Sachin Rathod, Mahesh Jivani, Kalpesh Gajera
Power-factor correction (PFC) is essential in modern motor-drive systems to comply with harmonic-current limits (e.g., IEC 61000-3-2), reduce input-current distortion, and lower reactive-power burden on the supply. This paper presents a fair head-to-head experimental comparison of three boost-based active PFC front ends for a brushless DC (BLDC) motor drive: (i) classic boost PFC, (ii) bridgeless boost PFC, and (iii) two-phase interleaved boost PFC. All three converters are digitally controlled using an outer DC-bus voltage loop and an inner input-current loop on the same hardware platform, and all three are tested with the same BLDC motor, the same load profile, and the same instrumentation, so that the observed differences reflect only the topology change. Twenty-four operating points are recorded at a fixed motor speed of 3,950 RPM with shaft torque varied from no-load to 3.5 N.m using a HIOKI smart power analyzer. Across the load range, the measured mean power factor improves from 0.9255 (Classic) to 0.9385 (Bridgeless) and 0.9501 (Interleaved); the peak measured reactive power drops from 905 VAR (Classic) to 790 VAR (Bridgeless) and 664 VAR (Interleaved), corresponding to a 26.6 per cent reduction in worst-case reactive-power demand from Classic to Interleaved. A qualitative component-count and complexity comparison is also presented to support topology selection in practical motor-drive design.