Power Electronics Specialization

About This Specialization

Design modern switched-mode power converters; create high-performance control loops around power converters; understand efficiency, power density and cost trade-offs

By 2030, 80% of all electrical energy will be processed by power electronics. Professional advantages continue to grow for technical engineers who understand the fundamental principles and technical requirements of modern power conversion systems. This specialization covers design-oriented analysis, modeling and simulation techniques leading to practical engineering of high-performance power electronics systems.

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Instructors:

Dr. Khurram Afridi

Assistant Professor

Khurram Afridi is an Assistant Professor of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering and the Goh Faculty Fellow at the University of Colorado (CU) Boulder. He received the BS degree in electrical engineering from Caltech (1989), and SM (1992) and PhD (1998) degrees in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT. His research interests are in power electronics and energy systems incorporating power electronic controls. Prior to joining CU Boulder he was a visiting faculty at MIT's EECS Department (2009-2013) and the Chief Operating Officer (2000-2010) and Chief Technology Officer (1997-2000) of Techlogix. From 2004 to 2008 he led the development of LUMS School of Science and Engineering (SSE) as Project Director. He has also worked for JPL, Lutron, Philips, and Schlumberger. He is an associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Transportation Electrification, and was the Technical Program Committee (TPC) chair for the IEEE Wireless Power Transfer Conference (WPTC) 2015. He received the Carnation Merit Award from Caltech (1988), the BMW Scientific Award from BMW AG (1999), the Werner-von-Siemens Chair for Power Electronics from LUMS SSE (2008), the Dean’s Professional Progress Award from CU Boulder (2015), the ECEE Department Outstanding Overall Performance Award from CU Boulder (2016), and the National Science Foundation CAREER Award from NSF (2016). He is co-author of four IEEE prize papers.

Dr. Robert Erickson

Professor

Robert W. Erickson received the B.S. (1978), M.S. (1980), and Ph.D. (1982) degrees in Electrical Engineering, from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California. Since 1982, he has been a member of the faculty of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he served as department Chair in 2002-2006 and 2014-15. He co-directs the Colorado Power Electronics Center with Prof. Dragan Maksimovic. Professor Erickson is a Fellow of the IEEE, a Fellow of the CU/NREL Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute, and is the author of the textbook Fundamentals of Power Electronics, now in its second edition. He is the author of approximately one hundred journal and conference papers in the area of power electronics. In 1996, he received the IEEE Power Electronics Society Transactions Prize Paper Award, for the paper "Nonlinear Carrier Control for High-Power-Factor Boost Rectifier." He received the CU-Boulder Inventor of the Year Award in 2015, and the Holland Teaching Excellence Award in 2010. His current research interests include modeling and control of power conversion systems, modular/multilevel converter systems, and power electronics for electric vehicles and renewable energy sources (wind and solar).

Dr. Dragan Maksimovic

Charles V. Schelke Endowed Professor

Prof. Dragan Maksimovic received his B.S. (1984) and M.S. (1986) degrees from the University of Belgrade (Serbia, Yugoslavia), and his Ph.D. degree from California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, in 1989. In 1992, he joined the University of Colorado at Boulder where he is currently a Charles V. Schelke Endowed Professor in the Department of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering. In 1998, with Prof. Robert W. Erickson, he co-founded the Colorado Power Electronics Center (CoPEC), and has since served as the CoPEC Co-Director. CoPEC research program in smart power electronics and digital control for high-frequency switched-mode power converters has attracted significant support from numerous industrial sponsors and agencies (NSF, DARPA, ARPA-E, DOE, ONR, DOEd). Prof. Maksimovic is also affiliated with the University of Colorado Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI).

Prof. Maksimovic is a Fellow of the IEEE. He has published over 250 papers in journals and at professional conferences, and holds over 30 US patents. He co-authored the textbook Fundamentals of Power Electronics, 2nd edition, Springer 2001, and the textbook Digital Control of High-Frequency Switched-Mode Power Converters, Wiley-IEEE Press 2015. He received NSF CAREER Award in 1997, IEEE Power Electronics Society Transactions Prize Paper Award in 1997, IEEE Power Electronics Society Prize Letter Awards in 2009 and 2010, CU Boulder Inventor of the Year Award in 2006, the IEEE PELS Modeling and Control Technical Achievement Award for 2012, Bruce Holland Excellence in Teaching Awards in 2004 and 2011, Charles Hutchinson Memorial Teaching Award for 2012, and the 2013 Boulder Faculty Assembly Excellence in Teaching Award. He currently serves as an IEEE PELS Distinguished Lecturer, as an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics (TPEL), and as an Editor for the IEEE Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics in Power Electronics (JESTPE). He served as the General Chair of IEEE COMPEL 2010.

His current research interests include power electronics for renewable energy sources and energy efficiency, high frequency power conversion using wide bandgap semiconductors, digital control of switched-mode power converters, as well as analog, digital and mixed-signal integrated circuits for power management applications.

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