Prof Olivier Trescases of University of Toronto

As we transition to a sustainable society, electrifying the transportation sector is one of the major priorities to reach Net Zero emissions. Over 10 million Electric Vehicles (EVs) were sold globally in 2022. In 2022, 14% of all new cars sold were electric, up from a 9% in 2021 and only 5% in 2020. As a result of the sustained global R&D efforts over the past two decades, the performance of modern EVs has improved dramatically, most notably the driving range and the fast-charging performance. In this talk I will first review the evolving EV landscape, and then highlight recent projects at the University of Toronto Electric Vehicle Research Centre (UTEV), including wireless charging, advanced battery management systems with built-in state-of-health diagnostics, high-density fast-charger architectures, Gallium Nitride (GaN) based power converters and ICs, and fault-tolerant power converter design for supplying safety-critical on-board computers.

Biography:

Olivier Trescases received his Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering at the University of Toronto. Before joining the University of Toronto as an Assistant Professor in 2009, he worked as a Concept Engineer and mixed-signal IC Designer in Infineon Technologies, Austria, focusing on safety-critical automotive applications. At the University of Toronto his group conducts research on high-efficiency power electronic converters for automotive, industrial and renewable energy applications. His expertise is in the area of energy management, high-frequency/high-density power electronics, power ICs including wide bandgap semiconductors, battery management systems and electric vehicles. While on sabbatical in 2016, he worked at the Texas Instruments Kilby Labs, Santa Clara, USA, and then at NXP Semiconductor in Eindoven, Holland. Trescases is currently a Full Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UofT and a Canada Research Chair in Power Electronic converters. He is the Director of the UofT Electric Vehicle Research Centre. Prof. Trescases received several best paper awards at IEEE COMPEL, ECCE, EDSSC, ISPSD, INTERPAK. He is an associate editor for the IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics. He has been involved with the IEEE Toronto Section (4000+ members) in various roles and served as the Section Chair from 2018-2019. He has served on various IEEE conference technical committees, including the Applied Power Electronics Conference (APEC), the Custom Integrated Circuits Conference, and the International Symposium on Power Semiconductors and ICs.