Event
IAI Colloquia Series at ISR: Alireza Khaligh, "Transportation 2.0"
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
4:00 p.m.
1146 A.V. Williams Building
Pam White
301 405 6615
pwhite@umd.edu
http://www.isr.umd.edu/events/ISR_Colloquia_Series/index.htm
Intelligent Automation, Inc. Colloquia Series
@ The Institute for Systems Research
Transportation 2.0: Towards Highly Efficient and Ultra-compact Power Electronics Converters
| video |
Assistant Professor Alireza Khaligh
Institute for Systems Research
and Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Abstract
As the world continues to rely more and more upon vehicular transportation, the looming problems of fuel supply, efficiency, and air pollutions become more imminent. The invention of the internal combustion engine (ICE), which has long been the mechanism that propels our vehicles, was a paradigm shift itself that ultimately empowered self-propelled vehicles, Transportation 1.0.
There are more than 900 million vehicles worldwide (over 250 million registered passenger vehicles in the U.S.) and more than 50 million vehicles are manufactured every year. With the recent economic growth in China, India, Latin America, and elsewhere, more and more vehicles are being manufactured. Over 40% green house gas and 70% of emissions comes from transportation and transportation 1.0 is 99% dependent on one source of the fuel, which is petroleum. The negative consequences include economic apprehensions, national security dreads, and environmental and public health concerns.
Transportation is going through a paradigm shift and there is a ferocious global competition to introduce the next generation of electrified vehicles, Transportation 2.0. Transportation 2.0, in the heart of energy evolution, is in fact all about greater levels of concomitant empowerment for both consumers and utilities, which is an exceptionally powerful impetus for the next generation of sustainable transportation systems. Consequently, hybrid electric and plug-in electric vehicles are emerging at a precipitously growing rate and there will be substantial and sustained research and commercialization opportunities in the long term.
This presentation will put forward some of the research activities, which are being pursued in the Power Electronics, Energy Harvesting and Renewable Energies Laboratory at the University of Maryland. Main emphasize will be on ultra compact, highly efficient, integrated power electronic interfaces for plug-in electric vehicles. A unique approach to efficiently model, analyze, design, and develop next generation of highly efficient level-1 and level-2 chargers for plug-in electric vehicles will be presented. Following, a brief overview of other research activities including an approach to reduce size of next generation of energy storage systems, while extending battery lifetime will be addressed.