Model Predictive Current Control of Traction Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motors in Six-Step Operation for Railway Application

This paper proposes a finite set model predictive current control scheme for traction permanent magnet synchronous motors for railway application. For the rail transit drive system, it is necessary to realize the six-step operation. A method based on voltage vector clamping is presented to realize overmodulation including six-step operation and maximize the utilization ratio of dc voltage. The essence of voltage vector clamping is to gradually reduce the space of action of the closed-loop regulation mechanism until it enters six-step operation. This method is simple and feasible, which does not need to add controllers or switch the control framework. An ideal voltage vector reference coordinate system is established to analyze the current trajectory under different modulation ratios. Thus, an optimal control strategy in the ideal voltage reference coordinate system is proposed. Experiments are conducted to prove that six-step operation can be achieved and this strategy has an obvious effect on switching frequency index in the overmodulation area.