postdoctoral researcher in the Flanders Make IRVA project IMVEP

postdoctoral researcher in the Flanders Make IRVA project IMVEP

Job ID: 30444

ABOUT GHENT UNIVERSITY

Ghent University is a world of its own. Employing more than 15,000 people, it is actively involved in education and research, management and administration, as well as technical and social service provision on a daily basis. It is one of the largest, most exciting employers in the area and offers great career opportunities. With its 11 faculties and more than 80 departments offering state-of-the-art study programmes grounded in research in a wide range of academic fields, Ghent University is a logical choice for its staff and students.

YOUR TASKS

You will join EnSy lab,UGent, core lab MIRO, as a postdoctoral researcher in the Flanders Make IRVA project IMVEP (Integrated Multi-Voltage Electric Powertrain). The project is carried out together with Flanders Make MotionS and Flanders Make @ VUB-MOBI and is followed by a user group of industrial companies. IMVEP develops and validates multilevel inverters, design tools and energy management strategies for multi-voltage electric powertrains, targeting higher efficiency, lower cost, improved reliability and safe operation. Within the project, MIRO is responsible for a multilevel inverter for high-speed applications and for modelling the impact of multilevel inverters on electric machines.

Your tasks include:

• Design, build and experimentally validate a multilevel inverter prototype (hardware and software) for high-speed electric drive applications, covering topology and semiconductor selection, power stage, gate drive, PCB layout and magnetic component design.
• Develop and implement modulation and control strategies for multilevel inverters on rapid prototyping control platforms, including voltage balancing and operation under defined fault conditions.
• Develop scalable loss, thermal and cost models of the inverter-motor subsystem, including electric machine losses under non-sinusoidal multilevel supply, as input for the inverter co-design tool developed with the project partners.
• Assess the insulation stress and partial discharge behaviour of electric machines fed by multilevel inverters.
• Plan and carry out experimental campaigns on motor test benches and hardware-in-the-loop setups to quantify inverter and e-drive performance (efficiency, power density, filter requirements) and to validate the developed models and tools.
• Support the system-level validation of multi-voltage powertrain architectures together with the project partners.
• Interact with the industrial partners of the user group on requirement definition, progress reporting and company validation cases.
• Disseminate the results through peer-reviewed publications, conference contributions, project reports and demonstrators.
• Contribute to the supervision of master's and PhD students working on related topics

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

• You hold a doctoral degree in electrical or electromechanical engineering, with a specialisation in power electronics, electrical drives or a closely related field.
• You have substantial postdoctoral and/or industrial experience in the design, construction and experimental validation of power electronic converter prototypes, including schematic design, PCB layout and magnetic component design.
• You have knowledge of multilevel inverter topologies (e.g. T-type, NPC, cascaded H-bridge) and their modulation and control.
• You have experience with Si IGBT and wide-bandgap (SiC, GaN) semiconductor devices, including loss and thermal analysis and design for fast switching transients.
• You have experience implementing digital control of power converters on embedded and rapid prototyping platforms (e.g. DSP, FPGA, dSPACE), and with hardware-in-the-loop or real-time simulation.
• You have knowledge of electrical drive systems and of the interaction between inverter and electric machine.
• You are proficient in modelling and simulation of power electronic systems (e.g. MATLAB/Simulink).
• You have hands-on experience with high-voltage laboratory work and instrumentation, and knowledge of insulation coordination, creepage and clearance, and safety requirements for high-voltage hardware.
• You have experience in collaborative research projects with industrial partners, and good communication and reporting skills in English.
• You can work independently and coordinate technical work with partners in a multidisciplinary team.

Preferred qualifications

• Experience with partial discharge or insulation stress in inverter-fed machines, or with high dv/dt test inverters.
• Experience with loss modelling of electric machines under non-sinusoidal supply.
• Knowledge of reliability analysis (e.g. FMEA, semiconductor stress and lifetime) and fault-toler