Patent ID: 8018185

Claim:
An apparatus for driving a switching member of a power converter so as to generate, from a DC (Direct Current) voltage of a power supply source, a variable output voltage of the power converter, the output voltage being applied to a rotary machine and generating torque in the rotary machine, the generated torque allowing a rotor of the rotary machine to rotate, the apparatus comprising: a norm setter that sets, based on a request torque for the rotary machine and a rotational velocity of the rotor, a norm of a vector of the output voltage in a two-phase rotating coordinate system defined in the rotor; a phase setter that sets, based on a deviation between the generated torque and the request torque, a phase of the vector of the output voltage of the power converter in the two-phase rotating coordinate system; a drive signal determiner that determines, based on the norm set by the norm setter and the phase set by the phase setter, a drive signal, and applies the drive signal to the switching member to thereby drive the switching member such that the generated torque is adjusted to the request torque.