2898 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 68, NO.

4, APRIL 2021

Phase Reconfiguring Technique for Enhancing

the Modulation Index of Multilevel Inverter
Fed Nine-Phase IM Drive
Prathap Reddy Bhimireddy , Student Member, IEEE, Sivakumar Keerthipati , Senior Member, IEEE,
and Atif Iqbal , Senior Member, IEEE

Abstract—In this article, a multilevel inverter (MLI) I. INTRODUCTION

scheme is proposed for four-pole (4-pole), nine-phase (9-
phase) induction motor (IM) drives with improved dc bus
utilization as well as reduced device count. The proposed
MLI is realized with nine three-switch inverter legs (3-SIL)
and a single dc source. In the proposed MLI, each 3-SIL
is utilized for exciting the two identical voltage profile
coils/phase of the four-pole (4-pole) stator winding, which
means each leg has to be modulated with two references.
These two independent references/leg will limit the modula-
tion index (M.I) of 3-SIL-based proposed MLI. This lower M.I
will result in a requirement of the higher magnitude of dc-
link voltage to achieve the rated load voltage requirement.
In this article, an effective phase reconfiguring concept is
proposed for reducing the dc-link voltage requirement of
the proposed MLI. In addition, all the possibilities of phase
reconfiguring details for proposed MLI-fed 9-phase IM drive
are also presented. A three-phase carrier-based space vec-
tor pulsewidth modulation is implemented for improving
the linear modulation range of proposed MLI configura-
tion further. In contrast with existing 9-phase three-level
inverters, like NPC and FC, the proposed MLI configuration
requires only one dc link (with half of the magnitude) and
lesser number of semiconductor devices. The proposed
MLI-fed, 5 hp, 9-phase, 4-pole IM drive is validated by using
Ansys Maxwell FEM simulation and experimental prototype
for entire modulation range.
Index Terms—Multilevel inverters (MLIs), nine-phase in-
duction motor (IM) drives, open-end winding, three-switch
inverter legs.
Manuscript received September 3, 2019; revised January 3, 2020
and February 14, 2020; accepted March 1, 2020. Date of publication
March 16, 2020; date of current version December 8, 2020. This work
was supported by Qatar University under QU High Impact Grant QUHI-
CENG-19/20-2. (Corresponding author: Prathap Reddy Bhimireddy.)
Prathap Reddy Bhimireddy is with the Department of Electrical En-
gineering, Qatar University, Doha 2713, Qatar and also with the De-
partment of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Hyder-
abad, Telangana 502285, India (e-mail: prathap.bhimiredy@gmail.com).
Sivakumar Keerthipati is with the Department of Electrical Engineer-
ing, Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad, Telangana 502285, India
(e-mail: ksiva@iith.ac.in).
Atif Iqbal is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Qatar
University, Doha 2713, Qatar (e-mail: atif.iqbal@qu.edu.qa).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this article are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIE.2020.2979565
ITH the advantages of higher efficiency, better power
W distribution/phase, fault tolerant capability, enhance-
ment of torque range, and reduced magnitude of space harmon-
ics, the multiphase induction machines (MIM) are extensively
being used in various applications, i.e., traction, propulsion,
electric vehicles, and aircraft applications [1]–[5]. Because of
this, the interest in multiphase machines is increasing in the
industry as well as in research domains [1], [2].
In the literature [6]–[8], different multilevel inverter (MLI)
topologies, such as flying capacitor (FC), neutral-point clamped
(NPC), and cascaded H-bridge (HB), have been reported for
controlling the speed and torque of the three-phase (3-phase)
induction motor (IM) drive by varying the voltage and frequency.
The key advantages of MLIs over conventional two-level
(2-level) inverters are reduced voltage stress, improvement in
output voltage harmonic profile, and reduced filter requirement.
However, the requirement of active, passive components, and
control complexity will increase with respect to (w.r.t) the
phase order of the machine. An open-end winding (OEW)
concept for 3-phase IM drives is presented in [9]–[19], where
the open ends of phase windings are modulated by using
2-level inverters. However, the OEW inverter configuration
requires the isolated power supplies to suppress the circulating
currents.
In the single source-fed IM drives for suppressing the cir-
culating currents, an optimized space vector pulsewidth modu-
lation (SVPWM) is presented to eliminate the common-mode
voltages [10] and three-dimensional-based SVPWM presented
in [11]. The adoption of these techniques for eliminating the
circulating currents in the OEW nine-phase (9-phase) MIM
drive results in negligible increment in linear modulation range
and the control complexity will amplify. An interesting MLI
topology is proposed for 3-phase, four-pole (4-pole) IM drives
to suppress the circulating currents [12], [13], where the isolation
is provided inside the machine, as shown in Fig. 1. By using this
concept, various MLI schemes are presented for 3-Φ IM drives
in [12]–[14], where the machine windings are split in different
ratios (like 2:1 or 1:1) according to the number of available
pole pairs of machines. The OEW, as well as dual inverter
concepts, are extended to MIM drives in [15]–[19]. In [17], a

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 BHIMIREDDY et al.: PHASE RECONFIGURING TECHNIQUE FOR ENHANCING THE MODULATION INDEX
Fig. 1. Multilevel inverter topology for 3-phase 4-pole IMs [12].
three-level (3-level) fault tolerant MLI is presented for MIM
drives with four isolated sources, which is capable to generate
a 2-level voltage for either source or switch faults. By using the
split-phase OEW concept shown in Fig. 1, a MLI configuration
is proposed for the MIM drives with a single dc source [19].
The topologies in [12]–[18] can be adopted for 9-phase IMs,
but the number of power semiconductor devices, as well as the
number of isolated dc sources, will increase w.r.t the number of
phases.
In the literature [20]–[24], a nine-switch (9-switch) inverter
configuration is proposed for supplying two different 3-phase
loads simultaneously with the reduced number of switches and
dc sources. The concept of a 9-switch inverter is implemented
for MIM drives, where each three-switch inverter leg (3-SIL) of
the inverter is used to excite second and third phase windings
of the six-phase (6-phase) and 9-phase machines, respectively
[20]. However, the modulation index (M.I) is limited to 0.5 for
6-phase machines and 0.33 for 9-phase machines. To enhance
the linear modulation of 3-SIL-based MLIs, many space vector
PWMs are presented in [23] and [24]; however, the maximum
possible M.I is 0.57 or 0.76 (i.e., 0.5 × 1.154 or 0.66 × 1.154)
only.
From the earlier discussion, major problems associated with
conventional MLI fed MIM drives are as follows.
1) High number of power semiconductor devices of the
topologies presented in [12]–[18].
2) Lower M.I of 3-SIL-based MLIs [20]–[24].
For addressing the above issues, an MLI scheme is proposed
by effectively using the IVPCs of four-pole (4-pole) machine
and 3-SIL concepts. The key advantages of the proposed work
are as follows.
1) Requires only 27 switches and one dc source for generat-
ing 3-level voltage across each effective phase winding.
2) A novel phase reconfiguring technique is proposed to
enhance the M.I of the 9-switch inverter-based MLI
configuration.
3) All the possibilities of phase reconfiguring details for the
proposed MLI configuration are presented.
4) With the phase reconfiguring technique, the M.I reaches
0.852, whereas the possible M.I of works presented in
[20] is 0.5.
5) 180° decoupled SVPWM and phase grouping con-
cepts presented in [16]–[19] are adopted to pro-
posed MLI configuration for enhancing the M.I up to
0.984.
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2899
Fig. 2. Winding arrangement and voltage vector distribution for Phase
A of the 9-phase IM. (a) With two series-connected IVPCs. (b) Discon-
nected IVPCs arrangement.
II. PROPOSED MULTILEVEL INVERTER SCHEME
FOR 4-POLE 9-PHASE IMS
The OEW concept by disconnecting the two IVPCs of each
phase winding (shown in Fig. 1) is further explored in this
article. With the advantage of disconnected IVPCs (split phase
winding) and 3-SIL concepts, a MLI configuration is proposed
for 9-phase MIM drives with reduced device count. The oper-
ation and detailed analysis of the proposed work is presented
in this section. In Section II-A, the IVPC winding arrangement
of the 4-pole machine has been discussed. The proposed MLI
configuration with and without proposed phase reconfiguring
technique is presented in the Sections II-B and II-C, respec-
tively. The implementation of the 180° decoupled SVPWM for
the proposed MLI and associated discussion is presented in
Section II-D.
A. Winding Arrangement
In an m-phase n-pole OEW IM, each phase consists of n/2
number of IVPC windings, which are electrically in-phase and
mechanically displaced by an angle of 180°. The mn/2 number
of IVPC windings of an m-phase machine are connected in
series/parallel depending on the high-voltage/current require-
ment. Finally, m number of terminals are taken out to reduce the
machine connections, which are fed with inverter supply [9].
However, for attaining the improved performance of machine,
OEW concept is introduced [9]–[19], where 2m terminals are
taken out from the machine and are utilized for exciting with
multilevel voltage. The voltage vector distribution and winding
arrangement for Phase-A winding of the conventional 9-phase
4-pole IM are shown in Fig. 2(a). The applied voltage vector of
each phase is equally distributed across the two IVPC windings
(i.e., A1–A2 and A3–A4 are connected in series) [12]. The
vector sum of these two IVPC voltages will induce the resultant
MMF in the machine airgap. In this article, these two IVPCs are
disconnected and the terminals are taken out without altering the
 2900
Fig. 3. Proposed MLI configuration fed 9-phase PPMIM drive without
phase reconfiguring technique.
flux distribution and machine parameters, like self-inductance,
the number of turns, and winding resistance. The voltage distri-
bution and winding rearrangement for Phase-A winding of the
9-phase 4-pole IM with disconnected IVPCs (i.e., A1–A2 and
A3–A4) are shown in Fig. 2(b), where the fundamental voltage
applied to each IVPC winding is the same. This disconnected
IVPCs winding configuration is called a split winding concept
[12]–[14], [17]. The winding details of the 9-phase 4-pole ma-
chine w.r.t phase displacement of voltage vector distribution,
slot number, current direction, etc., are given in [16]–[19], same
details are considered in the proposed work.
B. 3-Switch Inverter Leg Based Proposed
3-Level Inverter Configuration
The concept of 9-switch inverter configuration (with three
3-SILs) for 6-phase IM drives is realized from the conventional
6-phase 2-level inverter structure [20]–[24]. In this MLI con-
figuration, each 3-SIL is capable to modulate the power of two
phase windings that are connected to the same 3-SIL. However,
the possible modulation index of the 3-SIL is [23]
1 Similarly, all the possible phase reconfiguring details for
M.I =
(1 + sin(θ/2))
where the angle θ is the phase displacement between the modu-
lating waves of IVPCs connected to the same 3-SIL. This angle
(θ) will directly affect the maximum possible MI.
With the advantage of split phase winding as well as 3-SIL
concepts, an MLI scheme is proposed for 9-phase 4-pole IM,
as shown in Fig. 3. The 18 IVPCs of 9-phase 4-pole IM are
re-arranged in 6-star connected three-phase (3-phase) winding
groups, where each 3-phase group has three 120° displaced
windings. The possible switching states of Phase A are shown in
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 68, NO. 4, APRIL 2021
TABLE I
SWITCHING LOGIC FOR PHASE A
Table I. Here, the IVPC1 (A1–A2 winding) and IVPC2 (A3–A4
winding) of Phase A get 2-level voltage individually. However,
the resultant voltage appears across the Phase A is the sum of
IVPC1 and IVPC2 voltages, i.e., 3-level voltage.
The proposed MLI scheme requires only one dc source with
the magnitude of Vdc × (1/maximum possible modulation index)
× (1/6), where Vdc is the rated voltage required for three-phase
IM drive. The IVPCs of Phase A (A1–A2 and A3–A4 windings)
are connected to first 3-SIL of the proposed MLI, which are mod-
ulated with two 180° phase-shifted (out of phase) references.
According to (1), the maximum possible M.I of proposed 3-SIL
based MLI is 0.5 only. Because of this lower modulation index
(i.e., 0.5), in order to meet the rated load voltage requirement,
the inverter requires a higher magnitude of dc-link voltage.
This means the voltage ratings of switches will also increase
accordingly.
C. Proposed 3-Level Inverter Configuration With
Phase Reconfiguring Technique
In this article, for enhancing the M.I of 3-SIL-based MLI-fed
9-phase IM drive (shown in Fig. 3), a phase reconfiguring
technique is proposed. With this, proposed phase reconfiguring
concept, the IVPC windings that are connected to the same
three-switch leg are rearranged for getting the minimum phase
displacement between the modulating waves, as presented in
Fig. 4. For an instance, in the first 3-SIL, instead of connecting
A3–A4 winding (180° modulating wave), the F3–F4 winding
(20° modulating wave) is connected, which means the phase
displacement between the modulating waves of A1–A2 and
F3–F4 is 20°.
The possible M.I of the proposed MLI is
1 1
M.I = = = 0.852 (2)
(1 + sin(θ/2)) (1 + sin(100 ))
where θ = 20° with proposed phase reconfiguring.
(1)
OEW 9-phase 4-pole drive which will help to minimize the
phase shift angle θ of the IVPCs have been tabulated in Table II.
With the phase reconfiguring concept, the required magnitude
of the dc-link voltage is Vdc /(6 × 0.852), which means the M.I
is enhanced by 70.4% (from 0.5 to 0.852).
D. Implementation of the Carrier-Based SVPWM for
Proposed 3-SIL-Based MLI Configuration
With the proposed phase reconfiguring technique, maxi-
mum possible output voltage (MPOV) of the proposed MLI
 BHIMIREDDY et al.: PHASE RECONFIGURING TECHNIQUE FOR ENHANCING THE MODULATION INDEX
TABLE II
PHASE RECONFIGURING DETAILS AND EXCITATION VOLTAGES OF OEW 9-PHASE 4-POLE IM
Fig. 4. Proposed MLI configuration fed 9-phase PPMIM drive with
proposed phase reconfiguring technique.
scheme by using sinusoidal PWM (SPWM) is 0.5 × (Vdc /6)
× MI. For enhancing the linear modulation range of proposed
MLI configuration further, space vector PWM (SVPWM) con-
cept is used. By using the conventional 9-phase SVPWM, the
MPOV is 0.507 × (Vdc /6) × MI, which means the increment
in linear modulation is 1.5% only over SPWM. This smaller
increment in linear modulation range is due to the higher
number of phases [25]–[27], where the magnitude of zero
sequence harmonic offset added to the modulating waves is
reduced.
The proposed MLI configuration is modulated with a carrier-
based 3-phase SVPWM [26], [27], which enhances the linear
modulation by 15.4% as compared to SPWM. However, this
3-phase SVPWM in a 9-phase system with a single neutral
leads to the flow of dominant lower-order circulating currents
in the phase windings. In order to eliminate these circulating
currents, the phase grouping along with the isolated neutrals
concepts given in [16]–[19] are adopted for proposed MLI
configuration, which is clearly shown in Fig. 4. With this, the
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2901
Fig. 5. Control diagram for carrier-based 3-phase SVPWM reference
waves generation of the A1, D1, and G1 groups.
MPOV of proposed MLI configuration with 3-phase SVPWM is
0.577 × (Vdc /6) × MI.
III. SWITCHING LOGIC AND COMPARISON OF
PROPOSED MLI TOPOLOGY
The proposed MLI configuration generates 3-level voltage
across the effective phase (i.e., the sum of A1–A2 and A3–
A4 phase voltages, i.e., Veff = VA1–A2 + VA3–A4 ) with im-
proved harmonic profile due to the 180° reference phase-shifted
SVPWM (decoupled SVPWM). This decoupled SVPWM sup-
plies the same fundamental voltage for the A1–A2 and A3–A4
IVPC windings. Moreover, with 180° phase-shifted references,
the first center band harmonics present in the effective phase
voltage will cancel each other [12]. The carrier-based SVPWM
(third harmonic injected PWM) is used for MLIs for enhancing
the possible linear modulation index by 1.154, presented in
[11]–[14]. In this article, the same PWM is used for modulating
the proposed MLI configuration, which generates the 3-level
voltage across the phase windings. The control diagram for
reference waves generation of the A1, D1, and G1 group phase
windings is shown in Fig. 5. From this figure, it can be observed
that zero-sequence offset of the A1, D1, and G1 sine waves (i.e.,
−(Max(A1, D1, G1) + Min(A1, D1, G1))/2) and DC offset (i.e.,
(1−(M.I × 3/2))/1.154) are added to the sine reference waves,
the resultant reference wave of the A1–A2 winding is shown in
Fig. 6. Similarly, the reference generation for F3–F4 of inverter
Leg-1 is generated by adding the zero-sequence offset of F3, C3,
 2902
TABLE III
ATTRIBUTES COMPARISON OF PROPOSED MLI CONFIGURATION
∗
SW = series winding shown in Fig. 2(a); ∗ SPW = split phase winding shown in Fig. 2(b).
Fig. 6. Carrier-based SVPWM references and carrier waves of the A1–
A2 and F3–F4 IVPC windings.
and I3 sine waves and the negative dc offset to the F3–F4 sine
wave, as shown in Fig. 6. The switch S11 will be active if A1–A2
reference is greater than the carrier wave, and switch S13 will
be active if the F3–F4 reference is less than the carrier wave.
The middle switch S12 will be active only if either S11 is ON
or S13 is ON. However, it will remain off if both S11 and S13
are ON (i.e., (A1–A3 reference > = carrier wave) XOR (F3–F4
reference < = carrier wave)). The control logic for other phase
IVPC is same except that the reference waves will be shifted by
an angle of 40°.
The proposed MLI configuration is compared with traditional
MLI topologies like NPC, FC, and the topologies presented in
[16], [18], and [20], as given in Table III. From this table, it
is identified that the proposed MLI configuration and the MLI
configurations in [18] and [20] require only one dc source and 27
switches as compared with other MLI topologies. The proposed
MLI configuration enhances the M.I up to 0.852 in comparison
with the conventional 3-SIL based MLIs presented in [18] and
[20]. In contrast with these topologies, the device count and
magnitude of dc-link requirement are reduced significantly in
the proposed topology.
IV. FEM RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The proposed MLI-fed 9-phase IM drive is implemented in
Ansys Maxwell electromagnetic tool. By using triangular mesh-
ing, a 2D FEM model of 9-phase 4-pole machine is designed
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 68, NO. 4, APRIL 2021
Fig. 7. Flux line distribution and flux density plot for half of the stator
boundary of 9-phase IM with proposed MLI configuration.
in Maxwell with the following specifications; stator slots/rotor
slots: 36/49, length of airgap: 0.35 mm, core length: 220 mm,
and airgap diameter: 170 mm. 36/49 slot combination is selected
for minimizing the crawling and magnetic locking effects [26].
The slot fill factor (percentage of conductors placed in a slot) of
the 9-phase machine is 61% and the coil pitch is 9 stator slots.
For driving this Maxwell 9-phase IM model, the proposed MLI
configuration is developed in Simplorer environment (which is a
co-simulating tool of the Ansys Maxwell). As discussed earlier,
the maximum possible M.I with the proposed MLI configuration
is 0.852, and the associated fundamental frequency of the drive
is 50 Hz. The switching frequency of the inverter is 2 kHz and the
drive is operated with open-loop V/f = constant control method.
The size of triangular meshing and step time of the FEM analysis
will decide the accuracy of the model. The flux line distribution
along with the flux density plot of 9-phase 4-pole IM is shown in
Fig. 7. From this figure, it can be noticed that the flux is uniform
and the flux density (Bmax ) value is within the limits (2 Tesla for
M19-24G steel material), which means that core of the machine
does not saturate.
The phase voltage waveform of the proposed MLI configu-
ration is shown in Fig. 8. In this figure, first trace shows the
A1–A2 phase voltage, second trace shows the A3–A4 phase
voltage, and third and fourth traces are showing the effective
voltage of Phase A (Veff ). From Fig. 4, it is identified that in
the proposed MLI configuration, the A1–A2 winding group
(A1–D1–G1 group) is connected at the top side of the inverter
 BHIMIREDDY et al.: PHASE RECONFIGURING TECHNIQUE FOR ENHANCING THE MODULATION INDEX 2903

Fig. 10. Phase-A current waveforms, A1–A2 current (top), A3–A4 cur-
rent (middle), and effective phase current (bottom).

Fig. 8. Phase-A voltage waveforms. (a) A1–A2 voltage. (b) A3–A4

voltage; effective phase voltages (Veff ) if A1–D1–G1 group connected
at (c) top side of the inverter (d) bottom side of the inverter.

Fig. 11. Harmonic spectrum of the effective current of Phase A (Ieff ).

Fig. 9. Harmonic spectrum of the effective voltage of Phase A (Veff ).

and A3–A4 winding group (A3–D3–G3 group) connected at

the bottom side of the inverter. Because of the disparity in
common-mode voltages of the phase groups (A1, D1, G1 and
G3, A3, D3) the number of levels in the effective voltage of
Phase A is not uniform w.r.t positive and negative half-cycles, as
shown in Fig. 8(c). If the A3–A4 winding group is connected at
the top side of inverter and A1–A2 winding group is connected
at the bottom side of the inverter, then the output voltage is
exactly flipped to the previous case, i.e., shown in Fig. 8(d).
However, the mean value of the effective voltage of the Phase A
is zero. The harmonic spectrum of the effective Phase-A voltage
(A1–A2) is shown in Fig. 9. From this figure, it is observed
that the first center band harmonics are cancelled each other
due to the 180° phase-shifted reference waves of the A1–A2
and A3–A4 windings. The currents flowing through the phase
windings A1–A2, A3–A4, and the effective current of Phase A
are shown in Fig. 10. The harmonic spectrum of the effective
Phase-A current is shown in Fig. 11. From this figure, it is evident
that the triplen circulating currents are denied in the phase
windings due to the phase grouping concepts given in [16]–[19].
The torque response of the proposed MLI fed 9-phase machine
under loaded condition is shown in Fig. 12. From this figure,
it is observed that because of the multilevel voltage excitation
supplied by proposed MLI as well as with a higher number of
Fig. 12. Torque response plot of the proposed MLI fed 9-phase IM.
phases, the torque ripple is considerably low, i.e., 2.5 Nm for a
rated torque of 15 Nm (16.67%). The vector control techniques
for multiphase induction motor drives are presented in [1] and
[2], which can be applied to control the torque as well as speed
transition of the proposed MLI configuration fed 9-phase IM
drive.
V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The proposed 27-switch inverter configuration is validated
by performing an experiment on the 5hp OEW 9-phase IM.
The proposed inverter is designed in the laboratory by using the
G4BC20FD IGBT switches and associated driver circuits. The
9-phase OEW IM is developed in the laboratory by rewinding
3-phase IM, where the number coil sides/slot are maintained
constant. The specifications of the 9-phase OEW IM are pre-
sented in Table IV. For showing the effectiveness of the proposed
MLI configuration along with the PWM voltages on motor
currents, the 9-phase IM is operated under no-load condition.
The switching frequency is maintained constant for the entire

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 2904
TABLE IV
SPECIFICATIONS OF THE EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
Fig. 13. Experimental results for M.I = 0.852. (a) Phase-A volt-
age waveforms. (b) Harmonic spectrum of effective Phase-A voltage.
(c) Phase-A current waveforms. (d) Harmonic spectrum of effective
Phase-A current.
modulation range, i.e., 2 kHz. The control logic is implemented
in SPARTAN-6 FPGA platform that is programmed in VHDL.
The proposed MLI fed 9-phase IM drive is operated with
open-loop V/f control, where the possible M.I is 0.852 with
a fundamental frequency is 50 Hz. The experimental phase
voltages and currents of the windings A1–A2, A3–A4, and
effective Phase A (Veff ) for M.I of 1 × 0.852 are shown in Fig. 13.
As seen from these waveforms, it is noticed that the proposed
27-switch inverter with phase reconfiguring concept generates
a 2-level voltage across each IVPC winding. So the resultant
voltage (sum of the voltages of A1–A2 and A3–A4 windings)
that appears across the effective Phase A is quasi 3-level voltage,
as shown in the bottom trace of Fig. 13(a). The number of
levels in the effective phase voltage (bottom trace of Fig. 13(a))
is not uniform due to the disparity of common-mode voltages
existing between different neutrals of 3-phase winding groups
(as shown in Fig. 15). However, the phase currents of the IVPC’s
A1–A2 and A3–A4 are having symmetry, as shown in Fig. 13(c).
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Fig. 14. (a) Voltage across the switches of 3-SIL and pole voltages.
(b) Three phase currents of one group.
Fig. 15. Common mode voltages between different neutrals. (a) A2–
A3, A2–B3, and A2–C3. (b) A2–B2 and A2–C3 voltage.
The harmonic spectrum of the effective Phase-A voltage and
current is shown in Fig. 13(b) and 13(d) respectively. Here, the
first center band harmonics in the effective phase current and
voltages are cancelled each other due to the 180° phase-shifted
references of A1–A2 and A3–A4 phase windings.
The voltages across the switches present in the first leg
of the proposed MLI configuration are shown in Fig. 14(a),
where the first trace gives the switch S11 voltage, second trace
gives the switch S12 voltage, and third trace gives the switch
S13 voltage. In this figure, fourth trace gives the pole voltage of
the A1–A2 winding (i.e., voltage across A1-N) and third trace
gives the pole voltage of the F3–F4 winding (i.e., voltage across
F4-N). The phase currents of the three windings in a 3-phase
group are shown in Fig. 14(b), which are displaced by 120°. The
common-mode voltages that are appearing between the different
neutrals of the 3-phase winding groups are shown in Fig. 15. In
Fig. 15(a), top trace gives the common-mode voltage between
the A2 and A3, middle trace gives between A2 and B3, and
bottom trace A2 and C3. Similarly, Fig. 15(b) shows the common
voltage between the A2–B2 and A2–C2 winding neutrals.
Similarly, the experimental results for under modulation (M.I
= 0.4 × 0.852 = 0.35 and M.I = 0.8 × 0.852 = 0.68) and over
modulation (M.I = 1.1 × 0.852 = 0.94) are shown in Figs. 16–
18, respectively. In these figures, Figs. 16(a) and (b) are showing
the phase voltages and currents of A1–A2, A3–A4, and effective
Phase-A windings for under and over M.I values, respectively.
Further, Figs. 16–18 give switch voltages, pole voltages of the
first leg (S11, S12, and S13 leg) present in the proposed inverter,
and common-mode voltages existing between different neutrals
for M.I of 0.35, 0.68, and 0.94, respectively.
 BHIMIREDDY et al.: PHASE RECONFIGURING TECHNIQUE FOR ENHANCING THE MODULATION INDEX 2905

Fig. 16. Experimental results for M.I = 0.35. (a) Phase-A voltage waveforms. (b) Phase-A current waveforms. (c) Voltage across the switches of
3-SIL and pole voltages. (d) Common mode voltages between different neutrals of A2–A3, A2–B3, and A2–C3.

Fig. 17. Experimental results for M.I = 0.68. (a) Phase-A voltage waveforms. (b) Phase-A current waveforms. (c) Voltage across the switches of
3-SIL and pole voltages. (d) Common mode voltages between different neutrals of A2–A3, A2–B3, and A2-C3.

Fig. 18. Phase-A voltage and current waveforms for over modulation (M.I = 0.94). (a) Phase-A voltage waveforms. (b) Phase-A current waveforms.
(c) Voltage across the switches of 3-SIL and pole voltages. (d) Common mode voltages between different neutrals of A2–A3, A2–B3, and A2–C3.

VI. CONCLUSION reconfiguring. The linear modulation range of the proposed

In this article, the available IVPCs of 9-phase 4-pole OEW
IM were effectively used. By using these IVPC windings/phase
and 3-SIL concepts in this article, an MLI configuration was
proposed for 9-phase OEW IM drives. This MLI configuration
required only 27 switches and one dc source as compared to the
conventional MLI configurations. In the proposed MLI config-
uration, each 3-SIL was exiting two IVPC windings, where the
phase shift between the references of these two IVPCs decided
the modulation index. Because of 180° displaced IVPCs of the
Phase A, the M.I was limited to 0.5 only. In this article, an
effective phase reconfiguring concept for proposed MLI was
presented, which enhanced the M.I value by 73% (i.e., from 0.5
to 0.862). In addition, all possibilities of the phase reconfiguring
details that help to enhance the M.I were also presented. With this
proposed phase reconfiguring concepts, the required magnitude
of the dc-link voltage of proposed MLI was reduced by 42%
(from Vdc /(6 × 0.5) to Vdc /(6 × 0.852)) over without phase
configuration was further enhanced by using the third harmonic
injected SVPWM. The Ansys Maxwell, as well as experimental
results, showed that the proposed MLI fed 9-phase IM drive is
able to operate in full modulation range.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The statements made herein are solely the responsibility of
the authors.
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Prathap Reddy Bhimireddy (Student Member,
IEEE) received the B.Tech. degree in electrical
and electronics engineering from the Gates In-
stitute of Technology, Jawaharlal Nehru Techno-
logical University, Anantapur, India, in 2014, the
M.Tech. degree in power electronics and drives
from Lovely Professional University, Punjab,
India, in 2016, and the Ph.D. degree in power
electronics and drives from the Indian Institute
of Technology Hyderabad, Hyderabad, India, in
2019.
He is currently a Postdoctoral Research Assistant with the Depart-
ment of Electrical Engineering, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar. His re-
search interests include pole-phase modulation techniques for electric
drives, multilevel inverters, multiphase machines, open-end winding in-
duction motor drives, and pulsewidth modulation techniques.
Sivakumar Keerthipati (Senior Member, IEEE)
received the B.Tech. degree in electrical en-
gineering from Sri Venkateswara University,
Tirupati, India, in 2004, the M.Tech. degree
in power electronics and drives from the Na-
tional Institute of Technology, Warangal, India, in
2006, and the Ph.D. degree in power electronics
and drives from the Center for Electronics De-
sign and Technology, Indian Institute of Science,
Bangalore, India, in 2010.
He is currently an Associate Professor with
the Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technol-
ogy Hyderabad, India. His research interests include multilevel invert-
ers, open-end winding induction motor drives, pulsewidth modulation
techniques, pole-phase modulated drives, microgrids, and multiphase
machines and control.
Dr. Sivakumar Keerthipati was the recipient of IETE Bimal K Bose
Award for the year 2018.
Atif Iqbal (Senior Member, IEEE) received the
B.Sc. (Gold Medal) and M.Sc. Engineering de-
grees in power system and drives from the
Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India, in 1991
and 1996, respectively, and Ph.D. in power elec-
tronics and drives from Liverpool John Moores
University, Liverpool, UK, in 2006.
He is currently a Full Professor with the
Department of Electrical Engineering, Qatar
University, Doha, Qatar. His research interests
include smart grid, complex energy transition,
active distribution network, electric vehicles drive train, sustainable de-
velopment and energy security, and distributed energy generation.
Dr. Iqbal became a Fellow IE (India) in 2012 and Fellow IET (UK) in
2018. He is an Editor-in-Chief of the I’Manager’s Journal of Electrical
Engineering, a Former Associate Editor for the IEEE TRANSACTIONS
ON INDUSTRY APPLICATION. He is currently an Associate Editor for IEEE
ACCESS.