High-Bandwidth Sensing for Wide-bandgap Power Conversion

用于宽带隙功率转换的高带宽传感

• 批准号: EP/W021315/1
• 负责人: Bernard Stark
• 金额: $ 146.62万
• 依托单位: University of Bristol
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FW021315%2F1
• 关键词: Bandwidth; Sensing; Wide; bandgap; Power

This project develops new sensing technology for use in power electronic systems, helping the UK to better compete with global leaders in power electronics. Power electronics is a key electrification technology: it is needed in electric vehicles, renewable energy generation, our electricity grid, and anywhere where the flow of power needs to be accurately dosed. This dosing is carried out by rapidly switching currents on and off to create the desired average. This technology reduces our carbon footprint and contributes nearly £50bn per year to the UK economy and supports 82,000 skilled jobs in over 400 UK-based companies (2016 data).The power electronics industry is undergoing significant change, as ultra-fast transistors made from silicon carbide (SiC) or gallium nitride (GaN) have recently emerged, to replace silicon transistors.These new transistors switch 10x faster, which results in 75% less energy being lost in power converters, and enables converters to be shrunk to less than half their previous size. This makes it much easier to build them into other systems, e.g. electric vehicles, resulting in lighter cars with more space for batteries.This project is about helping to maximise the potential of the new transistors. Many companies are struggling to adopt them, because whilst the very fast switching provides the benefits of improved efficiency and radically smaller system size, it also creates problems with electromagnetic interference, and device and system reliability. The transistors switch current on or off so fast (in less than ten nanoseconds, the time it takes light to travel 3 meters), that engineers cannot accurately measure how the voltages and currents change during this time, even with their best equipment, which means it is difficult to fix problems such as interference. Because of this, even the leading companies are slowing down these new transistors, and losing some of their efficiency potential.Our project develops small, low-cost sensors, that make these nanosecond-scale changes visible. They will allow engineers to see exactly how the transistors are switching, helping them develop better, smaller, lighter, and more reliable power electronics. They will allow computer-controlled SiC and GaN power converters to sense when they are creating too much electromagnetic noise, and reduce this by switching more intelligently. It will allow power circuits to detect external short circuits and isolate these before they damage the power converter. We are also developing sensors that provide engineers, or control systems, directly with information that they need (e.g. device temperature), rather than having to infer this indirectly from volts and amps, making the measurements faster and more efficient.The sensors work by detecting electric or magnetic fields via coils, conductive plates, or antennas. The received signal is fed into a chip inside the sensor that computes the required parameter. These new SiC and GaN transistors have made small field sensors on circuit boards viable for the first time, because as signal speeds increase, the wavelengths of these signals become shorter (cm-scale), meaning that their fields can be picked up with millimetre-size coils or antennas. In order to ensure that we develop what industry needs, we are working with 12 partners across automotive, renewable energy, semiconductors, commercial R&D organisations with deep sector experience, and we are accepting new collaborators on request. Our project provides partners and other UK companies and universities with sample sensors. Their feedback, and discussions with partners helps us prioritise our research, and ensures that we are using our research funds to solve the most important problems. We are providing workshops to help keep engineers up-to-date with advanced measurement techniques, and keeping our results online (publications and a dedicated website) for companies to use as desired.

该项目开发用于电力电子系统的新传感技术，帮助英国更好地与电力电子领域的全球领导者竞争。电力电子技术是一项关键的电气化技术：电动汽车、可再生能源发电、电网以及任何需要精确调节电力流量的地方都需要它。这种剂量是通过快速打开和关闭电流来实现的，以产生所需的平均值。这项技术减少了我们的碳足迹，每年为英国经济贡献近 500 亿英镑，并支持 400 多家英国公司的 82,000 个熟练工作岗位（2016 年数据）。电力电子行业正在经历重大变革，因为由碳化硅 (SiC) 或氮化镓 (GaN) 制成的超快晶体管最近出现，取代了硅晶体管。这些新型晶体管的开关速度提高了 10 倍，这使得电力电子行业正在经历重大变革。 使电源转换器中的能量损失减少 75%，并使转换器的尺寸缩小到原来的一半以下。这使得将它们构建到其他系统中变得更加容易，例如电动汽车，从而使汽车更轻，电池空间更大。该项目旨在帮助最大限度地发挥新型晶体管的潜力。许多公司都在努力采用它们，因为虽然非常快速的开关提供了提高效率和显着缩小系统尺寸的好处，但它也带来了电磁干扰以及设备和系统可靠性方面的问题。晶体管打开或关闭电流的速度非常快（不到 10 纳秒，即光传播 3 米所需的时间），以至于工程师即使使用最好的设备也无法准确测量这段时间内电压和电流的变化，这意味着很难解决干扰等问题。正因为如此，即使是领先的公司也在放慢这些新晶体管的速度，并失去一些效率潜力。我们的项目开发小型、低成本传感器，使这些纳秒级的变化可见。它们将使工程师能够准确地看到晶体管如何切换，帮助他们开发更好、更小、更轻、更可靠的电力电子产品。它们将使计算机控制的 SiC 和 GaN 功率转换器能够感知何时产生过多的电磁噪声，并通过更智能的切换来减少这种噪声。它将允许电源电路检测外部短路并在损坏电源转换器之前将其隔离。我们还在开发传感器，为工程师或控制系统直接提供他们需要的信息（例如设备温度），而不必从伏特和安培间接推断出这些信息，从而使测量更快、更高效。传感器的工作原理是通过线圈、导电板或天线检测电场或磁场。接收到的信号被馈送到传感器内的芯片中，该芯片计算所需的参数。这些新型 SiC 和 GaN 晶体管首次使电路板上的小型场传感器变得可行，因为随着信号速度的增加，这些信号的波长变得更短（厘米级），这意味着可以用毫米级线圈或天线拾取它们的场。为了确保我们开发出行业所需的产品，我们正在与汽车、可再生能源、半导体、具有深厚行业经验的商业研发组织的 12 个合作伙伴合作，并且我们正在根据要求接受新的合作者。我们的项目为合作伙伴和其他英国公司和大学提供样本传感器。他们的反馈以及与合作伙伴的讨论有助于我们确定研究的优先顺序，并确保我们使用研究资金来解决最重要的问题。我们提供研讨会，帮助工程师了解最新的先进测量技术，并将我们的结果保存在网上（出版物和专用网站），以供公司根据需要使用。