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The book, which consists of 17 chapters, focuses on DC-DC converter topologies. This book is a guide for readers who have already acquired a fundamental knowledge about dc–dc converters and wish to develop an ability to understand the operation and characteristics of a very wide variety of topologies.

Presents reviews for the following list of books, Linear Electric Machines, Drives, and MAGLEVs Handbook.

The advantages and superiority of nonlinear control in the field of power conversion are discussed in this comprehensive book; it collects the fundamental ideas, design guidelines, mathematical modeling, and MATLAB/Simulink‐based simulation of these advanced control strategies for various power converters employed in many applications. This very recently published book, which includes a list of references at the end of each chapter, contains many simulation examples along with MATLAB/Simulink models, thus making it of high benefit for researchers, engineering professionals, and undergraduate/ graduate students in electrical engineering and mechatronics areas. A number of downloads through the publisher’s book website are available, including the Simulink models discussed in some of the book chapters.

In this paper, an interval arithmetic-based method for parameters identification of a fuel cell equivalent circuit is presented. The fuel cell experimental impedance spectrum, acquired through the electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), is identified using interval-valued parameters of the fuel cell Fouquet model. The method is based on a branch-and-bound technique, further enhanced using the sensitivity in the segmentation steps. The proposed algorithm is optimised to reduce computational burden and storage memory demand to speed up the computation time and enable onboard applications on fuel cells through embedded system. The result naturally takes into account the uncertainties and noise affecting the impedance measurements. This method easily allows to define a safe operating area for the fuel cell, based on the parameter intervals identified in normal operating conditions. Hence, it is easy to compare the parameter intervals associated to a newly acquired spectrum and check whether they fall out from the safe operating area. This might be considered as a symptom of abnormal operating condition, enabling fuel cell diagnosis, more detailed analyses, and the activation of mitigation and protection strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Any modern storage system requires a management unit, which is made up of hardware and software components, to control charge and discharge phases; to ensure the optimal operating conditions, which must be kept within a safe operating area; to monitor system parameters; to quantify its state of charge (SoC) and state of health (SoH); and to communicate with other systems and with the user. All these functions directly or indirectly aim at extending the storage system lifetime, with a positive effect on costs, environmental impact, and precious raw material savings. When it refers to a battery, it is named a battery management system (BMS); it is interfaced with the battery through a number of sensors, and it includes a protection integrated circuit indicating the unsafe condition of the battery, by dealing with the overvoltage/undervoltage protection, overcurrent protection, imbalance of cells, and thermal runaway.

The single diode equivalent circuit allows describing photovoltaic panels behavior quite accurately. The values of the five parameters appearing in this model are usually identified in standard test conditions, at which irradiance and temperature values are given. Instead, when this identification has to be performed on field, suitable environmental sensors are required. In this article, a procedure for the on-site identification of the single diode model parameters as well as of the working irradiance and temperature conditions is presented. The procedure operates only on the measured panel current versus voltage curve, or on a part of it around the maximum power point, and does not need any other input data. A consolidated identification algorithm, effectively running on any embedded system for on-site application, is used. The proposed procedure is validated through a large number of experimental measurements acquired in two different geographic locations.

The book gives a comprehensive view of wireless power transfer (WPT) technologies, with a special emphasis on the multiple-pickup WPT. A number of applications is also described, including the systems employed in portable consumer electronics, in‐flight charging for unmanned aerial vehicles, underwater wireless charging, and the high‐power electrical vehicle (EV) wireless charging that has been already mentioned above. The book is organized in four parts, each one of them consisting of multiple chapters. The first part is divided into two chapters: an overview of several WPT technologies is given, but the main emphasis is given to inductive power transfer (IPT) technology. The second part of the book gives a view of the issues related to the design and optimization of coupled coils and power circuits.

The book is focused on control and functionalities of smart inverters for enhancing power system stability and reliability through detailed small signal and electromagnetic transient simulation studies, without covering protection systems and communications systems.

Recent literature proposes some approaches that employ explicit equations for identifying the five parameters of the single-diode model describing a photovoltaic (PV) panel. These methods avoid the iterative solution of a nonlinear system of equations, whose convergence is very sensitive to the guess solution. Therefore, they are particularly suitable to perform parameter identification in real time and to be implemented on low-cost, low-performance processing platforms. In this paper, the applicability of some explicit methods, previously validated under standard test conditions, is analyzed for a large class of panels under operating conditions that are different from the standard ones. The study considers both a consolidated method for translating the PV model parameters as well as a novel approach. The analysis allows assessing the most suitable parameter translation equations for each considered explicit identification method, highlighting the effectiveness of such explicit approaches under different operating conditions. An in-depth validation based on experimental data concerning two commercial PV panels corroborates the analysis.

In this paper the state of the art of distributed maximum power point techniques for photovoltaic systems is discussed. Modern applications of photovoltaic systems in urban context and to sustainable mobility require the proper facing of drawbacks due to partial shading and different orientations of the cells the photovoltaic source is made of. The latest architectures proposed in literature are reviewed and their points of strength and weakness are discussed. Finally, the products that are currently available on the market are presented and their fields of application and features are overviewed.

AbstractA multicentre evaluation of the urine test strip analyser Super Aution-4220 was carried out in six laboratories. The analytical performance of the instrument with regard to imprecision, linearity, detection limit, drift, carry-over and method comparison was studied. Using the Aution stick 8 test strip the pH, glucose, protein, ketones, bilirubin, blood, urobilinogen and leukocyte esterase were analysed. Specific gravity measurements were performed by refractive index method. Within-run and between-run imprecision determined at three levels of analyte were good. No carry-over was observed. Obtained results were linear through all the described analytical range. No significant drift was detected. Method comparison with some quantitative methods was performed and showed a good correlation with most of the analytes. The study of interferences showed minor interferences by common therapeutic drugs with the measurement of some analytes. During the assessment period of about 6 months no breakdown occurred in any laboratory. The Super Aution urine analyser appeared to be a highly automated analyser of urinary test strips. The operation was simple and the maintenance required only a few minutes a day.

Analysis of measured current–voltage curves offers a cost-effective option for online condition monitoring of photovoltaic (PV) modules. The current–voltage curves of PV modules can be modeled accurately using the well-known electrical single-diode model. In practical applications, condition monitoring should be based on measurements performed near the maximum power point (MPP) by affecting PV power production negligibly. The series resistance is the most important single-diode model parameter in assessing the condition of PV modules; this paper proposes a novel method for its determination by using measurements acquired near the MPP only. The proposed method can be used with any series resistance identification procedure based on current–voltage curve measurements. The proposed method is experimentally validated using current–voltage curves of two PV modules measured in Malaga, Spain. This study allows to assess that the series resistance can be accurately determined from measurements performed near the MPP. Especially the results obtained with an ISOFOTON ISF-145 PV module are very promising: the scaled series resistances obtained from measurements done without lowering the PV power more than 2% of the maximum power differ on the average by no more than 2% of the series resistances obtained from the whole current–voltage curves. • Novel method for determination of the series resistance of a PV module. • The method uses measurements acquired near the maximum power point only. • Experimental validation of the method using current–voltage curves of 2 PV modules. • Series resistance can be accurately determined from measurements near the MPP. • Accurate values were obtained from measurements within only 2% of the maximum power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The real time simulation is a key tool for the implementation of monitoring and diagnostic methods as well as of model-based control strategies in modern photovoltaic systems. Under the hypothesis that all the cells of the photovoltaic array operate in the same temperature and irradiance conditions and have the same degradation level, the values of the parameters appearing in the single diode equivalent circuit referred to one cell are scaled up to the whole array, so that the simulation is not computationally demanding at all. Unfortunately, when mismatching effects have to be taken into account, including partial shadowing phenomena and uneven degradation of the cells, the simulation is not as straightforward as in the previous case. A numerical method, which has been recently presented in literature, allows to simulate a large mismatched photovoltaic array with a low computational effort. It exploits a suitable formulation of the non linear system of equations leading to an inverse Jacobian matrix formulated explicitly. In this paper it is shown the process for engineering such a numerical method by using a low cost system-on-chip device available on the market. The analysis presented shows the critical aspects of the implementation, if the computing time has to be minimized for real-time simulation purposes. The advantages offered by the system-on-chip are explored in order to deploy in the best way the algorithm functions on the ARM processor and on the FPGA available therein. Implementation results show the performance of the proposed approach, especially in terms of computation time and use of resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]