Hamish D Laird CV

of 7 ©Hamish Laird and ELMG Electronics Design and Development 2001-2011 Not to be reproduced except in full

Dr. Hamish D. Laird Principal Engineer ELMG Ltd PO Box 112 Lyttelton New Zealand Phone +64 3 9611222 Mobile +64 21 750 031 Fax +64 3 9435717 E-mail [email protected] Web www.elmgnz.com Skype: hamishlaird-elmg

Summary of Skills in Digital Control of Power Electronics

Power Electronic Design.

I have a solid grip of the principles of power electronic design. I am experienced with and have used thyristors, power diodes, power transistors, MosFETs and IGBTs. I have designed gate and base drive circuitry for these devices and have utilised them in a wide variety of products such as induction motor drives, DC motor drives, switchmode power supplies, grid connected converters and active filters. I am aware of the strength and disadvantages of these devices. I have excellent low, medium and high voltage (1.8V to 100 kV) power electronic experience. I have dealt with high voltage converter design requirements including partial discharge, insulation coordination, design for impulse (BIL) and AC system overvoltages. I have an excellent understanding and experience in applying this knowledge to the choice of power electronic converter components.

Control System Analysis, Design and Measurement.

I have a solid grasp of the use and application of control system theory including frequency domain design, dealing with non-linearity and converter variation. I have utilised this knowledge in switchmode, AC connected power converters, DC to DC switchmode and motor control system design. Along with this I have extensive knowledge of converter modelling techniques including linear s and z domain models, frequency coupling models and other non-linear control models. I have measured the transfers of a large number of power converters using a number of different methods including open loop small signal and open loop small signal from closed loop measurements. I have worked on ensuring the stability of large numbers of parallel connected power converter. I have measured and modelled power converter non-linearity in the frequency domain.

Digital Control of Power Electronics.

I have excellent experience in using digital control techniques for the control of power electronic converters. This combines knowledge of power converters and switching, digital artefacts such a quantisation, precision and dynamic range along with knowledge of stability, ruggedness of control design, implementation of digital signal processing and embedded system implementation.

Machine and Motion Control.

I have experience in the control of induction, BLDC, AC synchronous and DC machines with power electronic systems. I have a good understanding of the operation of Induction Motors, DC Motors, Synchronous Motors and Brushless DC Motors.


AC Utility interface. I have an excellent understanding on the technical issues such as voltage droop and frequency sag that exist when connecting large power converter equipment to the AC power system. I have experience in power conditioning, principally involving shunt active filters, so understand the operation, performance, analysis and design of these devices. As part of this I have built power converters and control systems for active filters. EMC Filter effects on control.

I have designed EMC filters so that their effect on power converter control transfers is manageable and controllable. I have experience in dealing with designing controllers for AC system connected power converter to accommodate any AC system impedance.

Analogue Design.

My analogue design skills are strong. I have a good knowledge and experience of design for low noise susceptibility in power electronic switching circuits.

Microprocessor based design for embedded control.

In designing with microprocessors I have gained an appreciation for the requirements that embedded control applications have. As such I am well aware of the software and firmware implications of hardware design decisions and the dependence of the two.

Experience with Processor Families.

I have experienced with the 805X family, the Motorola 68xx family, the Microchip PICs, the Texas DSPs and the Analogue Devices DSPs. This means that I am aware of the variations that exist and the suitability of these devices to certain tasks.

Programmable logic.

I have used PLD and PLA configurable logic products and am experienced with FPGA technologies such as that from Xilinx and Altera. This experienced means I am able to make well-considered design decisions as to whether to use these technologies. I have dealt with the implementation problems that can occur.

Hardware Design.

I have experience in designing electronic circuits and systems principally for industrial power control equipment.

Power System Analysis.

I have experience in power transmission system analysis and am experienced with most time and frequency domain analysis and simulation methods. I have performed power system analysis for a Static VAr Compensator and HVDC installations using time domain simulation.

Software Design.

I have experience in abstraction, object oriented development techniques, structured development and software development management tools such Subversion. I have developed software for multiprocessor embedded control systems and am aware of the interdependence of hardware and software.


Software Programming.

I have programmed with and am experienced with FORTRAN, C, 8051, Ti ‘C30, ‘C28 Assembly Language, Visual Basic, Modula2, and Matlab/Simulink. I have used the C language with assembly language routines.

Summary of Skills in Education and Training

Training and Education development

I am skilled in the development, delivery and assessment of educational and training courses. I have experience in the roll-out of new educational systems and the development of teams of trainers. I have experience in the use of knowledge champions to roll out new knowledge to engineering teams.

Training delivery

I can deliver training course effectively to achieve good outcomes. I am a skilled presenter. Course participant feedback is consistently extremely positive.

Existing Training Courses

I have developed a two day training course “An Introduction to Digital Control of Power Electronics”. I have also demonstrated and taught techniques for power converter control transfer function measurements. I have experience in the roll-out of new educational systems and the development of teams of trainers.

Academic Courses

I continue to teach one semester of Introduction to Power Electronics at the University of Canterbury. This is a third year course of approximately ninety students. I also supervise final year projects and help with supervision of graduate student research.

Summary of Skills in People Management

People Management.

I have managed teams of people having directly managed the day to day task scheduling. I have also managed he long term establishment and development of teams having recruited teams, established development and motivational programs and managed the achievement by that team.


Summary of other Skills

Mathematical Skills.

I have very solid math skills and am practiced in using and applying theoretical analysis in practice.

Computers.

I have used Sun UNIX, HP UNIX and PCs. I have used the power systems analysis package PSCAD/EMTDC and also have used Matlab/Simulink, MathCAD and Maple. I have experience with PC packages such as Word, Excel and Access.

CAD/CAM.

I have used Orcad, Mentor Graphics Schematic Capture and PCB Layout tools and Protel CAD tools. I am also experienced with the computer aided manufacturing data generation process.

Design to comply with EU LVD, EMC and Machinery Safety Directives.

I am experienced with the European Union Low Voltage Directive, the Electro-Magnetic Compatibility Directive and the Machinery Safety Directive and have designed and developed products to comply with the standards that form these directives. I understand the self-certification process and the legal ramifications of this process.

Design to Meet UL and CSA certification.

I have designed and developed product to meet the North American UL and CSA standards and am aware of the testing and certification process. I am also experienced with the US National Electrical Code and understand its implication on product design.

Thermal Design. I have designed heatsinks and cooling systems for power electronic systems and have also designed and tested printed circuit boards to meet UL and CSA temperature rise specifications. Design for manufacture.

I have experience in designing products for manufacture using automated production techniques such as surface mounting and auto-placement machines. I am experienced with the advantages and design constraints that modern manufacturing systems have and incorporate these into design considerations.

Design for test.

I understand the design requirements of automated test equipment and am experienced with the strengths and limitation of these technologies. I have designed products for use on automated test equipment.


Component evaluation and qualification

I have worked in the evaluation and qualification of components and vendors for use in power converters. This process involved designing a suitable qualification and acceptance test for components used in power converters.

Business Skills.

I am comfortable dealing with executives and senior management and can communicate regarding finance, strategic direction and risk management.

Work experience

Currently ELMG Limited Lyttelton, New Zealand

Principal Engineer

• ELMG Limited was founded to provide high quality consulting, design, development and research services to the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) electronics industry. ELMG Limited is works with a number of companies developing a wide range of products from power converters to motion control systems. ELMG Limited typically provides high value technical services and often bundles these with competence and confidence development.

• I have an ongoing relationship with the Electrical and Computer Engineering School, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand, where I teach in Power Electronics and help with research into power electronics.

• Technical areas of work for ELMG include complete design of power converters from 2 W to 15 MW. The application of these converters have included

• traction for electric vehicles • grid connected converters for embedded generation • switch mode power supplies • induction heating supplies • Motor speed and torque control for industrial process control such as winding and unwinding.

• I have been involved in the design of software, digital and analogue control systems for power electronic converters.

• I have significant involvement in consulting on stability and control of power converters.

1996 - 1997 Eurotherm Drives Littlehampton, England

Design and Development Engineer

• In this role I designed and developed a four quadrant regenerative DC drive to control DC motors in industrial process applications such as winding, unwinding and extrusion. This involved specification development, analogue and digital circuit design, component selection and procurement and the associated ISO 9001 system documentation and review procedures. The product was designed for medium volume production of 500 per week and made extensive use of surface mount components and automated manufacture techniques. The product was designed and tested to be compliant with the UL and CSA standards and the EU’s CE low voltage and EMC directives. I then designed and developed an updated control card for a range of medium sized AC drives.

1995 - 1996 GEC Alsthom, T and D, Power Electronics Ltd, Stafford, England

Power Systems Analysis Engineer


• Worked in the Electrical Systems Analysis department where I performed computer base analysis of HVDC transmission systems and reactive power control systems. Examples of the studies performed were insulation coordination and surge arrester sizing.

1993 – 1994 AuCom Electronics Christchurch, New Zealand

Design and Development Engineer

• Worked as a design engineer developing induction motor starters and variable speed drives. Responsibilities were the development of a switch-mode power supply, the re-design of a small micro-controller based soft-starter, design of a serial communications display board, solution of some AC induction motor drive power stack problems and the development of a DSP based high performance AC drive system.

1992 - 1993 Canterbury University Christchurch, New Zealand

Contract Engineer

• Designed and built two switching power supplies for an Electric Car project. The supplies were of resonant type, one being for the base drive power of a BJT transistor inverter, the other for the car auxiliaries.

Qualifications

1997-2001 University of Canterbury Christchurch New Zealand

Doctorate of Electrical and Electronic engineering

• PhD degree. Thesis title “Modelling and measurement of diode and their interaction with power systems and shunt active filters”. PhD degree awarded November 2001.

1991 – 1992 University of Canterbury Christchurch New Zealand

Masters of Electrical and Electronic engineering

• Masters degree by thesis. The thesis title was “An investigation into a resonant link active filter for removal of power system harmonics”.

1987 - 1990 University of Canterbury Christchurch New Zealand

Undergraduate

• I hold a Bachelor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (Hons 2nd Class 1st Division). Subjects studied in the final year were Control Systems, Power Electronics, Power Systems, Signals and Systems

Publications

“An analytic frequency domain model of a voltage source single phase rectifier” H.D. Laird, S.D. Round and R.M. Duke. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics. June 2000, Vol 47, No 3, pp 525-532.

“A method of incorporating the characteristics of a non-linear load into the control transfer of a shunt active filter.” H.D. Laird, S.D. Round and R.M. Duke. Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics.

“The transient and steady state performance of a shunt active filter using measured site data.” S.D. Round, H.D. Laird, R.M. Duke, and A.I. Gardiner. 8th International Conference on Harmonics and Power Quality, 14th - 16th October 1998, Athens, Greece, pp 395-400.

“Power quality observations at a light industrial site” H.D. Laird, S.D. Round, R.M. Duke, A.I. Gardiner. 8th International Conference on Harmonics and Power Quality, 14th - 16th October 1998, Athens, Greece, pp 88-93.


“A robust controller for a shunt active filter” B.J. Cooper, S.D. Round, H.D. Laird, R.M. Duke. The Australasian Universities Power Engineering Conference, September 1998, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.

“An improved three level shunt active filter” S.D. Round, H.D. Laird, R.M. Duke, C. Tuck. Power Electronic, Devices and Energy Systems (PEDES) Conference, December 1998, Perth, Western Australia, Australia.

Nationality and Citizenship

I am a New Zealand citizen.

Memberships

Member IEEE. Since 1996

Community Activities

I play Ice Hockey and coach and play Inline Hockey.

Hamish D Laird CV

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