An Overview of Advancements in Multimotor Drives: Structural Diversity, Advanced Control, Specific Technical Challenges, and Solutions

Multimotor drives have become increasingly important in modern industrial applications due to their ability to provide superior performance, efficiency, and flexibility compared to single-motor systems. Hence, this article presents an overview of recent advancements in multimotor drives, focusing on three main areas: structural diversity, advanced control, and emerging challenges and solutions. First, the various structural configurations of multimotor drives are summarized, which include parallel, cascaded, and hybrid configurations. The features as well as component motors and converters of each configuration are discussed, along with the selection rules of a particular configuration for a given application. Second, from the perspective of different performance requirements, the advanced control technologies used for multimotor drives are discussed. Then, this article highlights the technical challenges associated with multimotor drives, including coordination control, mutual interference, communication, interdependent fault diagnosis, and power quality. Meanwhile, viable solutions to these challenges are summarized. Finally, a discussion of the future directions and opportunities for further research and development in the field of multimotor drives is presented. Through this article, scholars and engineers can gain a comprehensive understanding of current and future developments in multimotor drives, contributing to continued research in this field and facilitating successful integration into various applications.