PhD Projects

[Glenn0010]

Hi All,

I'm looking at doing a PhD at some point next year. I'm a Power Electronics Engineer working in a Industrial Drives Company.

I am at the very early stages of compiling a shortlist of possible projects I want to peruse.

My goal would be to produce something that is tangible and I can compare to current system i.e. build the hardware for it.

My passion is mainly gate drives and transistors (IGBTs FETs etc) but don't want to limit the scope just yet.

Some areas that I possibly want to look at are:

Active Gate Drives
DC link reduction
Possibly Active Filtering for high speed switching (GaN)

I was wondering if anyone had more suggestions of possible projects/areas related to fields similar to what I am looking at.

Thanks!

[tautech]

Use of fast MOSFET complementary pairs for gate drivers instead of dedicated gate driver IC's.
Some say it can't be done because of shoot through but I'm not so sure.

Has the potential to further miniaturize power electronics with the choice of the correct device parameters.

[tggzzz]

As an aside, I'll mention some informal conclusions reached a couple of decades ago by a group of us in a commercial R&D lab.

We discussed what are the "valid" reasons for doing a PhD. The only unquestionably valid reason we identified was the best possible one: "because I want to".

We didn't believe "enhanced career prospects" in general. Exception: where you couldn't advance up a career ladder without a PhD. The only case we identified was the UK scientific civil service.

We didn't believe "higher salary" or "easier to get a job" in general. Exception: where the PhD topic was directly relevant to an employer. But that implies a very limited set of employers, and begs the question of what happens in a few years time.

So, enjoy your time doing a PhD!

[German_EE]

Go speak to some of the elevator companies. With buildings getting higher the limiting factor is now the rope length and weight so they are now talking of building cars with motors in them.

This will be an interesting challenge

[Psi]

Maybe some new inverter power electronic technology for electric car motor controllers?

[geggi1]

I have been working in the subsea construction / ROV related projeckts for many years. One thing I know there is a marked for is: Drives that are integrated in the subsea motor with DC-bus in the subsea umbelical. The DC bus must be in the HV range because of the length of the umbelical (1000-3000m)
I know that there have been done some research in this area but as far as I know it have not ended in a product or viable prototype.

[jonpaul]

Hello

Where are you located?   Which school are you going to?

An old friend is a world recognized power electronics expert, transactions editor, and fellow of IEEE in  power electronics.

Suggest  to lookup the IEEE Power Electronics transactions, APEC, PESC, Nuremberg and other conference proceedings.

Contact me off list if you want more  information.

Good luck

Jon
( retired MSEE , no PhDs here!)

[Glenn0010]

Hi,

thanks for the feedback. I want to do it  mostly "cause I want to" and because I'm passionate about power electronics.

However there definitely is an element of better pay and better career prospects. I currently have a bachelors degree and not a masters and some people in the company have struggled to get a promotion due to them lacking a masters. I believe that it's up to you on how much you read up and how much you are willing to learn which leads to how much you can improve rather than you having a masters or PhD although that obviously helps.

Thoughts?

[Glenn0010]

To OP: gate driving and device application are certainly interesting. Do you have access to IEEExplore? If so, check out publications on APEC and WiPDA, both are good wide band gap device application conferences. WiPDA is more for ideas, APEC is more for fundamental stuff.

Also, know what to be expected when you do a PhD. Your job is not to improve on existing knowledge. Your job is to create new things that was either not existing before, or was extremely crude and never explored scientifically before. If you just do incremental improvements, that's an MSEE.

Also be prepared to earn less money once you graduate, at least temporarily. After a PhD education, you are expected to be an absolute authoritative expert in a very narrow field, but you may or may not have the bandwidth to know a lot of other things, which means your practical engineering capability may suck, thus rendering you less money making for the company.

Consider PhD a commitment. Takes 3~7 years to finish after a MSEE, or 5~8 years after BSEE, then add in another 3 years in work to gain practical capability, then you can start recovering the cost. It's certainly not cheap, and the only legit reason to do that is you are very interested in the field.

Finally, expect bullshit to happen. Your first one or two years may be wasted. Sometimes your professor may not have funding for your research, so you will be assigned to work on other projects to learn practical skills and in the meantime, to make money for your future research. The pre-research works do not give you publications (at least not as first author), do not contribute towards your final research, and does not make you rich. You need to be prepared to suffer for a year or two before being allowed to do full time research.

I did my PhD in 2.5 years after a 1.5 year MSEE, but I was extremely lucky. I had tons of project experience from my DIY background, so I didn't have to learn the basics on practical engineering. The first day on my PhD career I was given a funding source, so I didn't have to do pre-research works. My funding source came from the government, and it focused on only research, nothing practical, so my first project got to be my PhD topic. And since the project had a predefined criteria metrics, my works didn't have to be judged by journal peer review, so I got to graduate without a journal and that saved me at least half a year, and I started working on this project as an MSEE student, one semester before even got enrolled in PhD program, so it saved another half year.

Many people are not nearly as lucky. I have friends doing two years of pre-research works, three years of research, and two years of publications. I've also seen people who can't work with the professor and had to change, so all research got cleared and he had to start over. So be prepared to expect the unexpected.

Hi, Thanks for your feedback. I am sure it will definitely not be easy and just have to push through some shit!

[Glenn0010]

I have been working in the subsea construction / ROV related projeckts for many years. One thing I know there is a marked for is: Drives that are integrated in the subsea motor with DC-bus in the subsea umbelical. The DC bus must be in the HV range because of the length of the umbelical (1000-3000m)
I know that there have been done some research in this area but as far as I know it have not ended in a product or viable prototype.

Hi This seems very interesting to me! What kind of voltage level are being looked at? I'll do some research and hopefully I'll come across some resources.

Cheers

[Glenn0010]

Hello

Where are you located?   Which school are you going to?

An old friend is a world recognized power electronics expert, transactions editor, and fellow of IEEE in  power electronics.

Suggest  to lookup the IEEE Power Electronics transactions, APEC, PESC, Nuremberg and other conference proceedings.

Contact me off list if you want more  information.

Good luck

Jon
( retired MSEE , no PhDs here!)

Hi!

I am located at in the UK and looking at a couple unis (Bristol / Nottingham). I will do some research on your suggested resources and see what I can find. Thanks for your help!