A Comprehensive Approach towards Multi-Objective EMI Filter Design Optimization in High-Frequency SiC-based Motor Drives

With rapid penetration of high-frequency, high-density power electronics into the industry, controlling the system generated EMI becomes one of the major design challenges. Designing practical optimized EMI filters require simultaneous consideration of multiple aspects - including electromagnetic couplings, magnetic materials, practical component parasitics and their impacts at high-frequencies, and also the overall manufacturing costs. The multi-dimensional nature of the problem often results in overcompensated designs that hurt the system efficiency and power density. This paper focuses on a comprehensive design platform (developed in MATLAB) towards designing high-density, optimized, highly efficient EMI filters by analyzing the generated noise spectrum and evaluating a vast array of potential solutions before outputting an optimized filter solution. The proposed tool includes database-based component selection, optimal topology selection, multistage filter design, overall optimization for volume, mass, cost and total loss. The proposed filter has been thoroughly evaluated in a PSIM simulation environment emulating the hardware in CRD300DA12E-XM3, a 300kW three-phase inverter from Wolfspeed with an RL load representing a motor drive application. A 20kHz switching frequency is chosen and impacts of the motor high-frequency characteristics on the generated EMI noise spectrum of the overall system have been analyzed.