Advanced electrical machine drives for automotive and wind turbine applications

The project is looking at development and testing of more intelligent types of electrical machine drives - where the machine control is directly linked to its condition monitoring and the awareness of existing stress. This could allow for machines to be used in a wider envelope to provide e.g. traction in EVs or power in wind turbines, where controlled overloads and lifetime management can be done in a fully informed manner.
To enable the above it is required to embed a novel sensor type into the machine to enable in situ monitoring of key stress measurands (e.g. temperature, strain) - the fibre optic FBG sensors can provide this functionality and their usage will be exploited in this project. Fine sensing fibres will be embedded in prototype machines and then linked to control to test the possibility of developing advanced operating capability through linkage of sensed stress and real time control.
The research aligns primarily with the electrical motors and drives/electromagnetics portfolio.