The DC motor‐based drive of electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) consists of a DC motor and a related controller. The controller converts the energy from batteries to the DC motor and then the DC motor converts electrical energy into mechanical energy so as to achieve the desired torque and speed requested from the EVs and HEVs.
The DC motor exhibits the advantages of larger starting torque, shorter response time, wider adjustable speed range, better speed regulation ability, and more convenient control on speed and torque separately and have been successfully employed in some EV drive systems. It should be emphasized that these above‐mentionedadvantages are particularly important for electric propulsion in EVs and HEVs applications.
This chapter comprehensively discusses the topology, operating principle, and mechanical performance of DC motor‐based drive systems. The principle and characteristic of three key control methods, namely, combined armature voltage and field control, chopper control, and multi‐quadrant control of chopper‐fed DC motor drives, are analyzed, elaborated, and evaluated.