News

August 04, 2023

Ph.D. candidate Tareq Hossen successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation entitled "A Reference-Model Strategy For Self-Protective Smart Inverters" on August 04, 2023. Dr. Hossen’s Ph.D. dissertation presents a novel device-level protection for grid-interactive inverters using the analytical reference model and neural network framework. 

April 18, 2023

SPECS Team congratulates Ph.D. Student and SPECS Team research member Mehmetcan Gursoy for being selected as the Mike Wiegers Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Graduate Student-of-the-Month for April 2023 for his outstanding research and being an outstanding teaching assistant. The details are available at (https://engg.k-state.edu/research/graduate-student/student-of-the-month/)

September 12, 2022

The journal article, titled: "Toward more electric powertrains in aircraft: Technical challenges and advancements," written by former SPECS team fellow Dr. Joseph Benzaquen, Prof. JiangBiao He, and  Prof. Behrooz Mirafzal has been the most popular paper in IEEE Xplore in August 2022, published in the CES Transactions on Electrical Machines and Systems.

August 1, 2022

Ph.D. candidate Fahmid Sadeque successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation entitled "Restoration and universal operation of grid-forming inverters" on August 01, 2022. Dr. Sadeque's Ph.D. dissertation presents novel control methods for frequency and voltage restoration, and universal operation of grid-forming (GFM) inverters.

July 26, 2022

Prof. Mirafzal visited Prof. Kolar's lab at ETH in Zurich to initiate collaboration between the two research groups. He also presented the SPECS recent research entitled "On Grid‐Interactive Inverters in Grid‐Following and Grid‐Forming Modes."

May 3, 2022

SPECS Team congratulate Ph.D. Student and SPECS Team research member Mehmetcan Gursoy for receiving an "AWARD of EXCELLENCE" for outstanding contributions in graduate teaching, 2021-2022.

August 30, 2021

Dr. Fariba Fateh has received nearly $500K from National Science Foundation to develop Smart coils for high performance AC motor drives, a collaborative research alongside co-principle investigator Prof. Behrooz Mirafzal. For details, please click here.

July 4, 2021

Power Electronics in Energy Conversion Systems written by Prof. Behrooz Mirafzal will be available in the market in October. In writing this book, he had two objectives: providing students an easy path to learn basic concepts of power electronics through many examples and illustrations, and covering applications of power electronics in both modern and traditional energy conversion systems. This book also assists students in grasping complicated concepts through simulation and numerical examples. Contents covered in this book are:
  • Fundamental concepts in electric and magnetic circuits,
  • Principles of electromechanical systems,
  • Steady-state analysis of DC-DC converters,
  • Dynamics of DC-DC converters,
  • Steady-state analysis of inverters,
  • Steady-state analysis and control of rectifiers,
  • Control and dynamics of grid-interactive inverters,
  • Dynamic models of AC machines,
  • Control of inverters in motor-drive systems,
  • Inverters and high-frequency transients.

The book is available at:

January 28, 2021

According to the study done by Stanford University in 2020, Prof. Behrooz Mirafzal is in the list of top 2% researchers in the world.
To see the list, please visit https://www.k-state.edu/today/announcement/?id=72281. 

December 10, 2020

Ph.D. candidate Mohsen S. Pilehvar successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation entitled "Smart inverters for seamless voltage and frequency dynamics in microgrids" on December 10, 2020. Dr. Pilehvar's Ph.D. dissertation addresses the improvement in dynamic behavior of microgrids during abnormal conditions.

November, 2020

Our recent paper: "Interconnection of Three Single-Phase Feeders in North America Distribution Systems," received the 2020 3rd best paper award from the IEEE International Conference on Smart Grids and Energy Systems (SGES).   

October, 2020

Our recent paper: "Ancillary Services via VSIs in Microgrids With Maximum DC-Bus Voltage Utilization," IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, vol. 55, no. 1, pp. 648-658, Jan.-Feb. 2019.”  received the 2020 third prize paper award from the Renewable Energy Committee of the IEEE Industry Application Society. Dr. Aswad Adib is currently working as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee, and Dr. Jacob Lamb is currently working as a senior engineer at Rockwell Automation in Wisconsin.  

December, 2019

SPECS Lab congratulates and wished the best of luck for Dr. Aswad Adib for his new position at Oak Ridge National Lab (ORNL), TN, USA. Aswad Adib received his Ph.D. degree from ECE (Power Electronics Lab), K-State in 2018. He was with SPECS group working under supervision of Dr. Mirafzal from 2014-2019 prior to joining ORNL.

April 11, 2019

Mr. Steven Schulz visited Power Electronics and Smart Grid labs at Kansas State University on April 11, 2019. His seminar was entitled "Power Electronics to Advance EVs through the Modern Era". The talk was focused on electric vehicles, and discuss the common architecture and key functions which rely on power electronics. He discussed in deeper detail the key challenges and trends which are occurring in industry. Also, he presented several opportunities for improvement which exist and could benefit from further investigation. Mr. Steven Schulz is director of Electric Power Conversion at Rivian Automotive.

April 11, 2019

Power electronics and smart grid Lab Research Associates demonstrated their hardware setups for more electric aircraft applications and grid-tied inverters to Mr. Steven Schulz while he was visiting Power Electronics and Smart Grid labs at Kansas State University. 

September 19, 2019

Dr. Behrooz Mirafzal has been selected for the prestigious and competitive 2019 Frankenhoff Outstanding Research Award. This award recognizes Dr. Mirafzal outstanding research accomplishments during the past five years.
The Power electronics and smart grid Lab research group presented in total 2 papers all in lecture format. Paper 1: Ph.D. Candidate Joseph Benzaquen presented his paper entitled "One-Step-Ahead Adaptive Control Scheme for Active Rectifiers in Wild Frequency Applications". Paper 2: Ph.D. Candidate Joseph Benzaquen presented on behalf of Mohsen Shid Pilehvar, the paper entitled "Smart Loads for Power Quality and Battery Lifetime Improvement in Nanogrids".

May 17, 2019

SPECS Lab congratulates Dr. Aswad Adib on the occasion of his graduation from the Kansas State University on May 17, 2019. Dr. Adib worked in SPECS Lab under supervision of Dr. Mirafzal from 2014-2019. 

March 17, 2019

Dr. Mirafzal and Ph.D. candidate Joseph Benzaquen participated in IEEE Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposition (APEC 2019), Anaheim, CA.

November 08, 2018

Ph.D. Student Aswad Adib successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation titled "Control and stability enhancement of grid-interactive voltage source inverters under grid abnormalities" on November 08, 2018. Dr. Adib's Ph.D. dissertation addresses the stability challenges of grid-tied voltage source inverters for weak grids.

November 06, 2018

M.S. Student Abdulraheem Alkhiary successfully defended his M.S. degree project titled "Challenges in More Electric Aircraft" on November 06, 2018. Abdulraheem did a comprehensive study about the challenges of power electronics interfaces in more electric aircraft distribution systems.

October 21-23, 2018

Ph.D. Student Mohsen S. Pilehvar presented his paper entitled "Modeling, control, and stability of smart loads toward grid of nanogrids for smart cities" at the 2018 Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society in Washington D.C.