Asee peer logo

New Trends and Technologies in Power Electronics and Motor Drives Education

Download Paper |

Conference

2014 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Indianapolis, Indiana

Publication Date

June 15, 2014

Start Date

June 15, 2014

End Date

June 18, 2014

ISSN

2153-5965

Conference Session

Electrical Energy Courses - Labs and Projects

Tagged Division

Energy Conversion and Conservation

Page Count

19

Page Numbers

24.935.1 - 24.935.19

DOI

10.18260/1-2--22868

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/22868

Download Count

598

Paper Authors

biography

Yazan Alsmadi Ohio State University

visit author page

Yazan Alsmadi received his B.S. degree (summa cum laude) in electrical power engineering in 2010 from Yarmouk University, Jordan, where he ranked first in his class. He received Yarmouk University's Presidential Award for Academic Distinction in 2009 and the Jordan Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research Award for Academic Distinction in 2007. He currently is working toward a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering at Ohio State University, where he was nominated for the Graduate Associate Teaching Award, the university’s highest recognition of exceptional teaching provided by graduate students. His research interests include integration of renewable energy resources into electric power systems, advanced control theory of distributed power and variable speed systems, and development of power electronics systems for renewable energy applications.

Mr. Alsmadi currently serves as a president of the IEEE Graduate Student Body (GSB) at Ohio State University, which is the first graduate student body worldwide. He received the Distinguished Service Award at the 2012 & 2013 IEEE Columbus spring awards banquets, marking the first time that this award was given to a graduate student. Mr. Alsmadi is a member of IEEE, ASEE, the International Council on Large Electric Systems (Cigre), Phi Kappa Phi, and Tau Beta Pi.

visit author page

biography

Kaichien Tsai Ohio State University

visit author page

Kaichien Tsai received his B.S. degree from Ohio State University in June, 2007. He has been pursuing a Ph.D. degree at Ohio State since 2008 and was with the Smart Grid team in Texas Instruments for six months in 2013. His research interests include motor drive control, high power converter and inverter designs, EMI mitigation techniques, and computer-aided circuit analysis.

visit author page

biography

Mark J. Scott Ohio State University

visit author page

Mark Scott graduated in 2005 from Ohio State University with a bachelor’s degree in electrical and computer engineering. After working as a field engineer installing large industrial automated systems, and then as a test engineer validating power electronics designed for automotive applications, he returned to Ohio State in 2009 to pursue a Ph.D. in the field of power electronics. His research is on implementing wide band-gap (WBG) devices, based on gallium nitride (GaN) and silicon carbide (SiC), in new and existing power-conversion applications. The focal point of his studies has been on improving power densities of power electronics through the development of high frequency, WBG-based switched-capacitor circuits.

visit author page

biography

Longya Xu Ohio State University

visit author page

Prof. Longya Xu joined the department of electrical and computer engineering at Ohio State University in 1990. He has served as a consultant to various industrial concerns, including Raytheon, Boeing, Honeywell, GE Aviation, U.S. Wind Power, General Motors, Ford, and Unique Mobility Inc. He is the founding director of the newly established Center for High Performance Power Electronics at OSU, which is supported by the Ohio Third Frontier program. His research and teaching interests include the dynamics and optimized design of special electrical machines and power converters for variable-speed systems, the application of advanced control theory and digital signal processors for motion control, and distributed power systems in super-high-speed operations. Dr. Xu served as a Member-at-Large of the IEEE Industry Applications Society (IAS) Executive Board, as Chair of the Electric Machines Committee of the IEEE IAS, and as an associate editor for the IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics. He was the recipient of the First Prize Paper Award from the Industrial Drives Committee of the IEEE IAS in 1990, the Research Initiation Award from the National Science Foundation in 1991 for his work on wind-power generation, and the Lumley Research Award from OSU's College of Engineering in 1995, 1999, and 2004, for his outstanding research accomplishments.

visit author page

author page

Aimeng Wang

Download Paper |

Abstract

New Trends and Technologies in Power Electronics and Motor Drives TeachingThe traditional education model for undergraduate and graduate education is changing. This isevident by the variety of distant learning opportunities that exist these days. At our institution,students not only juggle large class loads, but some have full time jobs and families. Others areinvolved in student activities, such as marching band or athletics. These extra obligations impededthe adopted approach of offering a single laboratory time slot that offers little flexibility inaccommodating the extracurricular needs of the student.This paper presents a new laboratory course based on a novel teaching methodology called “OpenSpace Lab”. In this approach, students are provided with all the facilities to do their laboratorywork in an openly available work space that can be accessed at a time that is convenient for them.The following abstract focuses on the application of this methodology to our Power ElectronicsLab. The course provides students with hands-on experience designing and controlling of powerelectronics and as well as applying them to motor drives. This laboratory reinforces the conceptsthat are covered in their theoretical courseworkOur work started with recording videos for of the each experiment. These are made available tostudents before, during, and after the lab experiment. In addition, each student is has writteninstructions available for download from the course website.The instructor in the video describes the relevant equipment needed for the experiment, its purpose,and how it will be used. The written instructions are divided into segments to break the work upinto cohesive packets. The students follow the steps in each segment, then request approval froma lab monitor to continue their experiment. The lab monitor confirms their progress and evaluatesthe setup to determine if the students have achieved specific goals (e.g., a particular set ofwaveforms on an oscilloscope, voltage read by a voltmeter). Once the students are given theapproval, they may continue with the next segment in the experiment.This lab course is designed for college seniors and graduate students. It includes a unique set ofexperiments, with state-of-the-art equipment and software, which combine the traditional powerelectronics and motor drives circuits with recent innovative energy conversion technologies. Thecontent targets modern industrial applications, including integrating renewable energy resources(wind and solar) into electric power systems and the control of hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs).Most of the required lab hardware was designed and fabricated by instructional lab team members,with additional advanced development kits provided by Texas Instruments (TI). These kits includeC2000TM Solar Inverter Development Kits (TMDSSOLARCEXPKIT), Dual Motor Control andPower Factor Correction Developer's Kit (TMDS2MTRPFCKIT) and Renewable EnergyDeveloper’s Kit (TMDSENRGYKIT-C2000). This equipment is shown in the figuresbelow. Furthermore, each workstation is furnished with an iPad to facilitate the viewing process.The success of this approach is being assessed through student evaluations at the end of thesemester. Also being considered is enrollment into more advanced topics in the power relateddiscipline. These details will be summarized in the final paper. Samples of the Hardware Used in the Power Electronics and Motor Control LaboratoryFigure 1: Buck Converter Board Component Layout Figure 2: Boost Converter Board Component Layout Figure 3: Major Components of the Solar Explorer Kit Figure 4: Major Components of the Dual Motor and PFC Control Kit Figure 5: Panoramic View of the Open Space Lab Area

Alsmadi, Y., & Tsai, K., & Scott, M. J., & Xu, L., & Wang, A. (2014, June), New Trends and Technologies in Power Electronics and Motor Drives Education Paper presented at 2014 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Indianapolis, Indiana. 10.18260/1-2--22868

ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2014 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015