Principal Investigator Ivan Celanovic
The need for low-cost, high-reliability, easy-to-use power electronics systems is becoming more and more pronounced. Long design cycles, complex maintenance, lack of standardization and high costs are slowing down possibilities for wider proliferation of power electronics converters. Power electronics has reached the point where further advancement, in terms of wider application of converters can hardly be achieved unless the community is presented with easy to use, of-the-shelf, standardized and flexible power electronics modules. And in this day and age, where nearly every possible electrical system in the world needs some kind of power electronics ,either to increase conversion efficiency or enhance system performance, the need for tools that will enable wider community of developers to take advantage of possibilities power electronics systems offer has never been more pressing.
The idea is to provide an easy to use set of tools for engineers so they can design power electronics for large spectrum of application, even without being power electronics specialist. And if you are power electronics specialist, you would use the same set of tools dramatically cutting down the development time. Lets say you want to design a photovoltaic generation system connected to a grid.. You can use the same simulation environment you always use, you can use one of the standardized digital controllers (customized for power electronics requirements) and you can design, test and implement your final digital design with a push of a button.
We are all very familiar with this concept, as it has been the main driving force behind the microelectronics revolution. We all love to use standardized chips or microcontrollers and just interconnect them in a straightforward fashion without the need to understand the intricate physics of semiconductors. And we all use software tools to simulate, emulate, configure and build microelectronics systems once interconnected together. Well, the same reality is inevitable in power electronics systems and in wider energy conversion realm.