NSE-Sponsored Faculty Workshops on Teaching of Power Electronics and Electric Drives

This paper describes the restructuring of power electronics and electric drives courses, sponsored by NSF, EPRI, NASA and the local utilities, which has significantly increased student enthusiasm, and the undergraduate enrollment in these courses at the University of Minnesota has tripled since 1997. The developed leaching approaches have been the subject of NSF-sponsored faculty workshops in 1994, 1997, 1998,2002, and 2003. In power electronics, the power-pole based building-block approach unifies analysis and control aspects of all converters. PSpice-based simulations aid in analysis and design, supported by a hardware laboratory. For electric drives, an integrative approach addressing all three aspects of electric drives - machines, power converters and control is being. used. Space vectors, introduced on a physical basis rather than purely mathematical ions, are used fur analysis of ac machines. This leads to a more physical understanding of machine operation and also makes it easier to address control aspects in the advanced course. The lecture materials are supported by a DSP-based laboratory.