Power Electronics Conference Addresses Medical, Automotive Design Issues

Jul 27, 2005 1:15 PM
By Ashok Bindra, Editorial Director, PETech

Continuing its tradition of keeping power electronics professionals abreast of new developments in an ever-changing industry, this year’s Power Electronics Technology Exhibition & Conference promises to bring more in technology and products. Toward that end, the Power Electronics Technology Conference, which will run Oct. 25-27, 2005, at the Baltimore Convention Center in Baltimore, Md, is addressing challenges facing developers of power solutions for growing specialized applications, such as medical equipment and automotives.

Setting a new trend in addressing issues confronting specialized applications, this year the Power Electronics Technology Conference has organized two special sessions: Medical-Grade Converters and Automotive Applications. In each of the sessions, four papers will highlight the trends and hurdles confronting such developers. In addition, the papers will present ways to address these problems.

Before I get into the specialized sessions, let me mention that this year’s keynote address (Tuesday, October 25) will be given by Scott Strand, program director, Power/Cooling Procurement Engineering at IBM. The title of Strand’s talk is "Future Power Technology in the Global Marketplace—A Customer Perspective.” Another timely invited presentation this year is the talk on complying with the European Union’s RoHS (Restrictions on Hazardous Substances) Directive, to be given in the general session on Wednesday, October 26, by Ken Stanvick of Design Chain Associates. Stanvick’s presentation, “RoHS the Tip of the Environmental Compliance Iceberg,” will include the latest information that designers must have in order to design and successfully implement an environmental compliance strategy for their respective companies.

In last 30 years or so, medical power electronics have made significant strides. With the evolution of medical standards and advances in semiconductor devices and circuit techniques, medical power grade converters are being designed with very low noise and extremely high reliability with high isolation and low leakage. Despite the progress, medical grade converters must continue to strive for better performance as demands continue to rise each year.

In the technical session on Medical-Grade Converters (PET 17), four papers bring the latest in this field of power supply design. While Peter Blyth of XP Power will focus on the design of power systems for patient-connected medical equipment, Jayson Bandivas of Globtek Inc. will explain the fundamental differences between medical- and commercial-grade power supplies. Henry Pajooman of Piltron Manufacturing Inc. will investigate surge-free medical power isolation. Finally, John Beecroft of Condor DC will explore efficiency and thermal management challenges of designing portable medical equipment. This session will be chaired by Bruce Carsten of Bruce Carsten Associates.

Likewise, in the Automotive Applications track (PET 06), two papers from Maxwell Technologies will enlighten attendees on bridging the gap from 14 V to 42 V in automotive power systems and implementing ultracapacitors in automotive power systems. Vince Socci of On Target Technology Development will discuss system design considerations for vehicle-based mobile-electric power applications, and Miroslaw Wendeker of Poland’s Lublin University of Technology will present experimental investigations of power electronic components for digitally controlled LPG injection. The Automotive Applications session will be chaired by Joseph Notaro of STMicroelectronics.

Aside from 19 technical sessions, 12 professional advancement courses and eight 1-hr seminars, approximately 200 exhibitors will be on hand to unveil new products and technologies that will spark new trends in the industry, as well as offer new ways of solving present and future problems. The Power Electronics Technology 2005 Exhibition & Conference will be held in conjunction with the Power Quality 2005 Conference. The combination of these two technical conferences creates PowerSystems World 2005. These combined conferences create a large event that covers subjects ranging from fundamental electronic components to large facility systems.

For a full program, go to www.powersystems.com and click on Power Electronics Technology.

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