Research

Professor Erickson's research has spanned numerous areas within power electronics, and has included collaboration with many students and colleagues. Research results collected in these pages are arranged in the following broad topics:

  • Power electronics for building-integrated photovoltaics
  • Studies of the benefits of distributed maximum power point tracking
  • Modeling, design, and control of converters for solar applications
  • Wind power applications of power electronics
  • Composite converter architectures: beyond multilevel modular conversion
  • Electric vehicle power electronics
  • Low-harmonic rectifiers: modeling and control
  • Integrated high-quality rectifier-regulators
  • Three-phase low-harmonic rectifiers
  • Modeling, analysis, and control of resonant converters
  • Resonant switch converters
  • Modeling, control, and design of PWM power converters
  • Magnetics modeling
  • Power-conservative networks
A BIPV 250 W boost converter

Solar: A BIPV 250 W boost converter with MPPT is 7 mm thick and fits inside a residential roof shingle.

Graph comparing efficiency vs. power for conventional boost vs. composite converter, where the efficiency of a composite converter increases exponentially starting at 3 kW and levels around 97%, and a conventional boost begins to exponentially increase at 0 kW and maximizes at 98% efficiency.

EV: Comparison of efficiency vs. power for conventional boost (solid line) vs. composite converter (experimental data points), 250 V : 650 V, 30 kW rated converters. It is remarkable that 98% efficiency is maintained down to nearly zero power.