dv/dt filter design incorporating machine impedance and voltage slew rate for WBG-based electric drives

The trend towards high power density and high reliability of electric drive systems in mobility applications pushes the use of high-speed machine in combination with Wide Band Gap (WBG) power semiconductor technology. Replacement of Si power technology with WBG without mitigating high voltage slew rates dv/dt degrades machine winding insulation. Of the different mitigation techniques employed, especially the passive LCR filter at the output of the inverter cannot be optimally designed without consideration of the inherent low impedance of the high speed machines. This paper presents the analytical techniques used for LCR filter design for motor drives and introduces the technique to incorporate machine impedance Z dm for optimal design of the parameters to achieve high efficiency. An analytical technique based optimization algorithm is introduced for the reduction of filter inductor volume to achieve high power density in these applications. The proposed design methodology is evaluated in simulations and experiments with Gallium Nitride (GaN) based inverter technology

Optical Sensing Applied to Thermal Observers for Enhanced Reliability of Power Modules

Condition Monitoring using thermal variables has been identified as one of the most critical aspects when assessing the performance and degradation of Power Modules (PMs). Different sensing technologies and algorithms have been proposed in order to develop high-performance reliability-driven control of PMs. This paper focuses on the application of contact-based fiber optic temperature sensors in thermal observers. These sensors have the potential to become key enhancers of real-time thermal monitoring applications. One specific power systems application is evaluated by assessing the dynamic capacity of converters under contingency operation via digital twins. The assessment of the dynamic capacity is limited to the most critical element, which normally corresponds to power electronics due to their small time constant. The application of these sensors extends the safety range of operation based on real-time operational data, rather than based on design