Successes With The Nsf Ccli Emd And Ccli Nd Grants

William Robbins, Rajapandian Ayyanar, Paul Imbertson, Ned Mohan, Ben Oni
2004 Annual Conference Proceedings   unpublished
This paper outlines how a real need in teaching, in our case in the areas of Power Electronics and Electric Drives, was recognized and articulated. To meet this need, this paper shows how the faculty resolve, the departmental encouragement, and the financial support from agencies such as NSF and NASA led to a successful conclusion in revitalizing these fields not only at the University of Minnesota but in creating a community of schools where it has met with equal success. Although our effort
more » ... specific to the fields of Power Electronics and Electric Drives, this presentation is generic and can apply to virtually any discipline. Rationale for Change Power electronics and electric drives are enabling technologies, crucial for industrial competitiveness. The industrial scene is changing as many of the items discussed in these courses are becoming commodity items being outsourced to low-wage areas of the globe. Therefore, the role of our future graduates would mainly be system integration where control would play a key role, based on solid understanding of the fundamentals. The courses in these areas, however, have not changed in decades and fail to deliver relevant information in light of the current industrial practices. For example, power electronics courses fail to show the commonality between various topologies and do not include discussion of their feedback control, which is essential to their
doi:10.18260/1-2--12761 fatcat:yje365y7wnbo3ekczytj57ghsq