PhD Position in Electrical power engineering and mechatronics, Early stage researcher

Tallinn University of Technology, School of Engineering, Department of Electrical Power Engineering and Mechatronics offers a 4-year PhD position in the field of electrical power engineering and mechatronics.

Proposed doctoral thesis topic: "Universal Bidirectional Isolated AC/DC Battery Charger for Electromobility".

Supervisors: Lead Research Scientist Dmitri Vinnikov and Senior Researcher Andrii Blinov

Abstract

The Ph.D. project is focused on the study of power electronic solutions for electric vehicle charger (EVC). The primary outcome lies in the development of EVC that would not only meet the today’s requirements, but will also be future-proof and applicable to mass installments. The study will cover analysis and improvements for well-known configurations, but will mostly focus on an emerging solutions.

Description

Electric mobility market is expected to grow rapidly in the following decade, endorsed by recent developments of Li-ion battery technology and various governmental initiatives. In order to fulfil the electric vehicle (EV) user expectations and make the ownership experience comparable to conventionally fueled vehicles, the availability of the charging infrastructure has to be improved. In order to reduce investment and maintenance costs of the new installations, new power electronics solutions are necessary, since the standard ones are already very close to the technological limits. In order to accommodate a growing EV fleet in the future, such functionalities as bidirectional operation with vehicle to grid (V2G) mode and grid support features are necessary. Moreover, the wide range of EV battery types requires support of large range of DC voltages. For mass deployment, all of the mentioned features should be realized at low cost and material use.

The Ph.D. project is focused on the study of power electronic solutions for electric vehicle charger (EVC). The primary outcome lies in the development of EVC that would not only meet the today’s requirements, but will also be future-proof and applicable to mass installments. The study will cover analysis and improvements for well-kown configurations, but will mostly focus on an emerging solutions.

Responsibilities and (foreseen) tasks

• Analysis and synthesis of EVC based on bidirectional isolated AC-DC converter topologies
• Implementation of grid-connected operation strategy with necessary soft-start and protection functions
• Implementation of smooth transitions between various operating modes
• Optimizing the voltage and current stresses in components at different operating modes
• Development of smart supervisory, management and control functions for the EVC
• Experimental verification of developed concepts and control methods
• Publishing of research findings in top-tier (Q1) journals and dissemination at the flagship conferences of the IEEE IES and PELS