Dual active bridge converters in solid state transformers

This dissertation presents a comprehensive study of Dual Active Bridge (DAB) converters for Solid State Transformers (SSTs). The first contribution is to propose an ac-ac DAB converter as a single stage SST. The proposed converter topology consists of two active H-bridges and one high-frequency transformer. Output voltage can be regulated when input voltage changes by phase shift modulation. Power is transferred from the leading bridge to the lagging bridge. It analyzes the steady-state operation and the range of zero-voltage switching. It develops a switch commutation scheme for the ac-ac DAB converters. Simulation and experiment results of a scaled down prototype are provided to verify the theoretical analysis. The second contribution is to develop a full-order continuous-time average model for dc-dc DAB converters. The transformer current in DAB converter is purely ac, making continuous-time modeling difficult. Instead, the proposed approach uses the dc terms and 1st order terms of transformer current and capacitor voltage as state variables. Singular perturbation analysis is performed to find the sufficient conditions to separate the dynamics of transformer current and capacitor voltage. Experimental results confirm that the proposed model predicts the small-signal frequency response more accurately. The third contribution addresses the controller design of a dc-dc DAB converter when driving a single-phase dc-ac inverter. It studies the effect of 120 Hz current generated by the single-phase inverter. The limitation of PI-controller is investigated. Two methods are proposed to reduce the voltage ripple at the output voltage of DAB converter. The first method helps the feedback loop with feedforward from inverter, while the second one adds an additional resonance controller to the feedback loop. Theoretical analysis, simulation and experiment results are provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed methods --Abstract, page iii

Design, analysis and evaluation of sigma-delta based beamformers for medical ultrasound imaging applications

The inherent analogue nature of medical ultrasound signals in conjunction with the abundant merits provided by digital image acquisition, together with the increasing use of relatively simple front-end circuitries, have created considerable demand for single-bit beamformers in digital ultrasound imaging systems. Furthermore, the increasing need to design lightweight ultrasound systems with low power consumption and low noise, provide ample justification for development and innovation in the use of single-bit beamformers in ultrasound imaging systems. The overall aim of this research program is to investigate, establish, develop and confirm through a combination of theoretical analysis and detailed simulations, that utilize raw phantom data sets, suitable techniques for the design of simple-to-implement hardware efficient digital ultrasound beamformers to address the requirements for 3D scanners with large channel counts, as well as portable and lightweight ultrasound scanners for point-of-care applications and intravascular imaging systems. In addition, the stability boundaries of higher-order High-Pass (HP) and Band-Pass (BP) Σ−Δ modulators for single- and dual- sinusoidal inputs are determined using quasi-linear modeling together with the describing-function method, to more accurately model the modulator quantizer. The theoretical results are shown to be in good agreement with the simulation results for a variety of input amplitudes, bandwidths, and modulator orders. The proposed mathematical models of the quantizer will immensely help speed up the design of higher order HP and BP Σ−Δ modulators to be applicable for digital ultrasound beamformers. Finally, a user friendly design and performance evaluation tool for LP, BP and HP modulators is developed. This toolbox, which uses various design methodologies and covers an assortment of modulators topologies, is intended to accelerate the design process and evaluation of modulators. This design tool is further developed to enable the design, analysis and evaluation of beamformer structures including the noise analyses of the final B-scan images. Thus, this tool will allow researchers and practitioners to design and verify different reconstruction filters and analyze the results directly on the B-scan ultrasound images thereby saving considerable time and effort

A 24GHz Synchronized Super-regenerative receiver in 65nm CMOS

Questo lavoro presenta il progetto di un ricevitore super-rigenerativo sincronizzato, sviluppato in tecnologia CMOS 65 nm. Il ricevitore adotta una frequenza operativa di 24 GHz ed è progettato per raggiungere una velocità massima di ricezione pari a 2 Gbps, a partire da un minimo di 100 Mbps. La tecnica super-rigenerativa viene impiegata per realizzare un ricevitore a bassa potenza, da utilizzare nella comunicazione a breve distanza (1-10 m), e la simulazione dimostra che, lavorando ad 1 Gbps, il ricevitore manifesta un rendimento energetico di 3.38 pJ/bit. Il diagramma a blocchi del circuito presenta tre blocchi principali: l'LNA, collegato all'antenna, che garantisce un S11 di 19.62 dB a 24 GHz; l'oscillatore super-rigenerativo (SRO), che è il cuore del circuito; e l'oscillatore ad anello che viene utilizzato per generare il segnale di quench che deve pilotare l'SRO. Teoria, metodi di progettazione e risultati ottenuti sono ampliamente illustrati all'interno della Tesi. This work presents the design of a synchronized super-regenerative receiver developed in 65 nm CMOS technology. The receiver is working with an operating frequency of 24 GHz and it is projected to achieve a maximum data bit rate of 2 Gbps, starting from a minimum of 100 Mbps. The super-regenerative technique is used to realize a low power receiver for short-range distance (1-10 m), and the simulation shows that working at 1 Gbps the receiver has an energy efficiency of 3.38 pJ/bit. The block diagram of the circuit presents three main blocks: the LNA (Low-Noise Amplier), connected to the antenna, which guarantees an S11 of 19.62 dB at 24 GHz; the Super-Regenerative Oscillator (SRO), which is the heart of the circuit; and the Ring Oscillator which is used to generate the quench signal that has to drive the SRO. Theory, design methods and final results are fully explained inside the Thesi

Automatic Landing of a Rotary-Wing UAV in Rough Seas

Rotary-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (RUAVs) have created extensive interest in the past few decades due to their unique manoeuverability and because of their suitability in a variety of flight missions ranging from traffic inspection to surveillance and reconnaissance. The ability of a RUAV to operate from a ship in the presence of adverse winds and deck motion could greatly extend its applications in both military and civilian roles. This requires the design of a flight control system to achieve safe and reliable automatic landings. Although ground-based landings in various scenarios have been investigated and some satisfactory flight test results are obtained, automatic shipboard recovery is still a dangerous and challenging task. Also, the highly coupled and inherently unstable flight dynamics of the helicopter exacerbate the difficulty in designing a flight control system which would enable the RUAV to attenuate the gust effect. This thesis makes both theoretical and technical contributions to the shipboard recovery problem of the RUAV operating in rough seas. The first main contribution involves a novel automatic landing scheme which reduces time, cost and experimental resources in the design and testing of the RUAV/ship landing system. The novelty of the proposed landing system enables the RUAV to track slow-varying mean deck height instead of instantaneous deck motion to reduce vertical oscillations. This is achieved by estimating the mean deck height through extracting dominant modes from the estimated deck displacement using the recursive Prony Analysis procedure. The second main contribution is the design of a flight control system with gust-attenuation and rapid position tracking capabilities. A feedback-feedforward controller has been devised for height stabilization in a windy environment based on the construction of an effective gust estimator. Flight tests have been conducted to verify its performance, and they demonstrate improved gust-attenuation capability in the RUAV. The proposed feedback-feedforward controller can dynamically and synchronously compensate for the gust effect. In addition, a nonlinear H1 controller has been designed for horizontal position tracking which shows rapid position tracking performance and gust-attenuation capability when gusts occur. This thesis also contains a description of technical contributions necessary for a real-time evaluation of the landing system. A high-infedlity simulation framework has been developed with the goal of minimizing the number of iterations required for theoretical analysis, simulation verification and flight validation. The real-time performance of the landing system is assessed in simulations using the C-code, which can be easily transferred to the autopilot for flight tests. All the subsystems are parameterized and can be extended to different RUAV platforms. The integration of helicopter flight dynamics, flapping dynamics, ship motion, gust effect, the flight control system and servo dynamics justifies the reliability of the simulation results. Also, practical constraints are imposed on the simulation to check the robustness of the flight control system. The feasibility of the landing procedure is confimed for the Vario helicopter using real-time ship motion data

Cavity Field Control for Linear Particle Accelerators

High-energy linear particle accelerators enable exploration of the microscopic structure of pharmaceuticals, solar cells, fuel cells, high-temperature superconductors, and the universe itself. These accelerators accelerate charged particles using oscillating magnetic fields that are confined in metal cavities. The amplitudes and phases of the electromagnetic fields need to be accurately controlled by fast feedback loops for proper accelerator operation.This thesis is based on the author's work on performance analysis and control design for the field control loops of the linear accelerator at the European Spallation Source (ESS), a neutron microscope that is under construction in Lund, Sweden. The main contribution of the thesis is a comprehensive treatment of the field control problem during flat-top, which gives more insight into the control aspects than previous work. The thesis demonstrates that a key to understand the dynamics of the field control loop is to represent it as a single-input single-output system with complex coefficients. This representation is not new itself but has seen limited use for field control analysis.The thesis starts by developing practical and theoretical tools for analysis and control design for complex-coefficients systems. This is followed by two main parts on cavity field control. The first part introduces parametrizations that enable a better understanding of the cavity dynamics and discusses the most essential aspects of cavity field control. The second part builds on the first one and treats a selection of more advanced topics that all benefit from the complex-coefficient representation: analysis of a polar controller structure, field control design in the presence of parasitic cavity resonances, digital downconversion for low-latency feedback, energy-optimal excitation of accelerating cavities, and an intuitive design method for narrowband disturbance rejection. The results of the investigations in this thesis provide a better understanding of the field control problem and have influenced the design of the field controllers at ESS