Seminar:  Seminar "How model predictive control is revolutionizing the high power electronics industry"
Taught by:  Dr. Tobias Geyer, Corporate Executive Engineer, ABB Switzerland Ltd
Date: November 8, 2022
Time:  10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
Location: Room 215 of the Higher Technical School of Engineering of the University of Seville.

This lecture explores what it takes for model predictive control (MPC) to make a break-through in industry. While the low-power converter industry has been slow in adopting the most widely investigated MPC methods, MPC has started to revolutionize high-power converters by increasing their rated power, lowering their cost and ensuring their safe operation in the presence of grid disturbances and faults . In particular model predictive pulse pattern control (MP3C) fully exploits the performance potential of high-power converters by combining the benefits of MPC with the optimal steady-state performance of optimized pulse patterns. The MP3C principle can be applied to a wide range of applications, including medium-voltage drives, low-voltage traction converters, and modular multilevel converters. For load commutated inverters, model predictive torque control (MPTC) increases the drive's efficiency and robustness to grid disturbances. Both methods have been commercialized and will be discussed in detail.

Brief CV of the speaker Dr. Tobias Geyer

Tobias Geyer (IEEE Fellow) received the Dipl.-Ing.
and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering and the Habilitation degree in power electronics from ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, in 2000, 2005, and 2017, respectively. After his Ph.D., he spent three years with GE Global Research, Munich, Germany, three years with the University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand, and eight years with ABB's Corporate Research Centre, Baden-Dättwil, Switzerland. There, in 2016, he became a Senior Principal Scientist for power conversion control. He was appointed as an extraordinary Professor with Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa, from 2017 to 2023. In mid 2020, Tobias joined ABB's medium-voltage drives business as R&D platform manager of the ACS6000/6080. In parallel, he is a Corporate Executive Engineer for control methods of power converters and electrical machines. Furthermore, he is an external lecturer at ETH Zurich for the course Predictive Control of Power Electronic Systems. Dr. Geyer was the recipient of the Semikron Innovation Award and the Nagamori Award, both in 2021. He is also the recipient of the 2017 First Place Prize Paper Award in the Transactions on Power Electronics, the 2014 Third Place Prize Paper Award in the Transactions on Industry Applications, and of two Prize Paper Awards at conferences. He is a former Associate Editor for the Transactions on Industry Applications from 2011 to 2014 and the Transactions on Power Electronics from 2013 to 2019. He was an International Program Committee Vice Chair of the IFAC conference on Nonlinear Model Predictive Control in Madison, WI, USA , in 2018. He is a Distinguished Lecturer of the Power Electronics Society in the years 2020 and 2021.