José A. Cobos is a Full Professor at the Technical University of Madrid (UPM), and Director of the “Centro de Electrónica Industrial, CEI-UPM”, Spain. His contributions are focused in the field of power supply systems for telecom, aerospace, industrial, automotive and medical applications. His research interests include energy efficiency, magnetic components, piezoelectric transformers, transcutaneous energy transfer and dynamic power management. He also works on the influence of EM fields on water supercooling and biomedical effects. He has been Principal Investigator in contracts with ABB, Agere Systems, Airbus, Alcatel, Ansoft, Ansys, Astrium-Crisa, Boeing, Cochlear, EADS, Enpirion, Fagor, General Electric, Indra, Intel, Philips Hearing Implants, Premo, Sedecal, Sener, Siemens and Tecnobit
Energy efficiency aims at “reducing the amount of energy required to provide products and services”. Power electronics provides the capability to “control” the electrical energy, and therefore it is a key enabler to reduce the required energy, at different levels: adoption, power management at system level, power conversion efficiency, and power management at load level. The talk will give an overview of recent technology and research development in the field of high-efficient power electronics systems used in telecom, aerospace, transport and medical applications, based on ultra-high bandwidth power supplies, homogeneous power, magnetic components modeling and design, Power Supply on Chip and contactless energy transmission. An overview of how these technology barriers are addressed in several industrial research projects at the Center of Industrial Electronics (CEI) at the Technical University of Madrid (UPM) is also presented. The talk will address how power supply systems help replacing a combustion engine by an electric motor supplied by a fuel cell in a plane; how to increase the autonomy of deaf people with cochlear implants and how to power remote devices wirelessly; how to reduce the size and weight of power converters, and how to reduce the energy needed by RF amplifiers and digital systems. Bi-directional and multi-port power converters, combined with high frequency rectifiers and inverters, are essential instruments for energy storage and for the deployment of Distributed generation, renewable energy and DC grids.