UT-CEM and National Instruments (NI) kicked off summer learning by teaming up to bring a “Basic Programming for Power Electronics” one day workshop to the academic community, hosted on the UT JJ Pickle Research Campus. In today’s society, the role of power electronics is rapidly as we rapidly progress toward the Internet of Things (IoT).
In the future, power electronics will be the key to supporting larger penetration of renewables on the utility grid, and providing monitoring/controls to insure good power quality is universally maintained. Even today, life is very dependent on reliable electrical power, including our banking, transportation, health care, and communications, not to mention residential power. This growing field holds many opportunities for graduating electrical engineers. UT is striving to provide valuable hands-on experience developing power electronics to these engineers. CEM’s 1 MW capable Microgrid provides a unique test bed environment where new grid solutions, equipment and controls, can be tested prior to connection to the utility grid. In addition, CEM is currently integrating ten Semikron Semistack RE half - bridge power conversion modules to the existing Microgrid test bed to facilitate power electronics testing in conjunction with CEM’s HIL capabilities, and also expand CEM’s overall testing flexibility.
Plans are already underway to take this workshop to another level in Oct 2016! In partnership with NI and Semikron, UT is participating to develop plans for a more advanced multi-day hands-on workshop open to both academia and industry that will cover Active Front End Programming covering the following items and more:
• Best Practices for code generation to insure overall stable operation
• Programming of a phase lock loop (PLL) for grid synchronization
• Initial commissioning of code in a live operating environment