June 2026

Conference Paper

Power Electronic Development Challenges for High Power Density Integrated Electric Drive Applications

By:
Chowdhury, Md S; Barua, Himel ; Rallabandi, Vandana P; Wilkins, Jonathan P; Su, Gui-Jia ; Ribeiro, Pedro Eugenio M; Rowden, Brian Lynn; Ozpineci, Burak ; Kekelia, Bidzina; Narumanchi, Sreekant
Page Number:
1724-1731
Book Title:
2026 IEEE Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposition (APEC)
Publication Date:
June 5, 2026
Conference Name:
APEC 2026
Conference Location:
San Antonio, Texas, United States of America
Conference Sponsor:
ieee
View DOI Listing:
https://doi.org/10.1109/APEC51134.2026.11517128

Abstract

The ever-increasing demand for compact, efficient, and high-performance traction drive systems for transportation applications has accelerated the development of integrated electric drives. In these systems, the electric machine and inverter are integrated within a single housing, offering significant advantages in electrical performance, volume, weight, cost, and overall system efficiency. Despite these benefits, such high levels of integration introduce a new set of challenges, particularly in power electronic design and component selection. This article presents an in-depth investigation of a highly integrated electric drive architecture with an internal stator-mounted inverter, highlighting key design considerations and trade-offs aimed exclusively at maximizing system power density.Based on a comprehensive review of the literature, the power density of a voltage-source-inverter–driven electric drive is primarily governed by the volumetric contributions of the power modules, heat sinks, and DC-link capacitors. Accordingly, this work focuses on the optimization of these three critical components to enhance the inverter’s overall power density. The proposed design achieves a power density of 100 kW/L, demonstrating the effectiveness of the presented approach for next-generation integrated electric drive systems.