This study investigates how to improve the fault tolerance or availability of an electrical drive containing a three‐phase 12 stator teeth/10 rotor poles (12/10) the flux‐switching permanent magnet machine. In this respect, space‐vector modulation and space‐phasor modulation will be analysed in this type of machine for control scheme design under three‐phase operation. While for safety critical applications, availability requires that during faults, such as loss of one inverter phase leg or open circuit of one machine phase winding, the electrical drive system remains partly operational. Therefore, initial research is given in this study on the implementation of control algorithms that drives the machine under normal condition and preserves the electromagnetic torque under phase open‐circuit faults.

While operating an electric drive under different load conditions, power switch devices experience thermal stress which provokes wear-out failures and compromises lifetime. In this paper, a model-based dynamic gate voltage control strategy is proposed to reduce the thermal stress by shaping the profile of conduction losses. Thermal stability criteria are investigated, which limit the gate voltage operating range; thus, current focalization and associated local heat up are avoided. After that, simulations and lifetime estimation are conducted for performance evaluation in two different operation scenarios, which show promising results at high speed operation conditions. Furthermore, a current injection method is applied for low-speed operating conditions to improve the compensation effort. This method is experimentally verified by using a custom proof-of-concept gate driver that supplies an adjustable three-level gate voltage. A three-phase electric drive is prototyped, on which power cycling tests are conducted. The junction temperature is measured and the results confirm the thermal control method.