Research Interests
I am fascinated by working on electric machines and drives, doing something new, pushing the limits, not going straight forward. Having this in mind, the first and main topic is clear I guess:
- Design and modeling of electric machines and drives
As I usually want to find the best solution for any (research) question, the second is also somewhat obvious:
- Multi-objective optimization of mechatronic systems including sensitivity and tolerance analyses
The typical optimization scenarios I tackle involve the nonlinear analysis of some thousands of design variants. This can be accomplished using a computer cluster and a thorough computing environment, called SyMSpace, that is mainly developed at the Linz Center of Mechatronics (LCM homepage), while the Department of Electrical Drives and Power Electronics of the Johannes Kepler University Linz significantly contributes.
The sensitivity and tolerance analyses were a natural consequence of my work about optimizing electric machines and drives. What could be observed is that when not considering these aspects, the applied optimization technique might steer to non-robust regions of the design space. Even though the performance of obtained designs might be good for rated parameters and nominal conditions, it can get very bad if unavoidable tolerances occur.
Considering tolerances throughout the optimization runs, I am interested in finding the best trade off regarding rated performance and robustness. As the robustness evaluation increases computational cost by another order of magnitude, simplified but accurate models are investigated.
It is worth doing so in order to avoid nasty suprises at the test rig or when company partners visit or call you.
Another aspect that came up is to have a better, i.e. more accurate, modeling of the materials used in electric machines. This involves, e.g., analyzing high-frequency behavior of materials, losses for 2D- and/or non-sinusoidal excitation, and the impact of the manufacturing process:
- Material characterization for electric machine modeling (1D- and 2D-characterization, impact of manufacturing, high frequency aspects)
Besides the machine design itself, there are a lot of opportunities for optimizing the power electronics and the control of electric drives. In order to find the best overall system, the optimization also has to be done on system-level and not on component-level. Thus, using the previously mentioned SyMSpace it is possible to also consider the control in the optimization. Hence, there is another topic
- Nonlinear optimal control of electric machines
I am very interested in.
At the beginning of my work at the university, I focussed on magnetic levitation and bearingless machines. I am still interested in this topic, even though currently I have no running project, so, here another research interest comes:
- Magnetic bearing technology, especially bearingless segment motors
Even though this list is quite comprehensive, it is continuously subject to change and extension. If you for instance consider my publications or my CV, you will come to the conclusion that I am very interested in interdisciplinary collaboration, e.g., with Mathematicians or Computer Scientists.
I am convinced that only by combining different areas of research, even not limited to engineering, we can find the best solutions. Moreover, I am fascinated by working with people from different countries, institutions, cultures, with different backgrounds, as this is very inspiring and leads to new approaches and solutions.
By taking respect of each individual person and considering all different approaches, the chances for developing new and convincing solutions is the highest!
By both academic research combined with feedback from company projects or at the test rig, my goal is to do research that gives new insights but also holds for practical application. This is what I consider as useful research.