## 4 Simulations and Experimental Results  
The performance of the proposed method is analyzed via simulations using an input DC voltage (V\({}_{\text{dc}}\) = 200 V) and RL load (R = 1.2 \(\Omega\), L = 9.87 mH). The reference current is set to 15 A based on a modulation index of 0.6, and Table 2 summarizes the parameters used in the simulation. The performance of the proposed method is validated via comparative analyses with an existing MPC. The MPCs used in these analyses are given below. The first is the conventional MPC. This approach utilizes six active voltage vectors and two zero-voltage vectors for current control in two-level inverters. However, its performance is limited by the number of available voltage vectors. The second is the multi-vector MPC. This approach enhances the conventional MPC by introducing a multi-vector concept. While it achieves an output performance similar to that of multi-level inverters with improved current quality, it suffers from increased switching frequency and consequential switching losses owing to the higher number of voltage vectors under consideration. To overcome these limitations, we propose the multi-vector-based D-MPC in this study. The proposed method integrates the multi-vector approach with discontinuous control techniques to preserve the output performance while suppressing switching during specific current intervals. This approach reduces the switching losses and improves the inverter efficiency. This study verifies that the proposed D-MPC maintains the output performance while reducing the losses when compared with the conventional MPC and multi-vector MPC. We conducted simulations and experiments under both steady-state and transient conditions. We performed a comparative performance analysis for the conventional MPC and multi-vector MPC, and we proposed D-MPC under normal operating conditions (Figure 9). The comparison metrics include three-phase output currents, phase A reference current, switching waveforms for the phase A leg, line-to-line voltages, load phase voltages, and THD. The results indicate that the conventional MPC exhibited relatively lower quality in three-phase output currents, with phase voltages presenting significant deviations from the ideal sinusoidal waveforms. This indicates the limitations of the basic implementation of the predictive control strategy. The multi-vector MPC exhibited improved three-phase output current quality when compared with the conventional MPC by utilizing multiple vectors. The phase voltages also exhibited a closer approximation to the sinusoidal waveforms. However, this approach faces a significant drawback in that an increased switching frequency presents higher switching losses, which reduces the overall electric propulsion ship system efficiency. The proposed D-MPC method exhibited additional improvements. The fast Fourier transform (FFT) analysis of the phase A output current demonstrated that the proposed method presented lower THD when compared with the conventional MPC, while maintaining THD performance equivalent to that of the multi-vector MPC. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c} \hline \hline
**Parameters** & **Values** \\ \hline V\({}_{\text{dc}}\) (DC voltage) & 200 V \\ R\({}_{\text{load}}\) (load resistance) & 1.233 \(\Omega\) \\ L\({}_{\text{load}}\) (load inductance) & 9.873 mH \\ C\({}_{\text{dc}}\) (DC capacitance) & 4400 \(\mu\)F \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 2: Simulation parameters. Although direct confirmation of the switching losses from the graphs is challenging, the analysis of the switching patterns demonstrated suppressed switching activity during periods of high currents. This indicates a potential reduction in the switching losses, which was subsequently verified via additional data analysis, as shown in Figure 10.  
Figure 10: Performance comparison of the conventional MPC, multi-vector MPC, and the proposed D-MPC under varying sampling frequency conditions: (**a**) current error and (**b**) output current total harmonic distortion (THD).