If you are a builder, there has never been a better time to be alive. We live in an age of wonders, when a designer in almost any engineering field can find a dizzying assortment of tools, materials, components, and construction technologies. Today’s palette for building offers the richest array of choices. The opportunities to learn more, dream more, build more, and be more will continue to grow and challenge you throughout your career with unprecedented intensity.
We are fortunate to live in a time when abundance of resources permits the luxury of introspection. Use this time wisely. Who will you chose to be?
The photographer Ansel Adams wrote:
“The greatest satisfaction derives from the realization of your individual potential, perceiving something in your own way and expressing it through adequate understanding of your tools. Take advantage of everything; be dominated by nothing except your own convictions. Do not lose sight of the essential importance of craft.”
Research sponsors for the Electromechanical Systems Group include federal, private, and industrial funding in approximately equal measure. Challenges and resources from these agencies create many of the opportunities for engineers in the Electromechanical Systems Group to learn, build, inform, and provide service to others with solutions: beautiful solutions that combine physics and mechanical modeling and circuit design and materials science to create artful answers to difficult problems. Some examples of work in the group are highlighted below.
Capacitor-less Photovoltaic (PV) Cell-Level Power Balancing using Diffusion Charge Redistribution
Non-Intrusive Fault Detection in Reciprocating Compressors
A Retrofit Capacitive Sensing and Occupancy Detection System Using Fluorescent Lamps
Control Architecture for a Switched Doubly-fed Machine Propulsion Drive
Accounting for Every Kilowatt
The Escort System: A Safety Monitor for People Living with Alzheimer’s Disease
Build to Win: Electric Machines
Power Electronic Drives for Magnetically Triggered Gels
Characterization of a 5 kW Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Stack Using Power Electronic Excitation
Current and Voltage Reconstruction from Non-Contact Field Measurements
Talking Lights Patent
Non-Resonant and Resonant Frequency Selectable Induction Heating Targets
Single-Sided AC Magnetic Fields for Induction Heating
Automatic Power Frequency Rejection Instrumentation for Nonintrusive Frequency Signature Tracking
Constant Power Load Modeling for a Programmable Impedance Control Strategy
The Detection of Liquid Slugging Phenomena in Reciprocating Compressors via Power Measurements
Adaptive Zonal Protection for Ring Microgrids
A Systems Approach to Photovoltaic Energy Extraction
Scalability of Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring for Shipboard Applications
NilmDB: The Non-Intrusive Load Monitor Database
Energy Applications for an Energy Box
Improved Transient Response Control Strategy and Design Considerations for Switched-Capacitor (SC) Energy Buffer Architectures
Inductively-Coupled Power Transfer for Electromechanical Systems
WaterWOLF: Water Watch on Load Flow
Shipboard Automatic Watchstander
Solid State Transfer Switch Topologies for a Switched Doubly-Fed Machine Drive
A Sensor Topology for Noncontact AC Voltage Measurement of Polyphase Cables
Stretched Sensing Strategies for IEPE
Distributed Load Control Using Reliable Low-Data-Rate Power Line Communication