Industrial R&D Laboratory for Switch-Mode Power Supplies

Abstract

In literature covering laboratories for switch-mode power supplies (SMPS) the focus was on university ones and learning outcome of their students. And there were almost no publications by authors from industry. Moreover, in a small number of older papers, description of the lab setup or equipment was provided. This paper addressed missing gaps by presenting an industrial laboratory for SMPS. Different aspects like lab structure, organization, procedures, equipment and software resources, calibration and safety, and typical standards used for hardware development, are covered comprehensively. The SMPS lab serves for development of dc-dc converters for commercial project(s) and for research. The developed dcdc converters are used as auxiliary power supplies (APS) of inductive charging systems. Additional investments in the lab, SMPS related, during period of 1.5 years, were paid-off quickly since the APS was project blocker. Side benefits and outcomes were created by publishing research papers that targeted industry and academia thus bridging the gap between the two. The publications increased company's visibility in academia, created an opportunity for a cooperation project, and served as partial documentation for engineers. It was also shown that investments in equipment and software are not enough. And that one has to invest in knowledge of engineers through buying books, attending seminars, visiting trade fairs, memberships, and subscriptions. Hence, notes on learning of power electronics were given too. Several results of applied research activities are presented to demonstrate lab capabilities. They were characterization of custom-designed magnetic parts at high operating temperatures for operating current range, and solutions for the APS with different flyback topologies. A comparison with few university labs revealed large difference in resources and outcomes in favor of the university ones. But differentiation of our industrial lab to them was covered as well.