Driving-Cycle-Oriented Design Optimization of a Permanent Magnet Hub Motor Drive System for a Four-Wheel-Drive Electric Vehicle

The electrical drive system is crucial to the drive performance and safety of electric vehicles (EVs). In contrast to the traditional two-wheel-driven EVs, the hub motor four-wheel-drive system can steer the vehicle by controlling the torque and speed of each wheel independently, yielding a very simple distributed drivetrain with high efficiency and reliability. This article presents a system-level design optimization method for a permanent magnet hub motor drive system for a campus patrol EV based on a practical driving cycle. An outer rotor permanent-magnet synchronous hub motor (PMSHM) and an improved model predicate current control are proposed for the drive system. Due to the lack of reducers, the direct-drive PMSHM needs to face more complex working conditions and design constraints. In the implementation, the motor design requirements are obtained through the collection of practical EV driving cycles on the campus. Based on these requirements, two models are proposed as the preliminary designs for the PMSHM. To improve their performance, an efficient multiobjective optimization method is employed to the motor considering different operational conditions. The finite-element model and thermal network model are employed to verify the performance of the optimized PMSHM. An optimal design scheme is selected by comparing the comprehensive performance of the two optimized motors. In addition, a duty-cycle model predictive current control is adopted to drive the motor. Finally, a prototype is developed and tested, and the experimental results are presented.