Electric motor drives in Brazil: a reflection on the perspectives of the development of commercial research lines

Several types of electronic converters, motors and semiconductor devices were the object of many research projects, producing an extensive bibliography; however, just a few of them were commercially established. The opening of the Brazilian market, stimulated by globalization, allows the national users access to a vast quantity of products, making some subjects almost impossible to be developed, and to generate commercial products, by the universities and research centers. The DC drives are still used in the industrial facilities, although the tendency is that they gradually disappear, as the cost of the AC drives decreases. Based in these facts, this paper considers the commercial perspectives of the research lines development of AC drives in Brazil.