IEEE Proof IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 18, NO. 1, JANUARY 2003 1 Restructuring of First Courses in Power Electronics and Electric Drives That Integrates Digital Control Ned Mohan, Fellow, IEEE, William P. Robbins, Member, IEEE, Paul Imbertson, Member, IEEE, Tore M. Undeland, Fellow, IEEE, Razvan C. Panaitescu, Amit Kumar Jain, Student Member, IEEE, Philip Jose, Student Member, IEEE, and Todd Begalke Abstract—Since 1994, the University of Minnesota has been un- dertaking a long overdue restructuring of power electronics and electric machines/drives courses. This restructuring allows digital control to be integrated into first courses, thereby teaching stu- dents what they need to learn, making these courses appealing, and providing a seamless continuity to advanced courses. By a con- cise presentation in just two undergraduate courses, this restruc- turing motivates students to take related courses in programmable logic controllers, microcontrollers and digital signal processor ap- plications. This ensures a first-rate education that is meaningful in the workplace as well as in graduate education leading to a re- search and development oriented career. This restructuring has several components to it. Outdated topics that waste time and mis- lead students are deleted. To integrate control in the first courses, unique approaches are developed to convey information more ef- fectively. In the first course in power electronics, a building block is identified in commonly used power converter topologies in order to unify their analysis. In the field of electric drives, the use of space vectors is introduced on a physical basis to describe oper- ation of ac machines in steady state in the first course, and to dis- cuss their optimum control under dynamic conditions in the ad- vanced course. Appropriate simulation software and software-re- configurable hardware laboratories using a DSP-based rapid pro- totyping tool are used to support the analytical discussion. Index Terms—Digital control, education, electric drives, labora- tories, power electronics. I. INTRODUCTION C OURSES in power electronics and electric ma- chines/drives have not changed in several decades. In a fast changing economy where power electronic converters and electric drive components are becoming commodity items, the role of graduating engineers in these fields would likely be to integrate these components into systems and control them for optimum performance. These commodity items would need flexible control, which is easily implemented digitally using programmable logic controllers, microcontrollers, or digital Manuscript received February 3, 2002; revised October 21, 2002. This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grants 9414044, 9619312, 9729197, 9952704 and 0004201, and NASA under Grants NASA/NAG3-246. Recommended by Associate Editor S. B. Leeb. N. Mohan, W. P. Robbins, P. Imbertson, R. C. Panaitescu, A. K. Jain, P. Jose, and T. Begalke are with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455 USA (e-mail: mohan@ece.umn.edu; robbins@ece.umn.edu; imberts@ece.umn.edu; akj@ece.umn.edu; philip@ece.umn.edu; rpanaitescu@yahoo.com; bega0005@tc.umn.edu). T. M. Undeland is with the Department of Electrical Power Engineering, Norwegian Institute of Science and Technology, Trondheim N-7491, Norway (e-mail: Tore.Undeland@elkraft.ntnu.no). Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPEL.2002.807120 signal processors. These developments necessitate that courses be structured such that students learn the basic principles on which these devices and components operate in order to control them optimally in exciting new applications. This restructuring has the added benefit of drawing students to these fields where otherwise, due to lack of student interest, courses are often cancelled and eventually dropped from the curriculum. At the University of Minnesota, restructuring of these courses began in 1994 through NSF funding and has been successful in nearly tripling student enrollments in these courses. This re- structuring has also been the topic of four NSF sponsored work- shops held in 1994, 1997, 1998, and 2002 [1]. This paper will describe the structure of the first courses in Power Electronics and Electric Drives, the associated simulation software, and the hardware laboratories that are still under refinement, and how this restructuring allows digital control to be integrated. This course restructuring has several objectives. The first courses should prepare students for industry as well as ad- vanced courses and research and development oriented careers. They should be appealing and exciting so students are drawn to them. These courses should provide requisite information about power electronics and electric drives in a way that provides motivation and allows time to take related courses in areas such as digital signal processing applications, programmable logic, and digital control. This way, students will learn what is needed to meet industry needs and be able to create opportunities for future engineers by starting new companies. II. COURSE OFFERINGS AND THEIR SEQUENCE These courses are designed carefully using a top-down ap- proach where the topology and control are described in the con- text of applications. To provide continuity to advanced courses, fundamental concepts are included with illustrations of design examples that are helpful in industry. The courses are divided into modules [1] which are sequenced appropriately to main- tain interest and to allow practicing engineers the flexibility to choose the requisite topics. Using an approach that is based on a common underlying theme, as illustrated by the subsequent dis- cussion of courses, saves valuable course time and clearly shows the basic principles of operation. To reinforce theory, all topics are tightly coupled with simulations and hardware laboratories. Fig. 1 describes the course offerings at the University of Min- nesota, where the first courses on Power Electronics and Elec- tric Drives are aimed at college seniors, but can also be taken for credit by graduate students. The converse is true for advanced 0885-8993/03$17.00 © 2003 IEEE