Time: Friday, April 22 from 1:00 PM - 1:50 PM EST

Location: Via ZOOM ,  download calendar file

Presenter: Agasthya Ayachit, Ph.D., Sr. High-Voltage Systems Engineer, Mercedes-Benz Research and Development North America

Title: Power Electronics for EV Powertrain

Abstract: Today’s electric vehicles (EV) demand high efficiency, high power density, and high reliability. The developments in wide bandgap semiconductors have played a pivotal role towards many technical advancements in EV charging systems or eDrive systems. In this presentation, the relative importance of silicon carbide (SiC) power semiconductors used in EV inverters is highlighted. The performance targets and benefits of SiC are described. A sneak-peak into future Mercedes-Benz electric sedans and SUVs will be given.

Biography: Agasthya Ayachit, Ph.D., is a Senior High-Voltage Systems Engineer at Mercedes-Benz Research and Development North America. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Wright State University in 2018 after completing this dissertation titled “Steady-State and Small-Signal Modeling of A-Source Converter.” Agasthya has served as a lecturer at Penn State University, Erie, Pennsylvania in 2010 and as a research intern at GE Global Research in 2011, Mediatek in 2013, and Google in 2017. Since joining Mercedes-Benz, he has been actively contributing to the design and development of power conversion stages in electric vehicle battery charging and eDrive systems. He has published several conference and journal articles in domains related to small-signal modeling, magnetics, resonant topologies, hard-switched dc-dc converter stages, electric vehicle charging. He has co-authored 2 published books and owns several patents in electric vehicle space.

Watch the recorded seminar

Upcoming CURENT Power and Energy Seminars

April 29 - Natt Praisuwanna & Pay Kritprajun, University of Tennessee - Fault detection in inverter based grids / reactive power allocation among PV inverters

May 6 - Rupy Sawhney, University of Tennessee - People-Centric Operational Excellence Model

May 10 - Joe Zhou, Kettering University - Energy Storage Systems