Enabling miniaturized grid-interface power conversion

Many of the most critical challenges of the twenty-first century revolve around energy and its management. Improved performance (efficiency, density) in electrical energy management systems require advancements in a number of areas - semiconductor devices, passive energy storage components, and a variety of circuit- and system-level concerns. The sections of this thesis are somewhat distinct and may find application in a great variety of circumstances. Nevertheless, they can be understood as contributions to a single application system: a grid-interface power converter. These kinds of converters have several unique aspects that make them good targets for research, including a heavy reliance on magnetic components, relatively high voltages for application of emerging GaN transistors, wide range of operating voltages and powers, and a twice-line-frequency energy storage component that is difficult to miniaturize. This thesis will present a high-frequency inductor structure with greatly improved density, an exploration of the limits of magnetic-based current sensing, a method for characterizing GaN losses with large-signal excitations, a control approach for miniaturizing grid-interface energy buffers, and a grid-interface circuit with several advantages over the state of the art.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctoral

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Hanson, Alex J.(Alex Jordan)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• David J. Perreault.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/122735

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/122735