In this article, the advantages of both octadecagonal space vector pulsewidth modulation (SVPWM) and hexagonal SVPWM are explored for a pole-phase modulation (PPM) induction machine (IM) drive applications. In the proposed scheme, a hexagonal SVPWM is used in the low-speed region and octadecagonal SVPWM is used during the high-speed region to achieve better performance over the entire speed range. With this proposed operation, the linear modulation region is enhanced by 9.15% as compared to conventional three-phase SVPWM in the high-speed region. The basic two-level nine-leg inverter is used to excite the nine-phase PPM IM. The finite-element model (FEM) of the PPM IM and inverter structure is simulated using ANSYS Maxwell-2D and Simplorer environment, respectively. The proposed method is verified experimentally on the prototype model of 5-hp nine-phase IM. © 1982-2012 IEEE.