POETS Research & Development Center
Located in Champaign, IL
Newly-constructed in 2015, the 10,000 sq. ft. POETS Research & Development Center (PRDC) includes bay areas, offices and meeting areas just south of the UIUC campus. This testbed facility will allow for high-power testing of electrical systems such as motors, drives, power electronics, batteries, etc. Additional capability includes advanced thermal management systems and vehicle-level integration. The flexible and modular layout encourages a variety of testing from small prototypes to full scale systems using 100s of kW with a focus on aircraft and off-highway systems. As of 2023, the center has 3 fully-commissioned testbed ( two in PRDC, UIUC, and one in NCREPT, University of Arkansas):
Off-Highway Dynamometer Test-Stand
Capabilities:
- Up to 300kW, 10,000 RPM
- Flexible, user created drive profiles
- Modular hardware and software design
- Can operate using braking resistor or pump-back from dyno
- Blast shield for experimental motors
- Enviromental chamber for reliability studies
Example Projects:
- 1MW Air Core PMSM High Power Density Motor
- PMSM Position Estimation using Hall Effect Sensors and Neural Networks
- Module High Efficiency Power Inverters for Extreme Power Dense Applications
Aerospace UAV Electrical and Thermal Test-stand
Capabilities:
- Electrical/Mechanical subsystems
- Hybrid electrical drivetrain
- Interfaces with any electrical load
- Thermal Subsystem
- Thermal "breadboard" for easy reconfiguration
- HIL subsystem interface
Example Projects:
- Hierarchical Predictive Control
- Hierarchical Estimation and Fault Diagnosis