Recently, permanent magnet machines was become an attractive solution in many industrial applications such as electric

and hybrid vehicle traction [1] and [2]. This is mainly due to their high efficiency, their compact structure, their small size,
their low weight and their flexibility of control [3]. In the literature, several permanent magnet topologies were proposed.
Indeed, these topologies can be distinguished according to the direction of magnetic flux (radial, axial, or transverse flux), the
rotor position (interior or exterior), the magnets location (inserted or surface-mounted), and the stator windings type
(distributed or concentrated) [4] and [5]. The selection of the topology depends entirely on the intended industrial application.
In this work, the application is an in-wheel motor drive, which is directly placed inside the wheel hub. This motor type
permits the removal of the gear-box drawbacks consisting of frequent maintenance and low efficiency [6].
The topology of motor is a radial flux surface mounted permanent magnets machine, with an outer rotor, inner stator and
concentrated windings. Indeed, the structure of the machine with radial magnetization and surface-mounted permanent
magnets represents the simplest structure to construct and the most emerged in the in-wheel motor industry [2] and [3].
Moreover, the outer rotor makes the machine more suitable for direct integration in the vehicle wheel [4], [7] and [8]. This is
due to that this rotor has a large air gap diameter, hence allowing a large number of poles and making more compact the
overall system. Furthermore, during the rotor rotation, the centrifugal forces exert a pressure on the permanent magnets;
making their detachment more difficult. For stator windings, the concentrated windings are more advantageous than the
distributed windings, since they make it possible to reduce the machine mass and the copper losses and increase the
productivity [9].
Permanent magnet machines are characterized by a non-linear and complex magnetic circuit, making the optimal design a
very difficult and time consuming task. For these reasons, an optimization tool is necessary. In the literature, several electric
machines optimization techniques have been proposed.
In [10], three meta-heuristics which are grey wolf optimizer (GWO), genetic algorithm (GA) and particle swarm
optimization (PSO), have been used to find the optimum design of a permanent magnet motor directly coupled to the load. In
the work presented in [11], the optimal design of a spoke-type permanent magnet motor has been carried out by means of the
GA, while satisfying a list of constraints and obtaining the lowest cost. The same algorithm has been also applied in [12] in
order to minimize of the cogging torque in a synchronous surface mounted permanent magnet motor. In [13], a multi-
objective optimization based on the genetic algorithm has been used in order to determine the design parameters of an in-
wheel motor according two objective functions. The work in [14] presented a constrained multi-objective optimization for
design and control of an in-wheel switched reluctance motor based a nondominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II).
In order to decrease the copper losses and solve the heating problem, the parameters of the winding structure of a permanent
magnet motor have been optimized using a PSO algorithm [15]. Furthermore, several other works, using different
optimization techniques, can encountered in the literature. However, we can conclude -based on this brief study- that the use
of multi-objective optimization techniques has become an increasing and powerful tool in electrical machines design.
As mentioned, several problems are encountered when modeling the electromagnetic fields in electrical machine. Indeed,
the magnetic saturation, the non-linearity of the materials and the anisotropic behavior of the laminated parts of the iron core,
make the analytical modeling a challenging task. Nowadays, the best way to model electrical machines is to use the finite
element analysis (FEA) tool.
The present work aims to the optimum design of an outer rotor concentrated windings permanent magnet motor. A
preliminary analytical model of the machine is firstly developed and then used in the optimization procedure. Two new PSO-
based multi-objective optimization techniques are used. In order to find the optimum machine design, the obtained Pareto
fronts are analyzed and discussed. Finally, the machine performances are investigated by means of FEA.
[1] Huynh TA, Hsieh MA. Performance analysis of permanent magnet motors for electric vehicles (EV) traction considering driving
cycles. Energies, MDPI, Open Access Journal, vol. 11(6), pp. 1-24, 2018.
[2] Chau KT. Electric Vehicle Machines and Drives: Design, Analysis and Application. Wiley-IEEE Press, pp. 375, 2015.
[3] Zaaraoui L, Mansouri A. Conception optimale d’un moteur-roue destiné à un véhicule électrique. Editions universitaires européennes,
pp. 89, 2019.
[4] Hung VX. Modeling of exterior rotor permanent magnet machines with concentrated windings. MSc, Faculty of electrical engineering,
mathematics and computer science, Netherlands, 2012.
[5] Gieras JF. Permanent magnet motor technology: design and applications, third Edition. Electrical and Computer Engineering, CRC
Press, pp. 608, 2010.
[6] Andriollo M, Bettanini G, Martinelli G, Morini A, Stellin S, Tortella A. In-wheel permanent magnet motors for public transport
application. Proc. of the 5th WSEAS/IASME Int. Conf. on Electric Power Systems, High Voltages, Electric Machines, Spain, pp. 156-
164, 2005.
[7] Qiping C, Qiang X, Chuanjie L, Liping Z, Xiangqin L, Juanlin H, Conghui Z. Design and analysis of outer rotor in-wheel motor for
micro-electric vehicle. Advances in Mechanical Engineering, vol. 9(11), pp. 1-11, 2017.
[8] Wu D, Fei W, Luk PCK, Xia B. Design considerations of outer-rotor permanent magnet synchronous machines for in-wheel electric
vehicle applications using particle swarm optimization. 7th IET International Conference on Power Electronics, Machines and Drives,
pp. 1-6, 2014.
[9] You-Young C, Se-Young O, Sang-Hwan H, Ik-Sang J, Su-Yeon C, Ju L , Kwang-Cheol K. Comparison of concentrated and distributed
winding in an IPMSM for vehicle traction. 2nd International Conference on Advances in Energy Engineering (ICAEE), pp. 1368-1373,
2012.
[10] Yannis LK, Ioannis DC, Emmanouil LP. Permanent magnet synchronous motor design using grey wolf optimizer algorithm.
International Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering (IJECE), Vol. 6(3), pp. 1353-1362, 2016.
[11] Shouhui N, Uwe S. Optimization of a spoke-type permanent magnet motor by combination of genetic algorithm and finite element
method. XIII International Conference on Electrical Machines (ICEM), pp. 892-898, 2018.
[12] Vasilija S. Performance optimization of permanent magnet synchronous motor by cogging torque reduction. Journal of ELECTRICAL
ENGINEERING, vol. 70(3), pp. 218-226, 2019.
[13] Msadek H, Mansouri A, Trabelsi H. Optimization of in-wheel permanent magnet synchronous motor for electric car. International
Journal of Energy Optimization and Engineering (IJEOE), vol. 4(3), pp. 1-17, 2015.
[14] Anvari B, Toliyat HA, Fahimi B. Simultaneous optimization of geometry and firing angles for in-wheel switched reluctance motor
drive. IEEE Transactions on Transportation Electrification, vol. 4, pp. 322-329, 2017.
[15] Optimization of permanent magnet synchronous motor design by using PSO. The 4th International Conference on Power Electronics
and their Applications (ICPEA), 2019.
[16] Sierra M R, Coello C. Improving PSO-based Multi-Objective Optimization using Crowding, Mutation and e –Dominance. In Third
International Conference on Evolutionary Multi-Criterion Optimization, EMO 2005, pp. 505–519, Mexico, LNCS 3410, Springer-
Verlag, 2005.
[17] Nebro AJ, Durillo JJ, Nieto JG, CAC, Luna F, Alba E. SMPSO: A New PSO-based Metaheuristic for Multi-objective Optimization. In
2009 IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Multi-criteria Decision-Making, pp. 66-73, 2009.
[18] Bianchi N, Bolognani S. Design criteria of high efficiency SPM synchronous motors. IEEE Trans. on Energy Conversion, vol. EC–21,
no. 2, pp. 396-404, 2006.
[19] Mansouri A, Msaddek H, Trabelsi H. Optimum Design of a Surface Mounted Fractional Slots Permanent Magnet Motor. International
Review of Electrical Engineering (I.R.E.E.), Vol. 10, N. 1, pp. 28-35, 2015.