Title Participants Abstract "Electro-optical properties of monolayer and bilayer boron-doped C₃N: Tunable electronic structure via strain engineering and electric field" "Mehmet Yagmurcukardes, M. Shahrokhi, M. Ghergherehchi" "In this work, the structural, electronic and optical properties of monolayer and bilayer of boron doped C3N are investigated by means of density functional theory-based first-principles calculations. Our results show that with increasing the B dopant concentration from 3.1% to 12.5% in the hexagonal pattern, an indirect-to-direct band gap (0.8 eV) transition occurs. Furthermore, we study the effect of electric field and strain on the B doped C3N bilayer (B-C3N@2L). It is shown that by increasing E-field strength from 0.1 to 0.6V/angstrom, the band gap displays almost a linear decreasing trend, while for the > 0.6V/angstrom, we find dual narrow band gap with of 50 meV (in parallel E-field) and 0.4 eV (in antiparallel E-field). Our results reveal that in-plane and out-of-plane strains can modulate the band gap and band edge positions of the B-C3N@2L. Overall, we predict that B-C3N@2L is a new platform for the study of novel physical properties in layered two-dimensional materials (2DM) which may provide new opportunities to realize high-speed low-dissipation devices. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved." "Guided Independent Learning Package for Advanced Topics in Electrical Engineering, Automation and Control Systems" "Michel Van Dessel, Geert Van Ham, Geert Deconinck, Tiene Nobels, Philippe Saey, Jos Knockaert, Eric Claesen" "Ever more students start their master programme with a bachelor degree which does not provide the ideal background for their study. Such students benefit from dedicated help when they have to master advanced topics in automation, control and electrical engineering. Because individual help is adequate but too labour-intensive, a self-study package has been developed by which individual students can select an optimal path to update their required knowledge -depending on their foregoing trajectory- and acquire the required competencies. Topics cover electrical systems (medium and high voltage, power protection, power quality), power electronics (prototyping, electromagnetic compatibility), automation (drive control, drive efficiency, industrial networks and diagnosis). The guided self-study approach consists of a handbook and a digital learning platform; practical hands-on laboratories take place, distributed over several university colleges. A final assessment checks whether students obtained the required competencies. Approximately 12 groups of students, from 9 programmes in 7 institutions, cover 25 topics and laboratory visits yearly." "Guided Self-Study Approach for Advanced Topics in Automation, Control and Electrical Engineering" "Geert Deconinck, Tiene Nobels, Michel Van Dessel, Philippe Saey, Geert Van Ham, Eric Claesen" "Ever more students start their master programme with a bachelor degree which does not provide the ideal background for their study. Survey results are presented that illustrate this heterogeneity. Such students benefit from dedicated help when they have to master advanced topics in automation, control and electrical engineering. Because individual help is adequate but too labour-intensive, a self-study package has been developed by which individual students can select an optimal path to update their required knowledge -depending on their foregoing trajectory- and acquire the required competencies. Topics cover electrical systems (medium and high voltage, power protection, power quality), power electronics (prototyping, electromagnetic compatibility), automation (drive control, drive efficiency, industrial networks and diagnosis). The guided self-study approach consists of a handbook and a digital learning platform; practical hands-on laboratories take place, distributed over several university colleges. A final assessment checks whether students obtained the required competences. Approximately 12 groups of students, from 9 programmes in 7 institutions, cover 25 topics and laboratory visits yearly." "Guided independent learning package for advanced topics in electrical engineering, automation and control systems" "Michel Van Dessel, Geert Van Ham, Geert Deconinck, Tiene Nobels, Philippe Saey, Jos Knockaert, Eric Claesen" "Ever more students start their master programme with a bachelor degree which does not provide the ideal background for their study. Such students benefit from dedicated help when they have to master advanced topics in automation, control and electrical engineering. Because individual help is adequate but too labour-intensive, a self-study package has been developed by which individual students can select an optimal path to update their required knowledge-depending on their foregoing trajectory- and acquire the required competencies. Topics cover electrical systems (medium and high voltage, power protection, power quality), power electronics (prototyping, electromagnetic compatibility), automation (drive control, drive efficiency, industrial networks and diagnosis). The guided self-study approach consists of a handbook and a digital learning platform; practical hands-on laboratories take place, distributed over several university colleges. A final assessment checks whether students obtained the required competencies. Approximately 12 groups of students, from 9 programmes in 7 institutions, cover 25 topics and laboratory visits yearly." "Using non-stretchable structures for component positioning in thermoformed electronics" "Behnam Madadnia, Frederick Bossuyt, Jan Vanfleteren" "Comparison and design of power electronics transformers in 25 kHz–400 kHz range" "Vencislav Cekov Valchev, Teodora Plamenova Todorova, Alex Van den Bossche" "Interfacing biology and electronics with memristive materials" "Ioulia Tzouvadaki, Paschalis Gkoupidenis, Stefano Vassanelli, Shiwei Wang, Themis Prodromakis" "Memristive technologies promise to have a large impact on modern electronics, particularly in the areas of reconfigurable computing and artificial intelligence (AI) hardware. Meanwhile, the evolution of memristive materials alongside the technological progress is opening application perspectives also in the biomedical field, particularly for implantable and lab-on-a-chip devices where advanced sensing technologies generate a large amount of data. Memristive devices are emerging as bioelectronic links merging biosensing with computation, acting as physical processors of analog signals or in the framework of advanced digital computing architectures. Recent developments in the processing of electrical neural signals, as well as on transduction and processing of chemical biomarkers of neural and endocrine functions, are reviewed. It is concluded with a critical perspective on the future applicability of memristive devices as pivotal building blocks in bio-AI fusion concepts and bionic schemes." "Power Electronics Converters for Electric Vehicle Auxiliaries: State of the Art and Future Trends" "Ramy Kotb Mohamed, Sajib Chakraborty, Dai-Duong Tran, Ekaterina Abramushkina, Mohamed El Baghdadi, Omar Hegazy" "Electric vehicles (EVs) are expected to take over the transportation and mobility market over traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles soon. The internal power demands of EVs are expected to increase. The reason for this is to achieve a longer driving range for the EV and to provide the required power for the low-voltage (LV) network auxiliary loads. To illustrate, there are extra added sensors, cameras, and small actuating motors, especially for future autonomous vehicles. Therefore, a new electrical/electronic (E/E) architecture is required to convert the high-voltage (HV) traction battery voltage (e.g., 320–800 V DC) to the standard LV levels with high current ratings of 5 kW and more. This HV-LV DC-DC converter is known in the literature as an auxiliary power module (APM). The standard LV rails in an EV are the 12 V/24 V rail to supply for an instant the EV’s lighting and electronic control units (ECUs), while the 48 V rail is required for propulsive loads, such as air compressors and electric power steering systems. Furthermore, in a few applications, this converter is responsible for voltage upwards to support the start of a hybrid vehicle or emergency backup power handling, which requires bidirectional capability. Therefore, in this paper, possible APM topologies for EV applications are presented. In line with this, the main standards and safety requirements of the APMs are presented. Detailed quantitative and qualitative comparisons between topologies and their associated control schemes are discussed. In addition, the placement of the APM in the EV cooling cycle has been investigated and demonstrated. Finally, the industrial trends and future research targets for the APM in automotive applications are outlined." "Modeling and Control of an Integrated Power Electronics Interface for Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles" "Ricardo Barrero Fernandez" "Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) have been proposed as alternatives that can reduce fuel consumption with low driving costs compared to hybrid electric vehicles. In addition, they can operate like mobile energy storage units when idling to store energy and feed it back to the grid. When the vehicle is parked (at work or at home), the PHEV battery would be recharged from the power grid and would thus allow for a reduction in the overall fuel consumption. This paper proposes a novel integrated power electronics interface for PHEVs, which consists of a novel multi-device interleaved DC/DC converter (MDIC) and Eight-Switch Inverter (ESI), in order to reduce the cost, the mass and the size of the power electronics interface (PEI) used in PHEVs while yielding high performance at any operating mode. In the proposed topology, Eight-Switch Inverter (ESI) is able to function as a bidirectional single-phase AC/DC battery charger/ vehicle to grid (V2G) and to transfer electrical energy between the DC-link (connected to the battery) and the electric traction system as three-phase DC/AC inverter. In addition, a novel multi-device interleaved DC/DC converter is proposed for interfacing the ESI to a low-voltage input source (such as Fuel Cell and battery) in order to minimize the input current/output voltage ripples and to improve the efficiency of the DC system with lower passive components size. The proposed topology is designed and its dynamic performance is validated by using MATLAB/ Simulink. The analytical and simulation results related to this research are presented. Finally, the proposed topology is experimentally verified with results obtained from the prototypes that have been built and tested in our laboratory." "Design and control optimisation of scalable power electronics converters for DC off-board electric vehicle charging systems" "Haaris Rasool" "Electric vehicles (EVs) play a major role in mitigating global warming and environmental pollution; they can reduce fossil-fuel emissions, if vehicle-propulsion energy is obtained from sustainable sources or a clean-energy mix. EV charging systems are essential for recharging zero-emission-vehicle batteries. A suitable off-board charging infrastructure is required to efficiently and effectively charge EVs. Off-board charging systems enable the charging of EV batteries directly at high voltage and high power; thus, shorter charging times are required to replenish a battery. State-of-the-art (SotA) chargers still exhibit considerable power losses, which has a negative impact on the charging cost of EVs and the optimal usage of available energy. Wide bandgap (WBG) materials, such as silicon carbide (SiC) semiconductor switches, are a promising technology for the optimised design of power electronic converters (PECs) and are an alternative solution to silicon-based devices. In this PhD study, the use of WBG semiconductor devices, which have superior properties and characteristics (e.g., high-temperature operation, high switching frequency, and more compact and power-dense designs), have been investigated and applied to optimising the design of high-power off-board charging systems. The EV charger is a PEC, which converts three-phase alternating current (AC) grid power into controllable direct current (DC) power for charging. In this PhD thesis, the topologies of PECs are firstly discussed, followed by the design of high-power off-board chargers. Two main charger topologies are considered in this research: one based on the low-frequency (LF) transformer concept and the other on the high-frequency (HF) transformer. Moreover, the concept of a modular converter is introduced to design an ultra-fast high-power charging system for EVs. A new co-design optimisation framework that considers hardware design in combination with the modular converter topology is proposed to design and optimise off-board charging systems in a complete and integrated manner formulated as a multi-objective problem. The co-design optimisation framework adopts a non-dominated sorted genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) to solve the multi-objective optimisation problem. Three objectives are considered for the design optimisation, namely power-density maximization, power-loss minimization, and the enhancement of the lifetime of the converter. The algorithm returns the optimal solutions with information about the design parameters of the charger, switching frequency, and passive filter components. Additionally, the PECs are designed to maintain a sinusoidal grid current and its frequency to ensure the grid-quality requirement. The control-related objective of this PhD study is the designing of a high-power off-board charger with increased efficiency and low harmonic distortion on the grid. Moreover, the control-design optimisation for bidirectional charger modes, namely grid-to-vehicle (G2V) and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) power flow, is investigated and developed. An accurate analytical model of the charger is proposed to precisely design the dual-loop voltage/current control strategy based on charger’s specifications. The controllers are designed to enable the EV chargers to control active/reactive power and offer constant-current (CC) and constant-voltage (CV) charging. A virtual resistance concept is introduced into the bi-directional control algorithm to suppress the inrush currents. In addition, this study presents a grid voltage unbalance and harmonic compensation (VU & HC) control strategy for unbalanced voltages and harmonic compensation. Besides the CC–CV charging control, the VU & HC control strategy effectively ensures better voltage quality under nonlinear peak load conditions. A robust advanced model predictive control (MPC) algorithm is introduced to control the charger’s parameters, aiming to enhance disturbance rejection capability. On the subsystem level, there is a lack of accurate and practical models to deal with high switching frequencies and fast-dynamics devices for the PECs of the off-board charger. In this PhD study, an accurate virtual prototype of high-power chargers is developed for bidirectional AC–DC and isolated DC–DC converters. This simulation makes it possible to investigate voltage-current behaviour, system current ripples, total harmonic distortion (THD) of current, power factor (PF), power loss, temperatures and system efficiency. Finally, a considerable part of this study focuses on implementing real-time (RT) control on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) using rapid prototyping control platforms to demonstrate and validate the designs with high-power off-board charger prototypes with WBG switches operating at a high switching frequency. The high-frequency discrete FPGA-based controller is developed and implemented using the RT dSpace MicroLabBox™ platform using Xilinx Vivado. This PhD study develops a SiC off-board charger prototype that is based on parallel modular converters with an LF grid transformer. The developed 150 kW charger is experimentally tested at a rated power with an integrated RT control system. Two advanced charger prototypes are developed: a 175 kW charger based on the dual-side cooled (DSC) SiC modules and 150 kW charger based on SiC standard modules. These prototypes are tested and investigated with bidirectional control, and their performances and power densities are compared. Furthermore, multiple tests of battery charging (G2V) and discharging (V2G) are performed to examine the prototype performances."