Team from Siegen and Paderborn wins international competition in power electronics
How can special magnetic materials be better calculated and predicted? A team from the Universities of Siegen and Paderborn tackled this question in the international "IEEE PELS MagNet Challenge 2" competition. Five PhD students and undergraduates spent a whole year developing the best possible mathematical model. They competed against more than 30 top-class competitors from Asia, Europe, Australia and America, including top universities such as the University of Cambridge in England and Princeton University in the USA. The model from South and East Westphalia was convincing across the board and took first place. The model is about predicting the behavior of magnetic materials that are used in many technical devices, for example in chargers for smartphones, power supplies for data centers and electric drives. These materials react differently depending on how strongly or how quickly current flows through them.
It is precisely this behavior that is often difficult to predict, but is important for simulations and software-driven development tools. Many very accurate models are slow and require a lot of computing power. What is special about the solution from Westphalia is that it is not only precise, but also particularly fast and lean. The model therefore delivers excellent results without requiring huge computing capacities. This is important so that companies can later use such models in practice. The award-winning model is now available to all interested parties as an open source solution - completely free of charge - so that as many companies as possible can benefit from it.
"The success in the MagNet Challenge 2 shows that excellent basic research and application-oriented AI methods can set new standards together," says Prof. Dr. Oliver Wallscheid from the Chair of Interconnected Automation Systems at the University of Siegen. "The fact that our joint team was able to come up with such a compact and powerful solution is a strong signal for research at both universities." His Paderborn colleague Prof. Dr. Jakub Kucka, from the Chair of Power Electronics and Electrical Drive Systems, adds: "The award underlines the strength of the cross-location collaboration. Together, we have succeeded in developing a generally applicable and at the same time very efficient modeling approach for a central problem of modern power electronics."
The competition was held for the second time this year. The winning team will receive prize money of 10,000 dollars. The competition is organized by the IEEE Power Electronics Society, which has been bringing together researchers and practitioners in the field of power electronics for over 35 years.
