Our webinar series is back! Grab your lunch or a coffee and join us for this free webinar on the basics of digital control of power electronics.
From the comfort of your own desk you can join ELMG Digital Power for a free webinar to expand your knowledge and expertise about the advantages that digital electronics provides including:
* Flexibility * Configurability * Re-tuning the loop for component variation such as Electrolytic capacitor freeze out at low temperatures * Management of the non-linearity of the converter * Self-measurement of the loop response in closed and open-loop
and learn about the three key basics of digital control of power electronics these being
1. Limited number of bits.
2. Power converter characteristics including non-linearity
3. Limited PWM timer precision
This webinar will be hosted and presented by Dr. Hamish Laird, ELMG Digital Power’s CTO and a Principal FPGA and Power Electronics Engineer. Hamish has considerable experience in the design and implementation of varied digital control systems and IP for power electronics on FPGA platforms.
The webinar on Basics of Digital Control of Power Electronics: Where to start and what is important will be held May 18, 2021, at 12 Noon PDT on Zoom.
If you have just sat down at your desk with a coffee, then put that aside for a minute and grab your diary. Review your schedule for Tuesday 4th February and consider this stellar opportunity: on that day ELMG Digital Power will be hosting a FREE webinar on Digital Control of Power Electronics using Zynq.
That’s right, from the comfort of your own desk you can join ELMG Digital Power (Members of the Xilinx Alliance Program) for their Zynq Digital Power Webinar and expand your knowledge and expertise by discovering:
* What is important in digital power, including numeric precision and latency
* Why you would use a FPGA for digital power and why the Zynq SoC in particular
* Key issues in digital controllers in programmable logic, such as the serial-parallel trade-off, fixed or floating point, choosing sample rates and what precision to use
* Building blocks for digital control with ELMG’s licensable IP cores
* Using the ARM cores in the Zynq to your full advantage.
This webinar will be hosted and presented by Dr. Hamish Laird, ELMG Digital Power’s CTO and a Principal FPGA and Power Electronics Engineer. Hamish has considerable experience the design and implementation of varied digital control systems and IP for power electronics on FPGA platforms.
The webinar on Digital Control of Power Electronics using Zynq, which includes a short Q&A session, will be held on Tuesday 4th Pacific Standard Time at 10am and is available globally.
The course has been expanded to four days and includes lab sessions each day to reinforce the learning on
Precision extension of Digital Modulators
Digital Loop closing
The effects of delay
Loop measurement using the control processor.
What people who have attended say about the course?
“Had very high expectations of this course. Hamish delivered. Excellent for power engineers who are starting digital power. Thanks for putting this on…I only regret it is a 3 day course. I could sit here for 3 more days”
“This course was full of critical material not found in the app notes. Very enjoyable and well taught.”
“Good course. Hamish knows his material. I’ll be able to apply this coursework to my work.”
“I would highly recommend the ELMG digital control course to all power electronics engineers. What makes this course particularly valuable is in the practical approach and relevance to the control of power electronics. The topic of digital control is a very broad subject and hence the specific challenges and applicable tools are very different depending on the application details. Many digital control / DSP courses try to approach the topic from a very generic broad approach, treating all applications in the same way. The classic approach involves starting from a conventional analog control model and then adding ADC and DAC blocks to change between the analog and digital domains with a digital controller replacing the traditional analog controller. The problem with this classic approach is that it is not a practical or applicable method for designing high bandwidth controllers for use for the control of power converters. The ELMG digital control course specifically focuses on the control of power electronics and hence the course only considers concepts and techniques that are applicable to the control of power electronics. The course covers a wide range of digital control theory and introduces the power electronics engineer to all of the state of the art digital control concepts. This course is a must for any power electronics engineer who is involved in the digital control of power converters.”
Michael Harrison – Director of Power Conversion, Enphase.
Three days of focused unique training in digital control of power electronics!
Our Digital Power Electronics Control Course overs the essential knowledge and know-how for engineers to implement digital power electronic control!
Come to the Three Day Digital Control Course in Camarillo, California August 22-24, 2016. Register here.
How did the course came about?
Essentially the course came about because we were asked by one of our customer’s to provide one. The story is we were in the middle of a “fix up” job where the power supply had shown some control instability at its final release testing. The testing that showed the problem was passing a short circuit test of parallel connected power supplies. When the short circuit was removed the supplies came out of current limit, however they did not come out of the limit at exactly the same time. This created an oscillation where individual power supplies came out of current limit and then returned to current limit. It was possible for the oscillation to continue indefinitely. This was an unacceptable and embarrassing problem.
Six months of expertise in a three day course
During the six month project to rework the control code we spent lots of time teaching the team about the underlying issues that had been missed when the controller had been designed, coded and tested. And part way through the “fix-up” the R and D manager suggested we could put a course together covering all that the team needed to know.
And so the digital control course was born
The first course covered exactly what we had discovered during the fix up job. This included lots of digital expertise targeted for power electronics. The areas we covered were diverse from;
Numeric precision loss in filters
Improvement of modulation spectral performance
Stability
The effect of numeric precision on stability
Best filter forms
Direct digital control design
Linearising control loops
What is covered in our course?
The course was created at the request of a Power Electronics Research and Development manager. He asked that we make it specific his team’s needs. And this is why the course has the unique structure that it has. We have been through the pain and heartbreak of having digital control development go wrong and have seen clearly where the repeated problems lie; our course addresses those areas.
Digital PWM and VPO modulators
One of the big differences between digital power electronics control and conventional analog control is the timer precision in digital modulators. This difference can be corrected or made negligible and in some cases can be made an advantage. Spectral control in digital modulators is a focus area in the course as it is so effective.
Digital Precision in control blocks
It is possible to use a digital system and adjust the coefficients of the filters so that small inputs result in no output from the filter. Such scaling issues often lead to a loss of precision in the digital control system. The resulting slip-strike behavior can create limit cycle oscillations in the power converter output.
Direct Digital design of controllers
The “design then translation” approach of taking analog controllers to digital form can be avoided by using the direct digital design approach. This simple but powerful method of digital control loop design is covered in the course.
Converter non-linearity correction
Certain converter topologies are non-linear either in the control input to the output or the conversion ration. Dealing with the converter non-linearity to achieve high bandwidth is key to stable parallel connected converters.
Stability
The course covers the fundamentals of stability from a physical basis with a focus on measurements of power converter transfers. This along with a simple framework for managing margins and robustness is an integral part of the course.
Why we offer the course?
Understanding and implementing digital control of power electronics offers great advantages for configuration and flexibility. However, this is not without road blocks and issues that need to be designed around. This course provides the know how to get digital control working robustly and reliably.
How do I get on the course?
The course is next being run in Camarillo, California USA August 22-24. To register for the course, click and visit the information page here. Press the ‘Register’ button on the page and this will take you to the shopping cart for the course. Complete the purchase to register for the course.
Next course
The next course is being held August 22-24 in Camarillo, California, USA.
Hotels
HOTELS
There are several hotels a short distance from the Ridley Engineering Design Center. The prices below reflect their current prices for August 2016. The last hotel listed is a nice beachfront resort if you do not mind the 25-minute commute to the office. Regardless of your selection, we recommend arriving on Sunday evening and departing Wednesday evening or Thursday.
Airports: There are three options for airports. Bob Hope Airport in Burbank will be the least congested and is serviced by American, United, Delta, Southwest and JetBlue:
Dr. Hamish Laird is a well regarded digital power electronics control engineer, researcher, lecturer and teacher. Hamish is Chief Technology Officer at ELMG Digital Pwoer and holds a visiting academic position at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand.
During his career Dr Laird has worked on the control for;
High Voltage Direct Current Transmission
Reactive Power Compensators
AC and DC Motor Drives
DC to DC converters including LLC and phase shifted bridges
Medium and low voltage AC motor starters
Dr. Laird has worked for;
Alstom Grid (GEC Alsthom)
Eurotherm Drives
University of Canterbury
Aucom
Through ELMG Digital Power Dr. Laird has provided advice, services and products to;
ABB
Enphase
Comsys
Evashred
TNEI
Eaton
Dr Laird says
“In designing and presenting the course we aim to have engineers able to use digital control in power electronics to achieve robust and reliable results. See you in Camarillo”.
P.S. Please note that the ELMG Digital Power course is being hosted at the Ridley Engineering Centre in Camarillo, California. Ridley Engineering are processing all course registrations viatheir webstore. Click here to register.
If you have just sat down at your desk with a coffee, then put that aside for a minute and grab your diary.
Review your schedule for Tuesday 12th July 2016 and consider this stellar opportunity: on that day ELMG Digital Power will be hosting a FREE webinar on Digital Power using Xilinx Zynq SoC.
That’s right, from the comfort of your own desk you can join ELMG Digital Power (Members of the Xilinx Alliance Program) for their Zynq Digital Power Webinar and expand your knowledge and expertise by discovering:
* What is important in digital power, including numeric precision and latency
* How to design a compensator in the digital domain
* Why you would use a FPGA for digital power and why the Zynq SoC in particular
* Key issues in digital controllers in programmable logic, such as the serial-parallel trade-off, fixed or floating point, choosing sample rates and what precision to use
* The building blocks for digital control and ELMG’s licensable IP cores
* IIR digital filter design (a case study) along with understanding the delta operator
* Using the ARM cores in the Zynq to your full advantage.
This webinar will be hosted and presented by Dr. Tim King, ELMG Digital Power’s Principal FPGA Engineer. Tim has considerable experience the design and implementation of varied digital control systems and IP for power electronics on FPGA platforms.
The webinar, which includes a short Q&A session, will be held on Tuesday 12th July and is available globally. Just choose a time that best suits you from these three options:
1. July 12th 2016 – commencing at 4pm in Christchurch NZ. (This will be 2pm Sydney, 1pm Tokyo, and 9:30am Delhi)
2. July 12th 2016 – commencing at 9am London (10am Berlin)
3. July 12th 2016 – commencing at 1pm San Francisco (3pm Houston, 4pm New York)
The US Congress looks to have agreed that the ITC tax credit for solar installations in the USA will be extended passed 31st December 2016.
While nothing is ever certain in politics or government, the stock markets have run up the stocks of the solar companies showing that there is some confidence that this will happen.
Contact us for digital control systems for your grid tied solar inverter.
