Category: News

With NASA funding, multi-university team aims to get electric planes off the ground

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In fall 2022, UW-Madison PhD student James Swanke spent several weeks at the NASA Electric Aircraft Testbed (NEAT) facility near Sandusky, Ohio, performing the final tests on a one- megawatt electric aircraft propulsion motor. His extended visit was the culmination of a five-year multi-university research project, a capstone of Swanke’s PhD research and a promising step forward in the field of electrified aviation.

ECE faculty are integral to IARPA project to improve electrically small antennas

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McFarland-Bascom Professor Nader Behdad and Jean van Bladel Associate Professor Daniel Ludois in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are part of a multi-year research effort to significantly boost the performance of electrically small antennas (ESAs) — or antennas that are much smaller than the wavelength of signals they send and receive. The project is funded by Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), the research and development arm of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

WEMPEC Researchers win Electric Aircraft Technologies Symposium best paper award

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A team of University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty and students won the best paper award at the IEEE/AIAA Transportation Electrification Conference and Electric Aircraft Technologies Symposium (ITEC+EATS) in Anaheim, California, in June 2022. The team includes Bulent Sarlioglu, the Jean van Bladel Associate Professor in electrical and computer engineering, Thomas Jahns, the Grainger Emeritus Professor of Power Electronics and Electric Machines and PhD students Hao Zeng and James Swanke.

Power up: Little Free Libraries add solar charging to boxes

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A team of University of Wisconsin-Madison students is working to provide charging power to Wisconsin communities by developing high-tech Little Free Libraries. Powered by solar energy, eLittle Free Libraries (eLFL) are traditional Little Free Libraries with books, but combined with charging stations for phones and other portable smart devices.

Power to the people

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Three ways our nation’s electrical grid must change for a brighter future - an article based on interviews with WEMPEC professor Giri Venkataramanan and WEMPEC affiliate professors Line Roald and Dominic Gross.

ECE Graduate Students Win Battery Algorithm Competition

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A team of University of Wisconsin-Madison electrical and computer engineering PhD students, including WEMPEC's Sangwhee Lee, Nishanth, Shalini Manna and Nathan Peterson, has won first place in the 2022 IEEE/AIAA ITEC+EATS Battery State of Charge Estimation Student Competition.

Solar Little Free Libraries provide power to people who need it most

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For many people who are homeless or members of underserved populations, cell phones are a lifeline; a phone may be their only way to keep in touch with distant friends and relatives, schedule medical appointments and job interviews, and deal with emergencies. Prof. Giri Venkataraman and PhD student Maitreyee Sanjiv Marathe took on the challenge, even organizing a hackathon at the UW-Madison makerspace they dubbed the Solympics, to generate ideas for a solar-powered public charging station. The winning concept was the e-Little Free Library.

WEMPEC Faculty selected for WARF Accelerator Electrification Challenge Grant

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MADISON, Wis. – The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation announced that four projects have been selected to receive development funding through the WARF Accelerator Electrification Challenge Grant.

Journal dedicates issue to WEMPEC’s 40-year influence on electric machines and power electronics

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The April 2022 issue of the IEEE Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics in Power Electronics celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Wisconsin Electric Machines and Power Electronics Consortium (WEMPEC). The publication, which received 143 submissions and published 55 papers from researchers in 19 countries, is a singular honor for WEMPEC, which is an educational and research leader in electric machines, power electronics, actuators, sensors, drives, motion control and drive applications.

Remembering Emeritus Professor Donald Novotny

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Electrical and Computer Engineering Emeritus Professor Donald Novotny passed away on May 7, 2022 at the age of 87. Novotny was a highly-respected visionary in the field of electric machines, variable-frequency AC drive systems, and power electronic control of industrial systems, and an inspiration to innumerable UW-Madison students and colleagues during a career that spanned over a half-century.