Overview of Integrated Electric Motor Drives: Opportunities and Challenges

Integrated Motor Drives (IMDs) have recently received extensive attention. In electric vehicles (EVs), electric propulsion aircraft, and ship propulsion systems, integrated motors have the great potential to replace traditional motors with the distinct merits of compact size, high power density, high efficiency, and high-cost effectiveness. This paper investigates and reviews integrated motor drives’ development and critical technologies. It not only reveals the research progress of the motor structure, converter, volume optimization, heat dissipation design, and weakening electromagnetic interference of integrated motor drives but also explores in detail the applications of wide-bandgap semiconductors and the integration of LCL filters. In addition, this paper also puts forward the concept of integrated motor drive integration level and establishes a corresponding quantitative method to evaluate IMDs integration level. In the future, integrated wireless motor drives will have a broad scope of research and application. IMDs systems will play an important role in applications requiring high power density, providing solutions to motor system size and heat dissipation problems. This overview will help clarify the opportunities, challenges, and future development of IMDs.