Interview with Jin Wang

Featured Engineer

Jin Wang

Jin Wang - Assistant Professor at The Ohio State University

How did you get into electronics/ engineering and when did you start?

Electrical engineering is what I have always wanted to do from my high school days. I started my education in electrical engineering from 1998 and got my Ph. D. degree in 2005. My first job was at Ford Motor Company working on the traction drive system of the Fusion Hybrid.

What sort of work did you do at Ford Motor Company?

Duing my two years’ stay at Ford Motor Company. I had the opportunity to work on the traction drive inverter of the Fusion Hybrid as one of the lead power electronics engineers. To facility the work, I also established a new power electronics lab. The main circuit structure of the traction drive inverter seems to be very simple. The devil was in the details. Limited packaging space, extreme low cost target, harsh operation environment, high efficiency and reliability requirements are just part of the challenging. To have system level coordination with other power electronics circuits on the high voltage bus adds another layer of complexity. An award winning vehicle is a team effort, I am proud that I am part of it.

What are your favorite hardware tools that you use?

Digital Oscilloscopes

What are your favorite software tools that you use?

PSIM, a simple but effective power electronics simulation tool

What is the hardest/trickiest bug you have ever fixed?

There was an occasional fuse problem inside the dc/dc converter of a prototype vehicle. The dc/dc was the link between a 300 V Ni-MH battery and the 12 V lead-acid battery in the hybrid vehicle. It functions as the starter/generator in a traditional vehicle but with much higher efficiency. After several days probing, it was identified that the problem was caused by the change of the equivalent series resistance (ESR) in the dc link capacitor of the traction drive inverter, which is located far away from the dc/dc converter. When the temperature drops to certain degree, the ESR of the electrolytic capacitors goes up while its capacitance goes down. Thus, the capacitors would have reduced capability of absorbing high frequency current ripple caused by the operation of the traction drive inverter. Part of this ripple current will be flowing into the dc/dc converter and melt the fuse.

What is on your bookshelf?

Besides technical books, recently, I am reading “Freakonomics” by Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt. Some light reading like this usually helps me to relax. During holidays or long travels, I do enjoying reading well written thrillers such as Stieg Larsson’s “Millennium Series”, which do not read like fast-food as most others do.

What has been your favorite project?

Though the years, I have participated in many exciting projects, some of which have resulted in popular products in different industries. But the one that I appreciate most was my first hands on project as a Ph. D. student. At the time, I was designing, building, and testing a 5 kW fuel cell inverter. I still remember how the MOSFETS blow up like popcorns when I pushed the limit of the circuit. Today, I tell my students the same thing that my professor told me ten years ago: you will not really learn power electronics until you burn enough MOSFETs and IGBTs.

Do you have any note-worthy engineering experiences?

My next car will be a Ford fusion hybrid because I was one of the team members who designed the traction drive of the vehicle.

On my current job as an assistant professor at the Ohio State, I have chance to operate many high voltage equipments, including a 5 MV Tesla coil and a 1 MV impulse generator to create some of the biggest arcs and sparks in university labs to attract young brave minds to electrical power engineering.

Also, my lab was featured in a New York Times article at the end of the last year. You can find a couple news links about me here.

I recently received IEEE Power Electronics Society Richard. M. Bass Outstanding Young Engineer award. The following is the description of the award. The Richard M. Bass Outstanding Young Power Electronics Engineer Award recognizes outstanding achievement in the field of power electronics by an engineer less than 35 years of age. Since 1999, it is dedicated to the memory of Richard M. Bass of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, GA, USA. The prize consists of a certificate, a cash award of $1,500, and reimbursement for transportation expenses up to $500 to attend the annual PELS Awards Ceremony. All IEEE members of any grade, active in the field of power electronics and less than 35 years of age on January 1 of the year of the award, are eligible. Candidates are judged for outstanding contributions encompassing a broad range of technical activities including research, innovative product design and application, teaching, and project leadership. The technical disciplines in the field of power electronics include the analysis, design, development, simulation and practical application of electronic devices, magnetics, controls and power circuits for inverters, converters and motor drives ranging in power level from fractions of a watt to megawatts.

What are you currently working on?

At the beginning of this year, I received a $400,000 grant from National Science Foundation to support my research on power electronics and high voltage intensive solutions for very large scale megawatt photovoltaic systems. The objective of this research is to significantly enhance the efficiency and lower the cost of very large scale megawatt photovoltaic power plants by deriving and realizing a new generation of power electronics circuits and associated control strategies for a hybrid PV-battery system. The project will also include a comprehensive education plan, consisting of a collaborative one-day solar energy/smart grid workshop for K-12 teachers, a hardware-in-the-loop simulation platform for use in training college students, and a long-term internship program with the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez.

What direction do you see your business heading in the next few years?

For power electronics, the research in the next decade will be adaptation of new wide-band gap devices in new applications and circuits.

What challenges do you foresee in our industry?

Two challenges that I am working on are 1) the interactions between the electric power network and the communication network within a smart grid facility, such as a charging facility; 2) new circuits that will maximize the benefits of the new wide band gap switching devices.

One of problems that the industry faces right now is the lack of well equipped electric power engineers.

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