IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS, VOL. 18, NO.
2, APRIL 2013
A Boost-Type Power Converter for
Energy-Regenerative Damping
Reza Sabzehgar and Mehrdad Moallem
AbstractThis paper presents the development of an energy-
regenerative damper consisting of a massspring system coupled
with a permanent-magnet dc machine, power electronics converter,
and a battery. The vibration energy induced in the massspring sys-
tem is converted into battery charge through the dc machine and a
power electronics controller. The latter is a pulse-width-modulated
boost-type converter, which enforces a pseudoresistive behavior
between its input terminals through a feedback control scheme
developed in this study. Introducing this pseudoresistive behavior
across the input terminals of the dc machine produces the same
effect as a mechanical damper but with an energy-regenerative
function. The dynamics of the massspring system coupled with
the linear machine are used to obtain a condition for extracting
maximum electric power from mechanical vibrations. Experimen-
tal results are presented that demonstrate the performance of the
regenerative damper using a small-scale suspension system test
bed.
Index TermsAutomotive electronics, energy conversion,
energy harvesting, power control, vibrations.
I. INTRODUCTION
ONTROL of mechanical vibrations and flexure has been
C an active area of research in the past few years with a wide
range of applications including acoustic noise reduction [1],
hard disk drives [2], flexible robotic arms [3], [4], and mag-
netic switch for shunt damping [5], to name a few. These tech-
niques usually require the use of an external power source to
achieve vibration damping through active control. In contrast,
regenerative damping that constitutes converting the mechan-
ical vibration energy into electric charge is of great interest
due to an increasing demand for energy-efficient devices. For
low power applications in the range W to mW , the use of
electrostatic, electromagnetic, and piezoelectric transducers as
energy harvesters has been studied by several researchers in-
cluding [6][8]. Applications involving regenerative vibration
damping at higher power levels (200 W1 kW), for example,
in automotive systems, are attractive due to their potential to
improve fuel efficiency. In [9], the authors studied the feasi-
Manuscript received August 24, 2011; revised October 25, 2011; accepted
December 22, 2011. Date of publication February 3, 2012; date of current
version January 10, 2013. Recommended by Technical Editor G. Schitter. This
work was supported in part by grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineer-
ing Research Council (NSERC) of Canada under the Discovery and Engage
programs.
The authors are with Mechatronics Systems Engineering, School of Engineer-
ing Science, Simon Fraser University, Surrey, BC, V3T 0A3, Canada (e-mail:
rsabzehgar@sfu.ca; mmoallem@sfu.ca).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TMECH.2011.2182203
1083-4435/$31.00 2012 IEEE
Downloaded from http://www.elearnica.ir
725
bility of self-powered active suspension control of a truck cab
through an analytical energy balance method and numerical
simulations. This study indicates that sufficient energy is regen-
erated to supply power for active suspension control. In [10], the
authors utilized the combination of a ball-screw and a brushless
dc motor in their regenerative suspension system to investigate
feasibility of the concept. In [11], an energy recuperation and
management scheme was presented for automotive suspension
systems using an H controller. A hydraulic transmission elec-
tromagnetic energy-regenerative suspension system was pre-
sented in [12] that combines mechanical, electromagnetic, and
hydraulic components to recycle the vehicles shock energy.
In [13], the authors developed a permanent-magnet linear ac-
tuator for an automotive active suspension system. An energy
converter consisting of a dc motor with a step-up chopper was
proposed in [14], in which the energy is regenerated from a
low-speed and low-voltage generator into a high voltage circuit.
However, issues regarding the efficiency and performance of the
power electronics converter were not studied.
The aforementioned works on regenerative suspension have
investigated different topics such as the feasibility and develop-
ment of electromagnetic machines and mechanisms for energy
conversion. However, they have not addressed power control
for maximum energy capture from vibration waveforms with
time-varying amplitudes and frequencies. Such waveforms are
typically present in a vehicular suspension system and depend
on the road profile and vehicles dynamic characteristics. To
address the aforementioned issue in power control, we present
an energy-regenerative suspension mechanism consisting of a
power electronics controller that enforces a resistive behavior
at its input terminals through feedback control. Using the pro-
posed scheme, the battery would look like a pure resistor as seen
from the inputs of the power electronics circuit, thus, realizing a
damper from the terminals of the electric machine. Furthermore,
the damping coefficient of the system can be set and changed in
real time.
The organization of this paper is as follows. In Section II, the
model of a two-phase linear permanent-magnet dc machine is
presented. Based on this model, the desired damping force that
must be produced by the dc machine to convert the mechanical
vibration energy into electric charge is derived in Section III.
The operating principle of the power electronics circuity and its
pseudoresistive model are presented in Section IV. Based on the
input model of the power converter, an inversion-based feedback
control scheme is proposed in Section V. In Section VI, exper-
imental results that evaluate the performance of the proposed
energy-regenerative suspension system are presented. Conclu-
sions are presented in Section VII.
726
Fig. 1. Linear permanent-magnet tubular machine [17].
II. MODELING OF THE TUBULAR DC
PERMANENT-MAGNET MACHINE
Direct-drive linear machines have been utilized in low-
frequency applications, where mechanical gearing is undesir-
able, or when low inertia is required [15], [16]. Since mechan-
ical vibrations of a suspension system are in the form of linear
reciprocating motion, an electromagnetic linear machine shown
in Fig. 1 is utilized in this study. The machine is essentially an
actuator, but in this study, it has been used as a generator to
convert mechanical vibrations into electricity. The direct-drive
machine has low friction and cogging forces and consists of two
parts including a slider and a stator. The slider is made of high
strength neodymium magnets encased in a high-precision stain-
less steel tube. The stator contains the windings, slider bearings,
and a position encoder. The machine operates based on the volt-
age generated due to the relative motion between a stack of
permanent-magnet rings separated by soft iron rings. Referring
to Fig. 1, the slider is free to move through the stator coil wind-
ings. In the following, a model of the aforementioned machine
is presented that describes a relationship between the vibration
dynamics and generated voltage. Following [16], the voltages
of stator windings, i.e., phases 1 and 2, can be obtained from
dj  2
vj = rj ij + , j = Lj k ik + j f (1)
dt
k =1
where j = 1, 2, and rj is the resistance of phase j; ij is the cur-
rent of phase j; j f represents the flux linkage in phase j due to
the magnets; and Lj k , j, k = 1, 2 are the self (j = k) and mutual
(j = k) inductances. These inductances are generally position
dependent. Furthermore, the flux linkage due to the permanent
magnet depends on the pole pitch and displacement z. The max-
imum flux linkage occurs when the coil axis is aligned with that
of the soft iron pole. The generated voltage of each phase is,
thus, given by
dj f dj f dz
Ej = = . (2)
dt dz dt
For phase 1, used in this study, we have
 
1f = N 1 = N cos z (3) a power electronics circuit converter and feedback control as
where z is the relative displacement, 1f is the flux linkage
(for phase 2, is shifted by 90 ), represents the pole pitch of
IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS, VOL. 18, NO. 2, APRIL 2013
Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of the regenerative vibration damping system.
the generator, N is the number of turns in each phase, and
represents the peak flux in the air gap. Substituting (3) into (2)
results in
 
d1f dz
E1 = = N sin z (4)
dt dt
where E1 is the generated voltage of phase 1. Equation (4) can
be further written as
E1 = (z)z (5)
where
 
(z) = N sin z . (6)
Equation (5) indicates that the generated voltage will not be a
pure sinusoidal waveform in response to the updown trans-
lational motion as a result of the nonlinear term (z). This
equation will be used in Section III to find a relationship for
the optimal force that the dc machine must produce to harvest
active power from mechanical vibrations.
III. SUSPENSION SYSTEM DYNAMICS AND DESIRED LOADING
OF THE DC MACHINE
Fig. 2 shows the schematic diagram of the regenerative damp-
ing system, where mb , mw , Ks , Kw , and Cs represent a quarter
of the sprung mass of a vehicle body, the unsprung mass of one
wheel, the stiffness of the spring, the tire stiffness, and the damp-
ing coefficient, respectively. The desired damping is specified
by the lower right block shown in Fig. 2. The desired damping
specified by this block is transformed into an equivalent electri-
cal input resistance and provided as a set point to the feedback
control scheme. The desired resistance is implemented by using
discussed in Sections IV and V.
Assuming that the unsprung mass mw is negligible com-
pared to mb , and the tire stiffness Kw is relatively large, an
SABZEHGAR AND MOALLEM: BOOST-TYPE POWER CONVERTER FOR ENERGY-REGENERATIVE DAMPING 727

Thus, zopt is the speed corresponding to the maximum power

in the suspension system in the form of kinetic and potential
energies. Now, let us consider the equations of the dc machine
given by

Pg = Fg z (17)
Fg = i (18)

where Pg is the power generated by the machine, i is the current

Fig. 3. 1-DOF model of the suspension system.
passing through the stator coil generating the force Fg , and
is the motor constant. Substituting the value of relative velocity
approximate 1-DOF system can be obtained as shown in Fig. 3. from (15) into (17) and (5), respectively, results in
Using a free body diagram and neglecting friction, the equations
of motion for this system are, thus, given by Fc + Fg
P g = Fg (19)
2Cs
mb xb = Cs (xb xr ) Ks (xb xr ) + Fg (7)
Fc + F g
where Fg is the upward reaction force of the dc generator. Now, E1,opt = (z) . (20)
2Cs
let us define
Equation (19) specifies the power that can be captured by the dc
z = xb xr (8) machine and (20) indicates the amount of generated electrical
where z is the relative displacement. Therefore, (7) can be writ- voltage under this condition. Thus, the maximum power that can
ten as be transferred from this generated power to a load is obtained
by differentiation as follows:
mb z + Cs z + Ks z = Fr + Fg (9)
Pg
where =0 (21)
Fc
Fr = mb xr . (10)
which results in
1
Now, let us find the optimum value of the force that the Fg ,opt = Fc . (22)
dc machine must produce to harvest maximum power from 2
mechanical vibrations. To this end, the total energy of the system Substituting (22) and (18) into (20), will result in the desired
can be written as the summation of potential and kinetic energies relationship between the current and voltage of the machine for
as follows: maximum power transfer as follows:
1 1
E = mb x2b + Ks z 2 . (11) E1,opt = Riopt (23)
2 2
Therefore, the available power in the massspring system is
where
given by
dE (z)
P = = mb xb xb + Ks z z. (12) R= . (24)
dt 2Cs
Substituting mb xb from (7) into (12) and performing some al- The aforementioned result indicates that to transfer the max-
gebraic manipulations result in imum mechanical power into electric power, there must be a
P = (Fg Cs z Cs xr )z + (Fg Ks z)xr . (13) resistive relationship between the generated voltage and current
across the electric terminals of the machine. In other words,
Now let us obtain the maximum available mechanical power in the load should be purely resistive. This result could have been
the system that should ideally be converted into electric power. expected due to the equivalence between mechanical damping
To this end, differentiating P as follows: and electric resistance. However, (24) provides a quantitative
P relationship to determine the desired electrical resistance and,
=0 (14) consequently, the extracted power based on the dc machine pa-
z
rameters , (z), and the damping coefficient Cs of the suspen-
and solving for the speed results in sion system. Another consideration in determining the desired
Fc + Fg damping is the ride comfort and stability that can be achieved
zopt = (15)
2Cs by using control schemes such as skyhook [20]. In practice,
the desired value of electrical resistance should be determined
where
by a compromise between ride comfort and energy extraction
Fc = Cs xr . (16) characteristics.
728 IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS, VOL. 18, NO. 2, APRIL 2013

Fig. 4. Single-phase boost power converter.

IV. OPERATING PRINCIPLE AND PSEUDORESISTIVE INPUT

BEHAVIOR OF THE POWER ELECTRONICS CIRCUIT
Motivated by the result in the previous section, a boost-type
power converter is utilized in this section that performs energy
conversion by reflecting the battery as a pseudoresistor when
seen from the converter input terminals. A boost converter is
required since the generated voltage is relatively small (a few
volts), which has to be converted to the higher battery voltage
(e.g., 12 V). To this end, a bridgeless boost converter is utilized as
shown in Fig. 4 (see e.g., [18]). The boost converter works based
Fig. 5. Operation modes in the positive cycle of input voltage: (a) Mode 1 of
on charging an inductor during a subinterval of the pulse-width circuit operation: Both Q 1 and Q 2 are ON, (b) Mode 2 of circuit operation: Q 1
modulation (PWM) period and discharging the inductor energy is turned OFF and Q 2 remains ON.
into a battery during the rest of the period. Referring to Fig. 4,
the Schottky diodes and MOSFETs are used to achieve low
is the time interval that the MOSFETs remain ON, given by
conduction losses. To further decrease the conduction losses,
ton = dTs , where d is the duty cycle of the PWM signal.
Q2 is kept in the ON state when the time-varying input voltage
From (25), to guarantee a resistive behavior between vi,k and
vi is positive. Similarly, Q1 is turned ON during the negative
iL ,k , the duty cycle should have an upper bound given by
cycle of the input voltage. When vi > 0 and Q1 is turned ON, the
inductor current builds up and energy is stored in its magnetic vi,k
d1 (26)
field [see Fig. 5(a)]. After Q1 is turned OFF, the stored energy VB + VD
in the inductor together with the energy coming from the input It should be noted that the resistance Rk is nonlinear due to the
source charge the battery as depicted in Fig. 5(b). time-varying component vi,k /(VB + VD ). This term is com-
To enforce a resistive behavior at the input of the boost con- pensated by the feedback controller presented in Section V to
verter, the circuit must operate in the discontinuous conduc- achieve a desired value.
tion mode. This behavior can be verified by using an averaging
method [19]. Using Kirchhoffs circuit laws, and selecting the
V. CONTROL STRATEGY
PWM switching frequency to be much higher than the frequency
content of the input source, and performing some algebraic ma- In this section, we present a control scheme that regulates the
nipulations, it can be shown using a similar approach as in [19] input resistance given by (25) to a desired value that is feasible
that a nonlinear resistance exists between input terminals X and based on the circuit parameters used. Based on (25), the param-
Y (see Fig. 4) given by eters that can significantly affect the value of input resistance
  Rk are Ts , ton , and L. The switching period Ts may not gen-
vi,k 2LTs vi,k
Rk = = 2 1 (25) erally be a proper control input variable due to practical issues
iL ,k ton VB + VD such as the ease of digital implementation when a fixed period
where vi,k and iL ,k are the values of input voltage vi and input is used and assuming a constant Ts in the derivations leading
current iL , at each sampling time t = kTs , respectively; VB is to (25). Furthermore, for larger values of the desired resistance
the battery voltage; VD is the voltage drop across the diode; Ts (soft damping), the switching period must be decreased as indi-
represents the switching period of MOSFET switches; and ton cated by (25), which results in more power losses due to faster
SABZEHGAR AND MOALLEM: BOOST-TYPE POWER CONVERTER FOR ENERGY-REGENERATIVE DAMPING 729

switching. Thus, ton will be used as the control input that can
be related to the duty cycle, i.e., d = ton /Ts . To this end, let us
define u, a, and y as follows:
2LTs vi,k
u= , a = VB + VD , y= (27)
t2on iL ,k Fig. 6. Block diagram of the proposed control strategy.
where u and a are both positive (u > 0, a > 0). Equations (25)
and (27) result in
 
av
y=u (28)
a
where v = vi,k .
Now, let us define
u = yd + u (29)
where yd is the desired input resistance of the circuit. Substitut-
ing (29) into (28) results in
 
v
y = (yd + u) 1 (30)
a
By defining e = yd y and using (30), we have
 
v v
e = yd u 1 (31)
a a
Fig. 7. Experimental setup of the power electronics circuit and dSPACE con-
Now, let us take the control input u as follows: troller.
 1  
v v
u = 1 w + yd (32)
a a generated by a PWM signal with the duty cycle determined by
the controller.
where w is the output of a PI controller given by

w = Kp e + KI edt (33) VI. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP AND RESULTS
To evaluate the performance of the system experimentally,
Substituting (32) into (31) and using (33) results in the circuit shown in Fig. 4 was implemented by using the fol-

lowing components: Q1 , Q2 : N-channel MOSFETs, 75 V, 90 A
(Kp + 1)e + KI edt = 0 (34) (IRFP2907) with internal diodes D3 and D4 ; D1 , D2 : Schot-
tky diodes, 60 V, 20 A (MBR4060WT); B: Sealed lead acid
Since the coefficients of the PI controller are always positive,
battery, 12 V, 7 Ah; C: Electrolyte capacitor, 100 F, 25 V; L:
KI /(Kp + 1) is always positive, which guaranties that the error
0.1 H; R: 1 k. The dSPACE 1103 embedded computer system
would exponentially converge to zero. It should also be noted
(from dSPACE, Inc.) was used to control the power electronics
that the above ratio specifies the convergence speed of the con-
circuit in the MATLAB/SIMULINK environment. Fig. 7 shows
troller. By increasing this value reasonably, the controller is able
the experimental setup consisting of the power electronics cir-
to compensate the uncertainties caused by the nonlinear term on
cuity, battery, and the dSPACE controller. The power electronics
the input resistance given by (25). However, if the KI /Kp ratio
interface was connected to the massspring test rig attached to a
is increased too much it may have a destabilizing effect due to
mechanical shaker, as depicted in Fig. 8. The massspring exper-
unmodeled dynamics. This ratio is set to 4000 (KI = 40, and
imental setup consists of four parallel springs and a dc machine
Kp = 0.01) for the experimental setup used in this study.
(LinMot P01-37 120) with motor constant = 25.8 N/A
The control law is then obtained by substituting (32) into (29)
which isolates the mass from base excitations. The sprung mass
as follows:
 1   was 5.4 kg; the stiffness of each spring was 2.3 kN/m, resulting
v v in a total stiffness of Ks = 9.2 kN/m; and the damping coeffi-
u = yd + 1 w + yd (35)
a a cient of the system was measured as Cs = 445.8 Ns/m using a
time-domain excitation and observing the decay.
which can be further simplified to
The slider of the linear motor is a bar magnet connected to
a the mechanical shaker and isolated from the stator winding of
u= (yd + w) (36)
av the dc machine through the massspring system. The shaker can
The value of the duty cycle d is then calculated using (27) be excited with motion profiles containing different frequencies
and u given by (36) at each sampling time. Fig. 6 illustrates in the range 620 Hz. In the experiments, the shaker was set to
the control system block diagram in which the control input is oscillate at 6 Hz with an acceleration amplitude of 0.12g, where
730 IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS, VOL. 18, NO. 2, APRIL 2013

Fig. 9. Voltage generated by the dc machine (broken line) and averaged

converter input current multiplied by the value of the desired resistance
Fig. 8. Massspring test rig connected to a mechanical shaker and permanent- (R d = 2.75 k) (solid line).
magnet machine.

g = 9.8 m/s is the acceleration of gravity. The internal induc-

tance of the motor, Lm = 3.1 mH, was utilized as the boost
converter inductor L shown in Fig. 4. Phase 1 of the generator
shown in Fig. 1 was connected to the input of the power elec-
tronics interface. This voltage, along with the current passing
through the inductor, were measured using two LT1167 instru-
mentation amplifiers. These two signals along with the battery
voltage were then captured by A/D converter channels of the
dSPACE. The circuit input resistance between input terminals
XY in Fig. 4 was then calculated at each sampling time by
dividing the input voltage by the averaged inductor current in
one PWM period (0.001s). The PWM frequency of 1 kHz was
selected to be much higher than the frequency content of the
input waveform and meet the closed-loop control bandwidth
requirements. On the other hand, this frequency should not be
very large to avoid power losses due to switching and electro-
magnetic interference. In practice, the PWM period should be
selected to achieve a balance between the aforementioned fac- Fig. 10. Voltage generated by the dc machine (broken line) and averaged
converter input current multiplied by the value of desired resistance (R d =
tors. The value of d was obtained from (33), (36), and (27), and 100 ) (solid line).
applied to the converter at each sampling instant.
Figs. 9 and 10 illustrate the performance of the controller for
the desired input resistances of 2.75 k and 100 , respectively. measured by a distance measurement sensor attached to the
It should be pointed out that the vin is the input voltage after shaker setup. The distance measurement sensor is a string po-
deducting the drop across the 6 winding resistance of the dc tentiometer that was used to measure the relative displacement.
machine. Note that the desired resistance is the electrical equiv- It can be observed that by increasing the desired resistance (de-
alent of the desired damping. Thus, a larger value of electrical creasing the mechanical damping), the relative displacement is
resistance represents a lower damping, and vice versa. The re- also increased. For larger resistances (lower damping), the rela-
sults indicate that when the desired resistance decreases from tive displacement does not change much due to the dominance
2.75 k to 100 , more current is drawn from the stator coil, of other damping effects such as friction; hence, the damper is
which decreases the vibration amplitude, i.e., more power is less effective in that region. Note that the maximum damping
transferred to the battery in the form of electrical charge. Since takes place at Rd = 6 , which is equal to the internal resistance
the relative displacement of the stator and slider decreases, the of the dc machine corresponding to the resistance for maximum
amount of induced voltage also decreases as shown in Fig. 10. power transfer. Using the nominal values of the parameters given
Fig. 11 illustrates the relationship between the desired electrical in this section, (24) yields a resistance of 0.8 which is not
resistance and the relative displacement of the stator and slider feasible to implement using converter due to the 6- resistance
SABZEHGAR AND MOALLEM: BOOST-TYPE POWER CONVERTER FOR ENERGY-REGENERATIVE DAMPING
Fig. 11. Amplitude of the relative displacement versus the desired input re-
sistance of the converter.
Fig. 12. Converter efficiency for different values of the battery voltage.
of the coil winding. Thus, for the machine used in this study,
maximum power transfer is limited by the electric resistance
of the winding as opposed to the damping of the suspension
system. Thus, a potential use of (24) is to select or design the
machine based on the damping characteristics of the suspension
system.
Fig. 12 indicates that increasing the battery voltage improves
the efficiency for higher values of the duty cycle. In fact, in-
creasing the battery voltage VB extends the specific bound for
d obtained from (26) by making it closer to one. This effect
enables the circuit to operate in the resistive region for higher
values of the PWM duty cycle. Therefore, the switching power
losses are reduced, resulting in higher power conversion effi-
ciency. However, the efficiency changes significantly for other
values of the duty cycle as observed from Fig. 12. For instance,
if VB = 48 V, the efficiency decreases from 95% to 79% when
the duty cycle changes from 50% to 10%. In this application, a
731
12 V battery is used with the efficiency remaining almost con-
stant (91%) for a wide range of the duty cycle ratios.
VII. CONCLUSION
In this paper, a boost-type converter along with a feedback
control strategy were proposed and implemented on an energy-
regenerative suspension system test bed. It was shown that to
transfer the maximum power to the load, there must be a re-
sistive relationship between the input voltage and current of
the power electronics interface. A boost converter circuit along
with a feedback control strategy were proposed to enforce a
pseudoresistive behavior between the dc machine output termi-
nals. Furthermore, performance of the suspension system test
bed was evaluated through experimental studies. The results in-
dicate that the boost circuit and proposed feedback controller
can successfully provide regenerative damping for mechanical
vibrations with high-efficiency power conversion for the boost
converter.
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[16] K. Rhinefranka, E. B. Agamloha, A. von Jouannea, A. K. Wallacea, Mehrdad Moallem received the B.Sc. degree from
J. Prudella, K. Kimblea, J. Aillsa, E. Schmidta, P. Chanb, B. Sweenyb, and Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran, in 1986, the M.Sc. de-
A. Schachera, Novel ocean energy permanent magnet linear generator gree from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran,
buoy, Int. J. Renewable Energy, vol. 31, no. 9, pp. 12791298, 2006. Iran, in 1988, both in electrical and electronic engi-
[17] LinMot Data Book, Industrial Linear Motors Datasheet, 15 ed., Elkhorn, neering, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical and com-
WI, [Online]. Available: www.linmot.com (last accessed Jan. 2012). puter engineering from Concordia University, Mon-
[18] L. Huber, Y. Jang, and M. Jovanovic, Performance evaluation of bridge- treal, QC, Canada, in 1997.
less PFC boost rectifiers, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 23, no. 3, From 1998 to 1999, he was a Research and Devel-
pp. 13811390, May 2008. opment Engineer at Duke University, Durham, NC.
[19] R. W. Erickson and D. Maksimovic, Fundamentals of Power Electronics, From 1999 to 2007, he was an Assistant, and then an
2nd ed. New York: Springer-Verlag, 2001. Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical
[20] L. Zuo, J.-J. E. Slotine, and S. A. Nayfeh, Model reaching adaptive control and Computer Engineering, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON,
for vibration isolation, IEEE Trans. Control Syst, Technol., vol. 13, no. 4, Canada. Since 2007, he has been with the Mechatronics Systems Engineering
pp. 611647, Jul. 2005. Program, School of Engineering Science, Simon Fraser University, Surrey, BC,
Canada. He has authored or coauthored extensively in the aforementioned areas
and is the coauthor of four technical books on vibration control using piezoelec-
tric transducers, control of flexible robots, medical robotics, and wind energy
conversion. His current research interests include control applications, in partic-
ular, control of structurally flexible systems, power electronic control for energy
conversion, smart sensors and actuators, and embedded real-time computing.
Reza Sabzehgar received the B.Sc. degree in elec-
trical and electronic engineering in 1998 and the
M.Sc. degree in electrical and control engineering
in 2001 from Amirkabir University of Technology
(Tehran Polytechnic), Tehran, Iran. He is currently
working toward the Ph.D. degree in the School
of Engineering Science, Simon Fraser University,
Surrey, BC, Canada.
From 2001 to 2008, he was an Instrumentation
and Control Engineer in the petroleum industry in
Iran. Since 2008, he has been a Research Assistant
with Mechatronics Systems Engineering, Simon Fraser University. His cur-
rent research interests include control systems in mechatronics applications, in
particular, power converters control for energy harvesting from renewable
energy sources.