People

Ahmad Elkhateb (PI)

Dr Elkhateb, BEng (1st), MSc, PhD, SMIEEE, FHEA, is a Senior Lecturer in Power Electronics at Queen’s University Belfast. He leads power electronics research at QUB as his expertise lies in the design, control and implementation of power converters for the integration of renewable energy resources, which solidly aligns with growing and priority research areas within EPSRC’s Energy and Engineering themes. Dr Elkhateb has been working in the area of power electronics, renewable energy generation and grid integration for over fifteen years and contributed significantly to the industrial and power electronics research society in the form of literature and prototype research platforms. He designed and implemented a PV inverter that maximises efficiency whilst having negligible input current ripple. A recent milestone in this thread of research is obtaining the New Investigator Award (£343k) on ESCROWS: Electolytic-Free Single-Stage Converter for Reliable Offshore Wind Systems. Dr Elkhateb is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), Senior Member of the IEEE (SMIEEE), Full College Member of the EPSRC and Associate Editor for the IET Power Electronics and IEEE Access journals. He has been a technical reviewer for IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics and Industrial Electronics since 2013. He was also the local organising Chair for the Irish Signals and Systems Conference (ISSC 2018) and a member of the national organising committee for the 5th IFAC Conference on Intelligent Control and Automation Science (ICONS 2019), held in Belfast, UK, in August 2019.

Mohamed Elgenedy

Dr Elgenedy is a postdoctoral research fellow in power electronics. His research speciality and interest is power electronics applications for power and energy conversion systems including renewable energy grid integration—offshore wind farms and large-scale photovoltaic—and low/zero-emission solutions for the power grid—electric vehicle chargers and energy storage integration. He is an IEEE senior member who has contributed to 15 top journal papers in the first quartile of his field and 11 referred conference papers in addition to refereeing for leading IEEE/IET journals. He also contributed to various industrial research and consultancy projects with world-leading industry giants and oil and gas operators including ABB, Rolls-Royce, Shell, BP, CNOOC, Chrysaor, Total and CNR. Along with engagement and collaborations with Lloyd’s Registers, Sea-Land, ORE Catapult and OGTC.

Ibrahim Alhurayyis (PhD Student)

Ibrahim is working on the design and implementation of power converters for Integrating Electric Vehicle Charging Stations to MVDC networks. The work studies the extensive using of electric vehicles (EVs) that need ultra-fast-charging stations with high charging power greater than 22 kW. MVDC grids can provide a solution for the high demand of EVs and fast-charging stations infrastructures with the existing distribution grids. Ibrahim works on examining resonant bidirectional dual active bridge DC-DC converter which can be a promising technology in integrating an electric vehicle charging station with MVDC grid. This work focuses on the converter design with voltage control and stability by applying two different control strategies mainly: PI control and sliding mode control.

Iman Okasilli (PhD Student)

Iman is working on wireless power transfer for Electric Vehicle Charging. His project studies the implications of low coupling factor which is one of the main limitations of a wireless power transfer system that uses magnetic coupling through an air core. A large section of contemporary research for electric vehicle charging is currently focused on an operation that is subject to low coupling factors and ways to maximise efficiency under these conditions. The project aims at maintaining a high coupling factor which would result in a higher level of power transfer and a more robust and effective system.

Hazem Meshael (PhD Student)

Abdulaziz Alkhaldi (PhD Student)

Mohammad Alrefai (PhD Student)

Former PhD Students:

  • Hussain Attia “Confined Band Variable Switching Frequency PWM (CB-VSFPWM) for Single-Phase Inverter”, University of Malaya, February 2019.
  • Asim Amir Solangi, “Transformerless High Gain DC/DC Converters with Diode-Capacitors Voltage Multipliers”, University of Malaya, June 2020.

MEng/BEng Students:

  • Rebecca Russel, MEng, “Modelling and Design of Microinverter for Photovoltaic Applications”, 2020-2021.
  • Cameron McCracken, MEng, “Modeling and Design of Power Converter for Onboard Battery Chargers”, 2020-2021.
  • Eogghan McManus, BEng,”Input Parallel Output Series Power Converter for MVDC Applications”, 2020-2021.
  • Matthew Taaffe, BEng,”Loaded Resonant Converters for Low Inertia Power Network”, 2020-2021.
  • Zihao Wang, MSc, “Ultra-Buck Converter for Battery-Powered Applications”, 2019-2020.
  • Sean Ritson, MEng, “Modelling and Design of Microinverter for PV Systems”, 2019-2020.
  • Ben Harper, MEng,”Resonant Converters for Power Network”, 2019-2020.
  • Rocky Chen, BEng, “Ultra Buck DC/DC Converter for Electric Vehicles”, 2018-2019.
  • Yujie Yan, MSc, “Palm Recognition using Machine Learning Techniques”, 2018-2019.
  • Yikun Chen, BEng, “Multiport Rapid Charging Power Converter”, 2018-2019.
  • D McLaughlin, BEng, “Predictive Control of Microinverter”, 2018-2019.
  • “High Boost DC to DC Converters for Microinvetrer Applications”, 2017-2018.
  • C Carville, MEng, “Fast Charging Power Converter for Vehicle Seat Heating”
  • C Furey, MEng, “Hand Geometry Recognition using Machine Learning”, 2017-2018.

Visitors:

  • Kaspars Kroičs, Riga Technical University, Riga, Latvia.
  • Markus Berl, IAESTE student (8-9/2019), Vienna University of Technology, Austria.
  • Hakima Bahlouli, Visiting Researcher (6-7/2019), University of Sciences and Technology, Algeria.
  • Pehga Yazdkhasti, Visiting Researcher (5-6/2019), University of New Brunswick, NB Canada.
  • Nasrudin Abd Rahim, Visiting Professor (4/2019), University of Malaya, Malaysia.