Dead-time and switch voltage drops represent the most important sources of distortion of the (average) output voltage in pulsewidth modulation inverters. Their effect is a function of the parameters of the drive system and of the operating conditions and is often intolerable in many drives applications, thus requiring a proper compensation strategy. Many techniques are implemented in industrial drives and reported in the literature, even very recently. Differently from standard approaches, the proposed methodology is based on a detailed physical model of the power converter (including output capacitance), described by a small set of parameters. A novel self-commissioning identification procedure is introduced, adopting multiple linear regression. The technique is tested on a commercial drive in comparison with state-of-the-art techniques. In addition, back electromotive force estimation improvements in a permanent-magnet synchronous motor sensorless drive system are shown to provide additional validation of the method. © 1972-2012 IEEE.