Stability and performance of current harmonic controllers for multiphase PMSMs

Multiphase electric machines can provide significant benefits over conventional three-phase machines. A drawback to multiphase machines is that they are known to have problems with stator current harmonics. The harmonics can be eliminated by various current harmonic control methods. However, there appears to be no clear agreement on the most suitable method for multiphase machines. This paper aims to compare different current harmonic controllers in terms of stability and performance under model uncertainty. A detailed theoretical analysis of the harmonic controllers is given by taking a modern multi-input multi-output approach based on a structured singular value analysis. Further, the performance of the harmonic controllers is studied with experimental results from a dual three-phase permanent magnet synchronous machine. The analysis and results of this paper show how to design robust high-performance current harmonic controllers for multiphase machines.