Announcements

Announcement for ECE Seniors looking for design projects

Announcement for current graduate students from the ECE Dept. of WMU:

Please contact the lab director, Dr. Gomez, if you're interested in an independent research or thesis project in the topics of grid integration of solar energy, transient analysis of microgrids, high frequency transformer design, fault detection and location in power lines, real time modeling and simulation of power systems, or other related topics.

Lab News Archive

2020

• MS THESIS DEFENSE: Olapade Olagbemi successfully defended his MS thesis "Simulation of Transient Conditions in Vehicle-to-Grid Systems Fed from Plug-in Electric Vehicles". November 20, 2020.

• DISSERTATION DEFENSE: Ahmad Alshawareh successfully defended his PhD dissertation "Fault Location in Transmission Systems Based on Frequency Domain Modeling and the Two-Dimensional Numerical Laplace Transform". October 9, 2020. Ahmad will be starting a postdoctoral position in our lab soon, thanks to an award from the T3N Program of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation.

• NEW JOURNAL PAPER: The paper "Statistical Switching Overvoltage Studies of Optimized Unconventional High Surge Impedance Loading Lines via Numerical Laplace Transform", coauthored by Dr. Gomez, has been accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, and is available online here. This work was developed by members of the Task Force on Frequency Domain Methods for Electromagnetic Transients Studies and was the result of a collaboration between WMU, Autonomous University of San Luis Potosi (Mexico) and Virginia Tech (USA). August 2020.

• LAB PRESENCE IN IEEE CONFERENCE: Dr. Gomez participated in the (virtual) 2020 IEEE PES General Meeting presenting the paper "Electromagnetic Transient Performance of Optimally Designed High Surge Impedance Loading Lines". This paper was selected for the session "Best Conference Papers on Planning, Operations, and Energy Markets." It is the result of an ongoing collaboration between WMU, Autonomous University of San Luis Potosi (Mexico) and Virginia Tech (USA). August 2020.

• Dr. Gomez has been appointed Associate Editor of the IEEE Latin America Transactions. From IEEE Xplore: "The IEEE Latin America Transactions (IEEE LATAM) is an interdisciplinary journal focused on the dissemination of original and quality research papers / review articles in Spanish and Portuguese of emerging topics in three main areas: Computing, Electric Energy and Electronics. Some of the sub-areas of the journal are, but not limited to: Automatic control, communications, instrumentation, artificial intelligence, power and industrial electronics, fault diagnosis and detection, transportation electrification, internet of things, electrical machines, circuits and systems, biomedicine and biomedical / haptic applications, secure communications, robotics, sensors and actuators, computer networks, smart grids, among others." May 2020.

• NEW GRANT: Our proposal "OPTIMAL DESIGN OF HIGH-VOLTAGE AND HIGH-FREQUENCY TRANSFORMERS FOR RENEWABLE ENERGY INTEGRATION" has been approved for funding by the Faculty Research and Creative Activities Award (FRACAA) program of WMU. This project will allow extending our previous work on optimal design of transformers to the design of high frequency transformers for grid integration of renewable energy. May 2020.

• SENIOR DESIGN PROJECTS COMPLETED: During the Spring 2020 semester, our lab hosted two teams of undergraduate students for the implementation of their Senior Design projects. Although the projects where not 100% completed due to COVID-19, both groups did a great job that demonstrated their resilience and enthusiasm.

  • Shawn Weese and Li Jie Kim were co-advised by Juan M. Villanueva Ramirez, lab member and PhD candidate. The students designed and implemented a low-cost, handheld electric field measurement device to capture the strength of fields radiating at frequencies used by common consumer electronics.

• • Jalen Smith, Dane Maxwell and Zachary Mathews were sponsored by Consumers Energy to add solar tracking capabilities to one of the rows of the small-scale solar generation station previously implemented in our lab. This solar tracking system uses Arduino circuit boards programmed via MATLAB Simulink, as well as 3-D printing technologies. The solar tracking system will be used to demonstrate how the addition of this technology to a solar farm can greatly improve its efficiency.

• Juan M. Villanueva-Ramirez has been awarded the 2020-2021 Dissertation Completion Fellowship from the Graduate College of WMU. April 2020.

• The paper "Frequency Domain Methods for Accuracy Assessment of Wideband Models in Electromagnetic Transient Stability Studies" coauthored by Dr. Gomez has been included in the list of most popular articles of the IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery for the months of January, February and March 2020.

• Dr. Gomez has been appointed Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery The scope of the IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery "embraces innovations in electric apparatus for power delivery with a main focus on power transmission and distribution components. It also covers apparatus modeling, analysis, implementation and application issues such as power system protection, instrumentation, communication, and grounding; electromagnetic transients and power quality; and substation automation. The Transaction's scope further includes research works leading to power engineering standards." February 2020.

• LAB PRESENCE IN IEEE CONFERENCE: Faraj Alyami attended the 2020 IEEE Texas Power and Energy Conference in College Station, Texas. He successfully presented the paper "Semi-Seasonally Optimized Tilt Angles for Design of Utility-Scale Photovoltaic Generation Station". The abstract of this paper can be found here. February 2020.

2019

• SENIOR DESIGN PROJECTS COMPLETED: During the Fall 2019 semester, our lab hosted a team of undergraduate students for the implementation of their Senior Design project sponsored by Consumers Energy. On December 3, they successfully presented the results of their projects as part of the Senior Engineering Design Conference hosted by the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences at WMU.

  • • Nick Spearritt, Dylan Shaw and Zach Smith presented the project "Inverter for a Small-scale solar generation station". This inverter was designed to showcase and test each of the main conversion stages used in large-scale solar array implementation, including a buck-boost DC-DC converter, a DC-AC H-Bridge inverter topology, an LCL filter, a step-up transformer, and the ability to connect different types of 120 VAC - 60 Hz loads to the output. In addition to all the stages that convert DC to AC power, two real-time monitoring displays were implemented at the input and output of the inverter circuit. so that the overall efficiency of the device can be determined under any scenario.

• PhD PROPOSAL DEFENSE: The Power Lab is proud to announce its most recent Doctoral Candidate of the year. Ahmad Alshawawreh successfully defended his PhD proposal "Fault Location in Transmission Systems Based on Frequency Domain Modeling and the Two-Dimensional Numerical Laplace Transform", November 25 2019.

• RESEARCH AWARD: Dr. Gomez has been awarded "Outstanding New Researcher" by the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences of WMU. September 2019.

• NEW JOURNAL PAPER: The paper "Computation of transient profiles along non-uniform transmission lines including time-varying and non-linear elements using the numerical Laplace transform", coauthored by Dr. Pablo Gomez has been published in MDPI Energies. This work was developed in collaboration with researchers from the National Polytechnic Institute of Mexico. The full paper can be accessed here. August 2019.

• NEW JOURNAL PAPER: The paper "Frequency Domain Methods for Accuracy Assessment of Wideband Models in Electromagnetic Transient Stability Studies", coauthored by Dr. Pablo Gomez has been accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery. This review paper is the result of a collaborative effort between members of the Task Force on Frequency Domain Methods for Electromagnetic Transient Studies of the IEEE Power and Energy Society, including co-authors from Autonomous University of San Luis Potosi (Mexico) and KU Leuven (Belgium). The paper abstract can be found here. June 2019.

• LAB PRESENCE IN INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE: Juan Villanueva-Ramirez attended the 2019 International Conference in Power System Transients (IPST) in Perpignan, France. Juan presented the paper "Dielectric Design Optimization of Transformer Windings under Fast Front Excitation", which is a direct result of his doctoral research project. June 2019.

• PhD PROPOSAL DEFENSE: The Power Lab has a new Doctoral Candidate! Juan Villanueva-Ramirez successfully presented his PhD proposal "Optimized insulation design of power transformer windings under fast voltage pulses". May 23, 2019

• NEW JOURNAL PAPER: The paper "On the computation of frequency-dependent core and proximity effects for transient analysis of transformer windings", coauthored by Yazid AlKraimeen and Dr. Pablo Gomez has been published in the June 2019 issue of IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery. The paper abstract can be found here. May 2019

• Dr. Gomez has been named Associate Editor of Heliyon Engineering. From Heliyon's website: Heliyon Engineering is a section of Heliyon that is fully dedicated to publishing valuable research in the field of engineering. The section is led by a team of Editors from a broad range of specialties within engineering, enabling the section to support both traditional and multidisciplinary engineering research. May 2019.

• LAB MEMBERS GRADUATED: Ghassan Bilal and Yazid AlKraimeen have officially received the Doctoral degree in Electrical Engineering during the Spring 2019 commencement ceremony. We will miss them in our lab and we wish them the best in the future. April 2019.

• SENIOR DESIGN PROJECTS COMPLETED: During the Spring 2019 semester, our lab hosted 2 teams of undergraduate students for the implementation of their Senior Design projects sponsored by Consumers Energy. On April 16, they successfully presented the results of their projects as part of the Senior Engineering Design Conference hosted by the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences at WMU.

• An Nguyen, Blake Ryan and Steven Spannagel presented the project "Small-scale solar generation station". This team designed a scaled-down solar garden to be used for educational community outreach by Consumers Energy and research by our lab. This station will demonstrate how different factors affect the overall performance of solar generation. These factors include the physical layout, shading, tilt angle, spacing between panel arrays, solar panel types, and different loads. The station has the major components found in full-scale solar generation facilities, like the mounting structure, solar arrays, an inverter, a DC output, an AC output. It also has a graphical human interface that allows an interactive experience by the user.

• • • Henri Cousino and Dawit Zemariam presented the project "Photovoltac panel emulator". This team designed an low-cost electronic device based on an Arduino microcontroller to emulate the voltage-current characteristics of an actual photovoltaic panel. The purpose of this device is to assist in future research efforts on solar energy in our lab, such as the design of microinverters or testing of MPPT algorithms.

• NEW JOURNAL PAPER: The paper "Electromagnetic transient studies of large distribution systems using frequency domain modeling methods and network reduction techniques" has been published in ELSEVIER's International Journal of Electrical Power and Energy Systems. This work is the direct result of Ghassan Bilal's doctoral dissertation. Co-authors include lab members Juan M. Villanueva-Ramirez and Dr. Pablo Gomez, as well as Dr. Reynaldo Salcedo from MIT Lincoln Laboratory. February 2019.

• DISSERTATION DEFENSE: Yazid AlKraimeen successfully defended his PhD dissertation "Parameter Determination and Modeling of Transformer Windings for Fast Transients Including Frequency Dependent Effects". January 18, 2019.

2018

• SENIOR DESIGN PROJECT: During the Spring and Fall 2018 semesters our lab hosted a team of senior undergraduate students consisting of Abdullah Assiri, Rueben Jagatheesan and Kenneth Macleod, for their capstone project "Design of Synthetic Photovoltaic Generation System". This design project was successfully showcased on December 4, 2018 as part of the Senior Engineering Design Conference hosted by the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences at WMU. Their project was sponsored by the St. Joseph County Grange Fair Association and consisted of collecting the electrical data from the fairgrounds and designing an appropriate solar generation system to reduce their energy consumption throughout the year.

• DISSERTATION DEFENSE: Ghassan Bilal successfully defended his PhD dissertation "Network Equivalents applied to Transient Analysis of Large Distribution Systems". November 20, 2018.

• NEW BOOK CHAPTER: The book chapter "Modeling and Simulation of Rotating Machine Windings Fed by High-Power Frequency Converters for Insulation Design" coauthored by Dr. Pablo Gomez and former lab member Mohammed K. Hussain has been finally published. This book chapter is the result of a collaboration with Dr. Fermin P. Espino-Cortes of the National Polytechnic Institute of Mexico. October 2018

• NEW JOURNAL PAPER: Dr. Gomez and former WMU research scholar Leonardo Vergara have published the journal paper "Laplace-based computation of transient profiles along transmission lines including time-varying and non-linear elements" in the International Journal of Electrical Power and Energy Systems. September 2018

• FIRST LAB MEMBER GRADUATED: Mohammed K. Hussain has officially received the Doctoral degree in Electrical Engineering during the Summer 2018 commencement ceremony. Mohammed is the first member of our lab to complete his doctoral studies. We will miss him and we wish him the best in the future. June 2018.

• NEW GRANT: Dr. Gomez has been awarded an Assessment Fellows Grant from the University Assessment Steering Committee of WMU to support the project "Collaborative Learning for High Voltage Engineering Education" with Dr. Edmund Tsang as Co-PI. The proposed project will rely on interdependent collaboration between WMU and Mississippi State University (MSU) to assess student learning outcomes in high voltage engineering obtained via computer simulations (performed at WMU) and physical laboratory (located at MSU). June 2018.

• NEW AWARD: Hamid M. Pasha has been awarded a Research Grant from the Graduate College of WMU. These funds will allow him to perform FEM-simulations as part of his doctoral project "High Frequency Modeling of Power Line Communication Systems over the Smart Grid". May 2018

• LAB PRESENCE IN IEEE CONFERENCE: Ghassan Bilal and Yazid Al Kraimeen attended the 2018 IEEE International Conference on Electro Information Technology in Rochester, Michigan. Ghassan presented the paper "Arc Flash Assessment: Two-Case Study of Public Service Facilities in Kalamazoo, Michigan". This paper is the result of a project developed for the Department of Public Services of the City of Kalamazoo. Yazid presented the paper "Internal Fault Analysis in Disk-type Transformer Winding Using Network Reduction". May 2018.

• SENIOR DESIGN PROJECTS: During the Spring 2018 semester, our lab hosted 3 teams of undergraduate students for the implementation of their Senior Design projects. On April 17, they successfully presented the results of their projects as part of the Senior Engineering Design Conference hosted by the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences at WMU.

• Esher Mawi, Jeremy Smith and Andrew Covell presented the project "Scaled down Impulse generator". Their finished device is based on semiconductor components and will be used for safe demonstration of the operation and use of a Marx generator, as well as for future projects related to the study of wave propagation along power devices.

• • • Azam Albiebi, Hussain Alowa and Mohammad Alqasim presented the project "Wireless charger for medical devices". Their implementation is based on Witricity technology for wireless power transfer between resonant coils, with a focus on the specifications required for adequate charging of implanted medical devices such as pacemakers, defibrillators or ventricular assist devices.

• • • Abdulilah Alaknah, Firal Alotaiby and Mohammed Boshlibi presented the project "Design and control of a nanogrid". They designed a desktop size DC nanogrid for educational and research purposes, including photovoltaic panels as main source of generation, an energy storage system and rectified wall power representing fossil fuel-sourced energy. An Arduino microprocessor was programmed to manage the operation of the nanogrid between island mode and grid mode depending on the generation, storage and load conditions.

• Hamid Pasha has been awarded a Research Assistantship position from the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences of WMU for the Fall 2018, Spring 2019 and Summer I 2019 semesters. This position will allow Hamid to continue his PhD project "High Frequency Modeling of Power Line Communication Systems over the Smart Grid". April 2018.

• NEW JOURNAL PAPER: Dr. Gomez published the journal paper "Error Images for Estimating the Accuracy of Ground-Return Impedance Models" in the June issue of the IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery. This work was developed in collaboration with the University of Guadalajara (Mexico) and the Center for Research and Advanced Studies (IPN, Mexico). April 2018

• DISSERTATION DEFENSE: Mohammed Hussain successfully defended his PhD dissertation "Optimized insulation and filter design of rotating machines fed by fast front pulses". March 28, 2018

• LAB MEMBERS AWARDED RESEARCH AND TEACHING AWARDS: Mohammed Hussain and Juan Villanueva have been announced as proud recipients of 2018 Graduate Research and Creative Scholar Awards. Mohammed was awarded the Department level Graduate Research Award, while Juan was awarded the Department level Graduate Teaching Effectiveness Award. March 2018.

• PhD PROPOSAL DEFENSE: Ghassan Bilal successfully presented his PhD proposal "Network equivalents applied to transient analysis of large distribution systems". February 27, 2018

Ghassan after his doctoral proposal at CEAS - WMU

• LAB PRESENCE IN IEEE CONFERENCE: Ahmad Alshawawreh attended the 2018 IEEE Texas Power and Energy Conference in College Station, Texas. He successfully presented the paper "Transmission line fault location based on the computation of transient profile contour maps", which is the result of an ongoing collaboration with the National Polytechnic Institute of Mexico. February 2018.

Ahmad presenting his paper at the TPEC in College Station, Texas

2017

• Dr. Gomez has been nominated exceptional reviewer of the IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery for the year 2017.

• Dr. Gomez has been appointed Associate Editor of the International Journal of Electrical Engineering Education. October 2017

• Mohammed Hussain successfully presented his PhD proposal "Optimized insulation and filter design of rotating machines fed by fast front pulses". September 26, 2017

• Ghassan Bilal, Mohammed Hussain and Juan Villanueva attended the 49th North American Power Symposium in Morgantown, West Virginia. Ghassan and Juan presented the paper "Frequency Domain Transformer Model for Electromagnetic Transient Analysis of Networks", while Mohammed presented the paper "Optimal Filter Tuning to Minimize the Transient Overvoltages on Machine Windings Fed by PWM Inverters". September 17 - 19, 2017

Mohammed presenting his paper at the NAPS in Morgantown, West Virginia

Ghassan and Juan at the NAPS in Morgantown, West Virginia

• The paper "Modeling of Transformer windings for fast transient studies: experimental validation and performance comparison" coauthored by Dr. Gomez has been included in the list of most popular articles of the IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery for the month of July 2017.

• Yazid AlKraimeen successfully presented his PhD proposal "Parameter determination and modeling of transformer windings for fast transient studies including frequency dependent effects". August 2017

Yazid presenting his doctoral proposal at CEAS - WMU

• Dr. Gomez published the journal paper "Animations of electromagnetic transients in power transmission lines by means of the two-dimensional numerical Laplace transform" in the International Journal of Electrical Power and Energy Systems. This work was developed in collaboration with the National Polytechnic Institute of Mexico. August 2017

• Dr. Gomez published the journal paper "Modeling of Transformer windings for fast transient studies: experimental validation and performance comparison" in the IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery. This work was developed in collaboration with the National Polytechnic Institute of Mexico. August 2017

• Dr. Gomez attended the 2017 International Conference on Power System Transients (IPST) in Seoul, South Korea. He presented the paper "Modeling and experimental analysis of the transient overvoltages on machine windings fed by PWM inverters", coauthored by Mohammed K. Hussain. June 2017

Dr. Gomez presenting at the 2017 IPST in Seoul, South Korea.

• Dr. Gomez attended the 2017 IEEE General Meeting of the Power Engineering Society in Chicago, IL. He chaired the session of the Task Force on Frequency Domain Methods for Electromagnetic Transient Studies. June 2017

Dr. Gomez with NYU-Poly alumni at the poster session of the 2017 IEEE PES GM in Chicago.

• Ghassan Bilal attended the 2017 IEEE International Conference on Electro Information Technology in Lincoln, Nebraska. He presented the paper "A general code to simulate the effect of indirect lightning on overhead lines using EMTP-type programs", coautored by Hasan J. Hasan and Dr. Gomez, as well as the paper "Network reduction for frequency domain transient analysis of power components", coauthored by Juan Villanueva, Mohammed K. Hussain and Dr. Gomez. May 2017

• Mohammed K. Hussain and Dr. Gomez published the journal paper "Optimized dielectric design of stator windings from medium voltage induction machines fed by fast front pulses" in the IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation. April 2017

• Mohammed K. Hussain attended the 2017 IEEE Power and Energy Conference at Illinois in Champaign, IL. He presented the paper "Equivalent representation of machine winding in frequency domain model for fast transient studies", coauthored by Dr. Gomez. February 2017