Research Projects

Electric Two wheelers and Three Wheelers are expected to have a deep penetration in the Indian market. Therefore we are always in the search for cost effective, reliable and efficient solutions. Nowadays Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motors with rare earth magnets (e.g.NdFeB) are widely used. But the high cost and unavailability in our country is a challenge. Therefore rare earth magnet free solutions are worth investigating. In this context, for 2-wheeler and 3-wheeler applications, two solutions we will investigate. They are a) radial flux switched reluctance motor b) Axial flux ferrite-assisted synchronous reluctance motor,. The biggest challenge to use them in the vehicle arises due to their high power to weight ratio and torque ripple and noise. We will address these critical issues by suitable structure, packaging with industry collaborators and thermal experts from academics. But most importantly, the size and shape optimization through electromagnetic design will be carried out in this proposal. Also inclusion of locally available ferrite magnets to boost the torque level and therefore reduction of overall machine size, will be explored. The complete packaged drive development suited for these motors will be developed together with the machine design. Reliability is a major concern for EV applications. Generally DC link capacitors, which have a shorter life span, are getting used in these drives. To improve the reliability, it is better to look for capacitor less solutions. Therefore Current Source Inverter (CSI) fed drive topology with a rugged inductor as an energy storage element will be explored in this project. Use of Wide Band Gap devices will enable CSI fed drive at a very high speed and will help to shrink the size of the inductor manifold. Their suitable use in 4 wheeler applications will also be explored in this project. Efficiency improvement is one of the key challenges. Currently most of these machines use lossy silicon steel stampings. As day by day the frequency of operation (both switching and fundamental frequency) of the drive increases, the demand for alternative materials arises. In this context, we will explore new materials for the above mentioned machines. The use of pure iron powder material accumulated from scrap iron will be explored, which will not only improve efficiency but also reduce costs and improve sustainability. It will also help to make ferrite magnets, which can again be used in these machines. To summarize, Switched Reluctance and Synchronous Reluctance types of rare earth magnet based complete drive solutions will be attempted for 2 wheeler applications. CSI based topology instead of conventional VSI fed topology will also be investigated. Raw materials for magnet, stator and rotor core will also be developed from scrap.