Patent ID: 8036858

Claim:
A method of manufacturing an electric drive system, comprising: selecting and optimizing an electric drive machine by performing the following steps: defining critical-to-quality values for said electric drive machine; defining at least one initial target value for each of said critical-to-quality values; defining a relative weight for each of said critical-to-quality values; calculating a relative weight coefficient for each critical-to-quality value; calculating a preliminary optimal design as a function of said critical-to-quality values and said relative weight coefficients; and subsequent to calculating the preliminary optimal design, selecting a first design approach, from among types of electric machines, for said electric drive machine and optimizing said critical-to-quality values in said first selected design approach, wherein optimizing said critical-to-quality values includes: determining a value for each key characteristic based on said first selected design approach; creating a transfer function for each critical-to-quality parameter based on the value of each of the defined key characteristics for each said critical-to-quality parameter; calculating a first design approach critical-to-quality value for each said critical-to-quality parameter of said first design approach using said transfer function; calculating an optimal design for said first selected design approach based on each of said design approach critical-to-quality values; and comparing the value of said calculated optimal design for said first selected design approach to the value of said preliminary optimal design; selecting a second design approach, from among types of electric machines, if said comparison determines that the value of said calculated optimal design for said first selected design approach is less than the value of said preliminary optimal design; performing a second comparison of the value of said calculated optimal design for said second selected design approach to the value of said preliminary optimal design; and selecting said second selected design approach for said electric drive system if said second comparison determines that the value of said calculated optimal design for said selected design approach is at least as great as the value of said preliminary design.