loops of the traction drive. The closed-loop performance is evaluated in terms of reference tracking accuracy and disturbance rejection capability.