Sai Bhargava Althurthi, a recent Ph.D. graduate from the Cullen College of Engineering’s Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, has been recognized with the IEEE Outstanding Paper Award for the IEEE Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics in Industrial Electronics for his recent paper, “A Novel Ultrawide Output Range DC–DC Converter for EV Fast Charging.”
The current electric vehicle (EV) market offers vehicles with batteries of differing voltage levels, and such diversity is expected to continue expanding going forward. Althurthi’s research seeks to develop a common charger to accommodate differing vehicles at public fast-charging stations.
“When people visit a fast-charging station, we need a common charging solution for all kinds of vehicles. I have proposed a converter that can serve the future needs of increasing EVs of higher voltages, as well as continuing to support existing high number of lower-voltage 400 volt EVs,” he said.
“Compared to the existing isolated DC-DC topologies of EV chargers, I have proposed an optimized architecture with multi-mode LLC design and unequal secondary windings for preserving better performance over wide output voltage range. An output range from 100 volt to 1100 volt is designed and tested, which is a huge range suitable for the future demands of electric vehicles, and within that huge range I didn’t want to lose performance. To have even performance over wide voltage, I have proposed a reconfigurable multi-mode implementation in this LLC converter.”
Though he was initially surprised that his work was so well-recognized as to receive the Outstanding Paper Award, it has since become even more popular and seen increasing citations in related literature.
Althurthi chose the University of Houston not only for its faculty prestige in the field of power electronics, or the labs and people who support them, but the student community and the support that the university offers them.
“I had a very supportive professor,” he said. “This is the first journal paper that I have published, so I was a little nervous, but the support I have received has been very welcoming.”
For their support and role in his success, Althurthi expressed gratitude to ECE associate professor Harish Sarma Krishnamoorthy, Senior Member IEEE, and ECE distinguished professor of engineering Kaushik Rajashekara, Member NAE, Fellow IEEE, Fellow NAI, Fellow SAE.
Althurthi plans to travel to the upcoming 2025 IECON Conference in Madrid this October, where the award itself will be presented in the form of a commemorative plaque.