Bai leads $5M Grant from DOE-VTO to Produce Smaller, More Efficient Motor Drive Systems for Electric Vehicles
Kevin Bai, associate professor in the Min H. Kao Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), shares a principle-investigator role in a collaboration with the ABB Group’s US Research Center to develop an integrated, compact drive inverter and motor for electric vehicles that would reduce both the size and cost of electric drive trains.
Bai’s proposed compact motor drive system would be used in electric passenger vehicles and medium-to-heavy duty trucks. This new design would reduce cost by significantly reducing the usage of rare earth permanent magnets.
“The system integration is also a major innovation,” said Bai. “Currently, the majority of inverters and motors are designed by different companies, which makes the EV OEMs difficult to integrate and optimize the overall system. By doing the integration together, we can let inverter and motor share the same enclosure or coolant, thereby reducing the size.”
