Contribution to automated modular modeling, simulation and design of power electronic converters by means of an open-source software/hardware kit

• Applicants: Dr.-Ing. Frank Schafmeister; Professor Dr.-Ing. Oliver Wallscheid
• Subject Area: Electrical Energy Systems, Power Management, Power Electronics, Electrical Machines and Drives ; Electronic Semiconductors, Components and Circuits, Integrated Systems, Sensor Technology, Theoretical Electrical Engineering
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 532717917

Power electronic converters fulfill a multitude of tasks in heterogeneous applications and are a key technology of the modern industrial society. For the design with respect to criteria such as installation space, weight, efficiency or control performance, heuristic rules as well as historically grown design scripts based on proprietary software are often used. Typical design chains are also based to a large extent on the experience of domain-specific experts. Generally, these processes are not published in details, but are kept secret as intellectual property of companies and research institutions. This hinders the scientific exchange in the power electronics community, generates an enormously high human and time effort for the design of power electronic converters and hinders the leveraging of potentials to achieve the best possible designs with respect to the typical target criteria. This manual design process, which is largely driven by experts, also causes high costs as well as capacity bottlenecks for the realization of diverse power electronic projects in times of a progressive shortage of skilled workers. Also, in combination with significant license fees of the various typical proprietary modeling and simulation software tools, small and medium sized enterprises but also increasingly research institutes are confronted with major financial challenges. This is where the present project comes in and proposes a completely different approach compared to the established state of the art: by establishing an open-source software and hardware framework for automated as well as modular modeling, simulation and design of power electronic converters, the scientific exchange shall be stimulated and joint research and development work shall be facilitated by open-source methods. By means of appropriately coordinated software interfaces (e.g. for co-simulation on the electrical, thermal and mechanical level), a generalizable modular system is to be developed, which will make it possible to analyze, compare and optimize a wide variety of power electronic components and converter designs in the shortest possible time. By means of a consequent open-science framework regarding software and hardware methods, experimental data as well as scientific publications, this project shall lay the foundation for a more open, collaborative working culture within the power electronics community. The scientific question to be investigated is whether this new working culture in power electronics based on open science can truly lead to better power electronic converters in terms of the usual target values and whether the human expert effort per design process can be reduced.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants