Abstract—In this paper， a generalized discontinuous pulsewidth modulation （GDPWM） method with superior high modulation operating range performance characteristics is developed. An algorithm which employs the conventional space-vector PWM method in the low modulation range， and the GDPWM method in the high modulation range， is established. As a result， the current waveform quality， switching losses， voltage linearity range， and the overmodulation region performance of a PWM voltage-source inverter （PWM-VSI） drive are on-line optimized， as opposed to conventional modulators with fixed characteristics. Due to its compactness， simplicity， and superior performance， the algorithm is suitable for most high-performance PWM-VSI drive applications. This paper provides detailed performance analysis of the method and compares it to the other methods. The experimental results verify the superiority of this algorithm to the conventional PWM methods.