Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory

While the field of power electronics is trending towards designs with higher power densities, aerospace applications have had difficulties achieving terrestrial metrics due to limitations on reliability and radiation hardened components. In the most recent New Frontiers, Dragonfly (DF), a rotocraft system which is being designed to fly on Titan, one of Saturn’s moons, the electric power subsystem requires both a high reliability and a high-power-density design. This talk provides an overview on the design challenges, considerations, and preliminary results for the electrical and thermal management systems of the rotor drive inverter which transitions power from the battery to the motors. Additional design considerations for high-reliability space applications will also be discussed.

Biography:

Joseph P. Kozak received the B.S. degree in engineering physics and the M.S. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the Center for Power Electronic Systems (CPES), at Virginia Tech. Since 2021, he has been a senior electrical engineer at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU-APL), and is currently the chief technologist in the spacecraft power engineering group. Joseph’s current research interest include robustness, reliability, and physics of failure of new wide bandgap semiconductors, and their packaging and implementation into high-reliability, power electronic converters and systems. He is a member of IEEE and currently serves as the vice-chair of the IEEE PELS Student and Young Professionals Committee, and as chair of the PELS Day Committee.

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