POWER ELECTRONICS AND ITS CHA~LENGES
Muhammad H. Rashid, Ph.D.
Professor and Director
Deparlment of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of West Florida
11000 University parkway
Pensacola, Florida 325 14-5754, USA
mrashid@uwf.edu
Abstraet
Since the invention of the world's first electronics
patent by Edison in 1884, electronics branched out
as microelectronics, digital electronics and power
electronics. Power electronics has evolved as an
distinctive subject area in electrical engineering and
it is making significant contributions towards the
modem technological growth. This presentation
summarizes the chronological development, and its
challenges ahead for maintaining its idmtity.
Introduction
The demand for control of electric power for electric
motor drive systems and industrial controls existed
for many years and this lead to the early development
of Ward-Leonard system to obtain a variable dc
voltage for the control of dc motor drives. Power
Electronics has revolutionized the concept of power
control for power conversion and for control of
electrical motor drives.
Power Electronics uses power semiconductor devices
as switches. With the development of power
semiconductor technology, the power handling
capabilities and the switching speed of the power
devices have improved tremendously. The
development of microprocessors and microcomputer
technology has a great impact on the control and
synthesizing the control strategy far the power
semiconductor switches.
Power Electronics is an interdisciplinruy field which
combines power, electronics and control theory for
the control and conversion of electric power. It can
be viewed as a branch of system engineering. Power
Electronics bas already found an important place in
the modem technology and it is now being used in
great variety of high power products including heat
0-78034879-6/98p$10.00 0 1998 IlZEE 37 1
Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE MINAS GERAIS. Downloaded on October 7, 2009 at 23:17 from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
controls, light controls, motor controls, power
supplies, vehicle propulsion systems and HVDC. It is
difficult to draw the boundaries for the applications
of power electronics; and especially with the trends
in the development of power devices and
microprocessors,the upper limit is undefined.
Historical Development
The history of power electronics began with the
introduction of mercury arc rectifier in 1900. Then,
the metal tank rectifier, grid controlled vacuum-tube
rectifier, ignitron, phanotron, and thyratron were
introduced gradually. These devices were applied for
power control until 1950s. The fmt electronics
revolution began in 1948 with the invention of the
silicon m i s t o r at Bell Telephone Laboratories hy
Bardeen, Bratain, and Schockley. The most of the
today's advanced electronic technologies are
traceable to that invention. The modem
microelectronics evolved over the years from the
silicon semiconductors. The next breakthrough was
also, in 1956, f?om the Bell Laboratories by the
invention of PNPN triggering transistor, which was
deiined as a thyristor or silicon-controlled rectifier
(SCR).
The second electronics revolution began with the
development of commercial thyristor by the General
Electric Company in 1958. That was the beginning
of a new era of power electronics. Since then, many
different types of power semiconductor devices and
conversion techniques have been introduced.
The fmt book on rectifiers was by J.M. Schaefer on
-
#Rectifier Circuits Theory and Design" in 1965.
The next book was on #Silicon Power Transistor
Handbook" hy Westinghouse Electric Corp., 1967,
followed by #Silicon Controlled Rectifier Designers
Handbook" by Westinghouse Electric Cor. (In 1970),
 #Silicon Controlled Rectifiers” by Allan Lytel
(Howard W. Sams & Co., 1967), and 8SCR Manual”
by General Electric (1972). The fmt text with the
title of power electronics was #Power Electronics
Thyristor Controlled Power for Electric Motors’’ by
R Ramshaw (1973), followed by the popular book
on 8 Power SemiconductorCircuits” by S. B. Dewan
and A. Straughen (John Wiley & Sons., 1975), and
“Power electronics -
Circuits, Devices and
Applications.” by M. H. Rashid (Prentice Hall, 1988,
1993).
Over the past 20 years, a phenomenal amount of
progress has been made in the area of power
electronics and its applications. There are many
excellent text books on power electronics and motor
drives. Also, numerous specialid papers were
published on (1) power semiconductor devices, (2)
Semiconductor device modeling, (3) converter circuit
topologies, (4) simulation and modeling techniques,
( 5 ) DC motor drives, (6) AC motor drives, (7) vector
control of ac drives, (8) phase-lock loops for motor
controls, (9) sensorless control of AC drives, (IO)
Expert systems, Fuzzy logic, and Neural network,
(I 1) motion control, (12) switched-mode power
supplies, and (13) switching control techniques:
PWM, zero-voltage switching, zero-current
switching, and forced commutation. There are a
number of specialized conferences and J o m k such
as (I) IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, (2)
Applied Power Electronics Conference (APEC), (3)
European Power Electronics Conference (EPEC), (4)
Intemational Power Electronics Conference (IPEC),
and (5) Power Electronics Specialist Conference
(PESC), (6) IEEE Transactions on Industrial
Electronics, (7) IEEE Transactions on Industry
Applications, (8) IEEE Transactions on Power
Delivery, (9) IEE Proceeding on Electric Power, (10)
The Journal of Electrical Machinery and Power
Systems, (11) IEEE -
Industrial Electronics
Conference (IECON), (12) IEEE -
Industry
Applications Society Annual Meeting (IAS), ( I 9
International Conference on Power Electronics,
Drives and Energy Systems (PEDES), and (14)
Intemational Conference on Electrical Machines
(ICEM), and (15) Power Conversion Intelligent
Motion (PCIM).
The microelectronicsrevolution gave us the ability to
process a huge amount of information at an
Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE MINAS GERAIS. Downloaded on October 7, 2009 at 23:17 from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
incredible speed. The power electronicsrevolution is
giving us the ability to shape and control large
amounts of power with a ever increasing efficiency.
- Due to the marriage of power electronics, the muscle.
with microelectronics, the brain, many potential
applications of power electronics are now emerging
and this trend will continue. Within the next 30
years, power electronics will shape and condition the
electricity somewhere between its generation and its
all users. The power electronics revolution has
gained the momentum, since late 1980s and early
1990s.
Contributing Factors
The rapid growth has been caused due to the
numerous benefits of power electronics for power
control and processing of industrial applications.
Dedicated researchers and engineers around the
globe contributed to the current advancements on
power electronics. A very few of them had any
formal course on power electronics at their
undergraduate education. Most of them changed
their professional field, switched to power electronics
and developed expertise by self-learning or by
graduate level education.
Challenges
After satisfying other requirements of the
Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology
(ABET) for Math, basic science, engineering
science, general education electives and free
electives, not many technical electives are requir4d to
satisfy the curriculum requirement. A course on
power electronics is genemlly an elective in an
electrical undergraduate curriculum and it has to be
in direct competition with other popular courses such
as in communications and computer engineering.
Since power electronics is an interdisciplinarysubject
by nature, a good understanding of power electronics
requires a strong background in math, fundamentals
of power engineering, control and digital. This
makes power electronics a relative difficult course,
often unpopular. In many state universities especially
in USA, the state fhding is l i e d to students
enrollments and/or credit hours generated. That is,
the faculty position is directly related to the students
enrollments in a course. Therefore, students must be
encouraged or motivated to choose power electronics
312
 in order to be in the business of educating power
electronics.
Changing World of Engineering
With the rapid advancements in technology and
changes in the operations of business, the job
functions of engineers are also changing. Industries
are demanding that engineering graduates must have
certain skills and also be knowable about design
process in addition to factual technical knowledge
and analytical abilities. The engineering programs in
USA are undergoing through rigorous changes in
response to meeting needs of the next century. These
changes are mandated by the ABET (in USA) and it
is in fact overdue if we compare the drawing of the
world's first electronics patent by Edison in 1884
with the schematic of a modern microelectronic
circuit.
According to the ABET EC 2000 criteria 3,
engineering programs must demonstrate that their
graduates have
(a) an ability to apply knowledge of
mathematics, science, and engineering
(b) an ability to design and conduct
experiments, as well as to analyze and
interpret data
(c) an ability to design a system, component, or
process to meet desired needs
(d) an ability to function on multi-disciplinary
teams
(e) an ability to identify, formulate, and solve
engineeringproblems
(0 an understanding of professional and ethical
responsibility
(g) an ability to communicate effectively
373
Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE MINAS GERAIS. Downloaded on October 7, 2009 at 23:17 from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
(h) the broad education necessary to understand
the impact of engineering solutions in a
global and societal context
(i) a recognition of the need for, and an ability
to engage in life-long learning
0) a knowledge of contemporary issues
(k) an ability to use the techniques, skills, and
modern engineering tools necessary for
engineering practice.
Also, each program must have an assessment process
with documented results. Evidence must be given
that the results are applied to the further development
and improvement of the program.
According to the ABET EC 2000 criteria 4, students
must be prepared for engineering practice througb
the curriculum culminating in a major design
experience based on the knowledge and skills
acquired in earlier coursework and incorporating
engineering standards and realistic constraints that
include most of the following considerations:
economic, environmental, sustainability,
manufachuability, ethical, health and safety, social,
and political.
Conclusion
can we use the curriculum of the 20° century to
educate engineers for the 21' century? Can power
electronics conbibute towards the engineering
education in proving the skills needed for the
engineers of the 21" cenhuy? Can power electronics
maintain its current growth momentum? What will be
power electronics like in 30 years !?om now? Will it
spin off fiom electrical engineering like electronics
engineering? Or will it merge withii systems
engineering?