Inverter team at Karma Automotive provides in-house development of power inverters (HW and SW) for world-class Karma EVs. As a main step in inverter SW and HW development, we developed a Hardware-in-the-Loop unit and an inverter fast prototyping tool. The Hardware-in-the-Loop unit is a main tool for SW development task, and it is now being extended to include SW verification tests, too. On the other hand, the fast prototyping tool is an essential tool to facilitate the implementation of inverter HW for the future EV platforms. This unit also provides a powerful tool for development of SW application layer with the possibility of high frequency sampling and monitoring.

The presentation file will discuss the structure of Hardware-in-the-Loop unit (power stage and monitoring) using OP5700 platform and its interaction with control board via CAN bus. It also covers the CAN unit of OP5700 platform to be used for implementation of automatic verification tests. As another discussion, the development of the fast prototyping tool (including motor control algorithm, protection, diagnostics, and CAN communication) using OP4510 platform will be discussed. The testing of the fast prototyping unit with the hardware-in-the-loop unit will be also presented.



Dr Geng Niu, Senior Manager, Powertrain Hardware, Karma Automotive, is leading the electrified powertrain development for various Karma vehicle programs, including EREV and BEV architecture. He received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Beihang University, Beijing, China, followed by his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago. In his 3-year career in Karma Automotive, he was leading the in-house product development team to design the second generation power inverters for Karma Revero GT and Revero GTS. Also he was overseeing the e-drive system software development and control algorithms for traction derive and range extender.




Full vehicle simulation models are needed to assess attributes such as fuel economy and performance. In this session, you will learn how MathWorks automotive modeling tools can be used for powertrain selection studies. Specifically, we will examine the impact of adding an electric motor at different locations along the driveline (e.g., pre- or post-transmission). In order to make a fair comparison between alternatives, an optimal supervisory control strategy known as ECMS (Equivalent Consumption Minimization Strategy) is applied. With these closed-loop models, we can quantify the performance / fuel economy tradeoffs for the architectures under consideration and determine an optimal powertrain selection.



Brad is an application engineer at MathWorks, focusing on control design. Prior to joining MathWorks, Brad worked for Ford Motor Company for 14 years. His Ford experience included advanced powertrain controls design, vehicle and powertrain controls for Ford’s Formula 1 racing program, and vehicle dynamics simulation, tools and methods work. Prior to Ford, Brad worked for several years as a logic design engineer at Cray Research. Brad holds a M.S.E. from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and a B.S. from Iowa State University, both in electrical engineering.



The key reasons for using digital control in power electronics are
• Lower cost
• Complex control requirements
• Configurability
• Optimizing for operating point variation
• Control adaption
• Management of the non-linearity of the converter
• The ability to tune the switching times precisely to minimize the power loss and maximize the efficiency.

The advantages of digital control of power electronics bring with them challenges. Dealing with these challenges before they expose problems is the key to fast product delivery and reliable and robust operation. The challenges include
• Limited Number of Bits
• Sampling and limited bandwidth
• Processing Delay
• Producing and maintaining high quality software code

The presentation explores the detail of these challenges and presents tools, methods and quality approaches to address them.


Hamish Laird is CTO at ELMG Digital Power, Inc. His work is helping people realize the benefit of digital power electronics control to speed time to market, minimize the converter cost, maximize efficiency and provide stable robust operation. His converter control experience includes HVDC transmission control, hybrid vehicles, electric vehicles and rail traction along with telecom power and battery energy storage. He has thirty years of experience in the design, research, development and commercialization of power converters with strong focus on manufacturability and production.

Hamish worked for Alstom Grid, Aucom and Eurotherm Drives before completing his Doctorate in Shunt Active Filtering and founding ELMG Digital Power. Current ELMG Digital Power customers include large electrical OEMs such as ABB, energy storage companies, traction companies and automotive companies.

Hamish recently worked with the PSMA (Power Supply Manufactures Association) to develop guidelines for software quality in the digital control of power electronics. He is a regular and well-respected presenter at APEC and other conferences.


Biography

Mostafa Mahfouz (S’14-M’18) received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering from Cairo University in 2014 and 2016 respectively. He is currently a PhD candidate at the Centre for Applied Power Electronics (CAPE), Electrical and Computer Engineering Department (ECE), University of Toronto. He is also Engineering Intern (EIT) at Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO). His research interests include AC/DC microgrids’ and electric vehicles fast-charging stations’ operation and control. He has been working as a Research and Teaching Assistant at Cairo University and currently at University of Toronto where he got involved in teaching energy systems and distributed generation, power systems analysis, operation, and control.

Presentation:

In this presentation, we will discuss about using eHS to develop NI controller for DC Fast Charging System (DCFCS) including a local battery storage system.
The key challenge for fast EV charging is the limitations of the existing power grid infrastructure. Fast charging requires a large amount of energy in a very short time, and the distribution power grid was not designed for this. Therefore, the DCFCS includes a battery storage system to reduce the impact of DCFCS that is incurred during charging. Power electronics converter configuration, its controller design and development of a 60-kW prototype will be discussed in this presentation.