Integrated Design of Energy Conversion Systems

In the first part of this talk an overview of the research activities in the Power Electronics Laboratory at RPI will be presented. Our research extends across a wide array of topics in the field of energy including energy harvesting and power management for portable electronic devices/wireless sensor nodes, power electronics converters for renewable energy systems, electric drives and electromechanical energy converters for various applications such as avionics and shipboard power systems.

Following the initial survey of the research activities, we will focus on the work in integrated design methodologies for high performance electric drives in more detail. Recent global concerns regarding energy and environmental issues as well as “more electric” and “all electric” movements call for more efficient, reliable electric drives which can live and operate under extreme condition. On the other hand advances in power electronics and digital signal processing together with the development of new magnetic materials facilitate a move away from the standard off-the-shelf electric machines and drives to new high performance ones. In order to develop efficient electric machines, the contribution of different orders of space harmonics originating from the geometry and time harmonics of excitation will be considered. To analyze, model and control the new designs we define multi-subspace, multiple frame of references and decompose the machine into several child machines. Control architectures to operate the system at its maximum possible performance based on its operational parts under extreme winding fault conditions will be discussed. Our control strategies will be based on modifying the excitation pattern to accommodate for the faulty condition.

Leila Parsa received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Texas A&M University, College Station. Since spring 2005 she has been an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Systems Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY. Her research interests are in design, analysis and control of electromechanical energy converters and power electronics converters for various applications. Dr. Parsa is the recipient of the 2009 Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, the 2007 IEEE Industry Applications Society Outstanding Young Member Award, and 2006 IEEE Industry Applications Society Transactions Paper Award.