Design and Performance Investigation of a Vehicle Drive System with a 12/10 Flux-Switching Permanent Magnet Motor

The performance of a drive system with a flux-switching permanent magnet (FSPM) motor was studied through tests on a commercial electric vehicle (CEV). A practical design and an optimization method for the FSPM motor were proposed for a light-duty CEV. The initial dimensions of the motor were calculated by theoretical equations referring to a permanent magnet synchronous motor. Then, optimization was conducted through a response surface methodology (RSM) and a genetic algorithm (GA) based on three-dimensional finite element analysis (3D-FEA). With the optimized parameters, a prototype of the FSPM drive system was manufactured and assembled into an actual CEV. The performance of the CEV was investigated on an automobile test platform. The experimental results show that the FSPM drive system could drive the CEV properly. The high-efficiency running time of the FSPM motor accounted for 84% of the total time tested, which shows great potential for practical application in CEVs. However, the experimental results also show that the FSPM motor faced problems of large speed deviation and high-temperature rise during the driving cycle test, which should be fully addressed for practical applications.