Current Harmonic Compensation in Dual Three-Phase PMSMs Using a Disturbance Observer

Dual three-phase electric machines are known to offer many important advantages compared with their conventional three-phase counterparts. However, these machines also suffer from a significant disadvantage of easily occurring large stator current harmonics. To solve this problem, this paper introduces a current harmonic elimination method based on a disturbance observer (DOB). The study provides a detailed analysis and design principles for the DOB. The performance of the proposed method is verified by experimental results. The results show that nearly complete elimination (> 99% reduction) of harmonic components is achieved. In addition, it is shown that the method is robust against uncertainties. The method provides a simple yet effective alternative for solving the issue of stator current harmonics in dual three-phase drives, and the results of this paper can be easily applied also to other multiphase machine types.