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Abstract— Electric drive systems for vehicles are in- a highly significant source of electromagnetic interference.
tegrated into today’s passenger cars by almost every In this paper, a detailed investigation of the spreading of
car manufacturer. From the EMC point of view, the EMI generated by the power converter is given. The power
integration of electric drive systems into cars repre-
sents a substantial challenge. The conventional EMC converter and the possible coupling paths between the
procedures and techniques are not appropriate for the noise source and the potential noise sink, the conventional
new components. In this paper, an electric drive sys- electrical system of the car, are explored for this purpose.
tem is investigated which is source of electromagnetic A model is developed to quantify electromagnetic noise
interference within a passenger car. A model for sim- emitted by the electrical drive system converter in the
ulating coupling paths in the frequency domain, for
standard cables as well as for shielded cables is devel- two possible configurations with and without shielded ca-
oped and confirmed by measurements. The obtained bles. This model is confirmed by measurements. The
results have been used to determine the acceptable obtained results allow the determination of necessary fil-
noise level emitted by the power converter on the high- tering efforts and their discussion in terms of cost, weight
voltage cables of a drive system. and space.
Index Terms— Power Electronics, Electric Vehicles,
EMI Test Procedures, Limits, EMC, Modeling
II. Limits for a High-Voltage System
The limits required in the standards [1] have been devel-
I. Introduction
oped for low-voltage components that are supplied by the
The future drive concepts for passenger cars include an power bus together with other components which might
electric drive system either to reduce the fuel consumption be very sensitive to electromagnetic interference, whereas
or to build a zero-emission vehicle. Possible solutions are the power converter’s high power supply system is com-
the hybrid car, the pure electric car and the fuel cell car. pletely insulated because of the high voltage. For instance,
the procedures and limits used to specify the conducted
emissions by a car component given by the SAE standard
+ = [1] cannot be applied to the power converter, as the test
−
M procedures are not costumized for high-voltage supply sys-
tems with its specific topology. The small number of high-
voltage components and the high levels of interference are
reason for different conditions compared to conventional
Fig. 1. Basic Structure of Electric Drive System supply systems. Yet evaluating shielded cables the con-
ventional test procedures do not help.
Using the conventional limits would lead to much higher
Figure 1 shows the basic structure of electric drive ap- effort in filtering than actually necessary. Therefore, a new
plications for vehicles. Electric power is provided by a approach to find appropriate emission limits for the high-
battery or a fuel cell. They have the power converter and voltage system is developed in this paper. These limits
the electric motor in common. In fuel cell cars and in pure take into account the specific of the new components and
electric vehicles the power consumption of the power con- they also are strict enough to ensure the electromagnetic
verter and the motor will be the same size. In hybrid cars, compatibility of the whole system.
the electric drive system can be seized smaller since the
main drive power is coming from the combustion engine.
From the EMC point of view, the concepts can be treated III. Noise Source Power Converter
similarly but they differ extremely from conventional au- The electric drive power converter has four terminals
tomotive electrical components. The power converter is to spread EMI into the vehicle. First there is the high-
known to be a noise source due to fast switching tran- voltage DC-bus connecting the power source. Then there
sients. The integration of electric drive systems in today’s is a three-phase-AC-bus connecting the motor to the
cars represents a substantial challenge. The amount of power converter. The low-voltage power supply of a power
power required by the electric drive, the power supply converter and its control and sensor lines are additional
voltage of 300 or 900 V and the decentralized setup of the interfaces to the car’s conventional electrical system. Due
system within the car turn the electric drive system into to the fact that these interfaces connect the potential noise
source and the possible noise sinks directly, they have to for the investigation. The setup is derived from the
be designed carefully. But from the EMC point of view setup required for the conducted emission measurements
these interfaces can be treated like interfaces from con- according to standards [1]. The high-voltage bus cables
ventional car components. – possibly shielded – are arranged in parallel to one line
Contrary to the low-voltage interfaces, the connection to representing the low-voltage bus or any sensible signal
the power supply and the cables to the electric motor line. The low-voltage line is connected to a line stabilizing
are high-power interfaces. These interfaces challenge the network (LISN) on one side and to a component with
EMC compatible design of the system. The EMI gen- worst-case impedance on the other side. Impedance of
erated by the power converter on its power terminals is the input terminal of the component is supposed to be
characterized in [2]. Due to the fact that the main noise small for worst-case inspection. Values for worst-case
is known to be on the motor cables, these connections are inspection are mentioned in [3]. In case of signal lines
either made to be as short as possible or the converter and input terminal impedance is high ohmic, at least 100 Ω.
the motor are integrated into a common casing. Therefore Power input terminals are less ohmic, at least 0.1 Ω.
this paper mainly focuses on the high-voltage DC-bus al- Based on this setup the impact of an electric drive system
though the model and the appropriate emission limits are on the low-voltage electrical system of a passenger car
also applicable to the motor cables. In the following the can be quantified by measurement or simulation with
connections between the power converter and the power lumped parameter models.
supply are considered.
A. Crosstalk Analysis
For quantifying crosstalk, the underlying idea is to
Radiated
place the cables of the high power bus close to the cables EMI
Monopole Antenna
of the low power bus. Figure 2 shows the setup chosen Distance 1m µV
dB( m )
Fulfill Low−Voltage
Power Converter: Standards
Source Noise
Source Fig. 3. Setup for Radiated EMI
High−Voltage−DC−Bus
|Z|
4JHOBM --
Ω
3FGFSFODF
DIBOOFM 100
Measured
5FTU
DIBOOFM
10
%JNFOTJPOT JODN Calculated with Lossy Capacitor
1
Gain
damping at resonance frequencies. Frequency dependent --
dB
-20
Lc Rc(f)
M CS C (f)
lossy -40
Calculated
-60
Ls Rs(f) L braid Cs Measured
-80
class 5
100 classes 1-4 100
class 5
classes 1-4
80 Limits for unshielded High-Voltage-DC-Bus 80
Limits for unshielded High-Voltage-Bus
60 60
class 5
20 20
Limits for Low-Voltage-Bus according to SAE J1113/41, class 5
0 0
100 000 1 000 000 10 000 000 f / Hz 100 000 000 100 000 1 000 000 10 000 000 f / Hz 100 000 000
Fig. 8. Limits for Interference Currents on the High-Voltage Bus Fig. 9. Limits for Interference Currents on the High-Voltage Bus to
to Meet Standards for Broadband Conducted Disturbances on Con- Meet Standards for Broadband Conducted Disturbances on Power
trol/Signal Lines, Peak Values Input Terminals, Peak Values
VII. Conclusion
order to fulfill standards concerning the closely placed low-
voltage wiring harness. The low-voltage line is connected This paper gives a detailed investigation of the elec-
to the LISN on one side and to a low-voltage component tric drive’s power cables considered as a spreading path
on the other side. Impedance of the input terminal of the for electromagnetic interference generated by the power
component is supposed to be small for worst-case inspec- converter. For this purpose, the possible coupling paths
tion. In case of signal lines, input terminal impedance is between the noise source and the potential noise sinks,
high ohmic, at least 100 Ω. Power input terminals are less the components of the conventional low-voltage electri-
ohmic, at least 0.1 Ω. cal system of the vehicle, are explored. A frequency do-
As maximum coupling occurs at resonance frequencies, main lumped parameter model is found and confirmed by
the length of the cables has to be taken into account. In measurements. Based on the results of this work, limits
order to determine limits, the maximum coupling from ca- for current interference levels on high-voltage supply sys-
bles of lengths from 0.5 m up to 2.2 m is calculated. The tems are derived. The different limits for shielded and
given values for current limits on power cables can be used unshielded cables allow the discussion of shielding versus
for 70 mm2 cables of lengths from 0.5 m up to 2.2 m. filtering efforts in terms of costs, weight and space.