Software-Defined Power Electronics

Power electronic devices and systems are attracting growing attention due to the electrification of energy conversion systems being a key factor in efforts to reduce fuel combustion and achieve carbon neutrality. This book provides a concept of software-defined power electronics architecture to generalize the power converter design and control procedures with various interfaced applications. The ultimate objective is to construct a reconfigurable software-defined power electronics architecture with standardized atomic power modules that can be leveraged for different electrified energy resources, such as electric vehicle charging, electric motor traction, solar power, and wind power. Several advanced control and design techniques are introduced in detail to achieve the proposed concept with a high-performance energy conversion system, including optimization-based control and estimation, variable frequency soft switching, and passive component design and optimization. The proposed generalized architecture also contributes to avoiding redundant hardware and algorithms design procedures. 

Software-Defined Power Electronics: Converter Configuration, Control, and Optimization is a guide for engineers and academic researchers to the highly specialized skills required for working in the fields of power converter design and development.

Liwei Zhou, Ph.D., received his B.E. and M.E. degrees in electrical engineering from Shandong University in 2014 and 2017, respectively. He received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Columbia University in 2022, where he is currently a research associate with the Motor Drives and Power Electronics Laboratory (MPLab). His current research interests include soft-switching techniques for modular power converters, model predictive control, state estimation and other advanced control technologies, grid-connected converters, electric vehicle battery charging control, and inductor design. He served as a session chair at the 2022 IEEE/AIAA ITEC+EATS. Dr. Zhou received the IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Expo 2018 Student Travel Award and was the co-recipient of the Best Student Paper Award of the IEEE Transportation Electrification Conference and Expo 2021.

Matthias Preindl, Ph.D., received the B.Sc. degree from the University of Padua (summa cum laude, 2008), the M.Sc. degree from ETH Zurich (2010), and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Padua (2014) in electrical engineering. He is an Associate Professor at Columbia University, USA. Prior to joining Columbia in 2016, he was an R&D Engineer of Power Electronics and Drives at Leitwind AG (2010-2012) and a Post-Doctoral Research Associate at McMaster University, Canada (2014-2015). Dr. Preindl is a Senior Member of the IEEE and Fellow of the IET. He serves as Area Editor of IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, VTS Distinguished Lecturer (class 2023), Treasurer of IEEE Transportation Electrification Council (TEC), and Chair of the TEC Technical Committee on Battery Technology. He was the general chair of 2022 IEEE/AIAA ITEC+EATS, and he is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award (2017) and co-recipient of the AutoTech Breakthrough Awards Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) Innovation of the Year (2023). His research interests include the design and control of motor drives, power electronics, and batteries for transportation electrification.