Performance Analysis of an SRM Driven Electric Vehicle

Due to the increased fuel costs and concern towards environmental emissions, the transportation interests of the people are leaning towards electric mobility. Since there is no ICE involved in electric vehicles, fuel and emission crisis can be eliminated. When EVs are considered, powertrain becomes the most important factor, which is responsible for driving the vehicle. Improving the powertrain is given more importance as it reflects the overall vehicle performance to a great extent. Most commonly used motor drives for EVs are permanent magnet and induction motors. The magnets, brushes involved in these motors results in complex construction as well as maintenance. Switch Reluctance Motor has various advantages over other motors such as simple construction due to absence of magnets, easy maintenance, good fault tolerance and good reliability. These advantages make it a very prominent and interesting alternative for electric vehicle applications. This work focuses on implementing the SRM drive into a vehicle model and carrying out the performance analysis. A vehicle model is built in MATLAB-Simulink environment and BMW i3 specifications are used for the same. Furtherly, SRM drive modelled using same software and is implemented onto the previously built vehicle model. The results of both cases have been analyzed and it is seen that SOC level in case of SRM drive at the end of simulation is improved by around 5% and there is significant improvement in energy consumption as well.