With ever-increasing concerns on our environment, there is a fast growing interest in electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrid EVs (HEVs) from automakers, governments, and customers. As electric drives are the core of both EVs and HEVs, it is a pressing need for researchers to develop advanced electric-drive systems. In this paper, an overview of permanent-magnet (PM) brushless (BL) drives for EVs and HEVs is presented, with emphasis on machine topologies, drive operations, and control strategies. Then, three major research directions of the PM BL drive systems are elaborated, namely, the magnetic-geared outer-rotor PM BL drive system, the PM BL integrated starter-generator system, and the PM BL electric variable-transmission system. Index Terms-Electric variable transmission (EVT), electric vehicle (EV), hybrid EV (HEV), integrated starter generator (ISG), magnetic gear, permanent-magnet (PM) brushless (BL)drives.

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This paper proposes a novel in-wheel motor, which artfully integrates a magnetic gear into a permanent-magnet brushless (PMBL) DC motor so that they can share a common PM rotor, hence offering both high efficiency and high power density. Moreover, the low-speed requirement for direct driving and the high-speed requirement for compact motor design can be achieved simultaneously. A 2-kW 600/ 4400-rpm magnetic-geared outer-rotor PMBL DC motor is designed and analyzed, which is particularly suitable for battery-powered electric motorcycles.

This paper proposes a new outer-rotor permanent-magnet (PM) vernier machine for direct-drive wind power generation, which can offer low-speed operation to directly capture wind power, and enable high-speed rotating field design to maximize the power density. Compared with its mechanical gear counterpart, the proposed machine can eliminate the mechanical wear and tear as well as gear transmission loss, thus improving the generation reliability and efficiency. The key is to newly introduce the flux-modulation poles which can effectively modulate the high-speed rotating field of the armature windings and the low-speed rotating field of the PM outer rotor. By using the time-stepping finite-element method, the proposed machine can be accurately analyzed. Hence, its performances are quantitatively compared with other PM vernier machines, thus verifying its validity.

Acute hormone secretion triggered by G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) activation underlies many fundamental physiological processes. GPCR signalling is negatively regulated by β-arrestins, adaptor molecules that also activate different intracellular signalling pathways. Here we reveal that TRV120027, a β-arrestin-1-biased agonist of the angiotensin II receptor type 1 (AT1R), stimulates acute catecholamine secretion through coupling with the transient receptor potential cation channel subfamily C 3 (TRPC3). We show that TRV120027 promotes the recruitment of TRPC3 or phosphoinositide-specific phospholipase C (PLCγ) to the AT1R-β-arrestin-1 signalling complex. Replacing the C-terminal region of β-arrestin-1 with its counterpart on β-arrestin-2 or using a specific TAT-P1 peptide to block the interaction between β-arrestin-1 and PLCγ abolishes TRV120027-induced TRPC3 activation. Taken together, our results show that the GPCR-arrestin complex initiates non-desensitized signalling at the plasma membrane by coupling with ion channels. This fast communication pathway might be a common mechanism of several cellular processes.