An accurate measurement procedure of power losses variations in electrical drives

This paper presents a general procedure for the accurate measurement of power losses variations in electrical drives. More specifically, the paper addresses the issue related to the efficiency comparison of electrical drive controlled with different control algorithms. This procedure is applied to a permanent magnet synchronous motor drive, assessing its power losses by means of two different measurement systems, each one characterized by different accuracy and cost. The comparison between these two systems is carried out for different working conditions in terms of load, speed and magnetization in order to demonstrate that the power losses variations can be accurately measured even with not expensive instrumentation.