From the Guest Editor

Dear Members of the IEEE Transportation Electrification Community,

It is my pleasure to bring to you this quarterly issue of the IEEE Transportation Electrification eNewsletter focusing on the transportation electrification and applications in aerospace as a Guest Editor.

As future aircraft move towards being greener, quieter, smarter and more affordable, it is anticipated that the electrification of the aircraft systems will shape the aerospace industry in the upcoming decades.

Along with the exciting achievements and innovations towards more electric aircraft, challenges around the electrical components and system design, higher efficiency and higher voltages, integration at both aircraft and propulsion system level remain to be addressed by both the industry and academia. And, it will take time for the industry to mature technology and products to the right readiness level due to the long development cycle typically seen in the aviation industry.

This issue aims at providing an update on the challenges, some recent developments, studies and viewpoints in the technology areas of aerospace electrification both from academia and industry. It contains the following articles,  

• Hybrid Electric Aircraft: State of the Art and Key Electrical System Challenges (by Steven Fletcher, Marie-Claire Flynn, Catherine E. Jones and Patrick J. Norman)
• Switched Control Application to Aerospace Safety-Critical Motor Drives (by Ali Bazzi, Michael Stettenbenz, and Yiqi Liu)
• Challenges of High Power Machine and Drives for Turbo-Electric Aircraft and a Case Study (by Kiruba Sivasubramaniam Haran and Kaushik Rajashekara)
• Harness Development for Electromagnetic Compatibility Optimisation of Power Conversion Chain for Aerospace (by C. Jullien, E. Aubert, J. Genoulaz, A.Dieudonne)

Regards,
Lixin Ren
Guest Editor
IEEE Transportation Electrification eNewsletter on Aerospace Electrification & Applications
Email: renlx@ieee.org

 

 

Dr Lixin Ren received a four-year BEng (1st Honors) in 1992 from North China Electric Power University (NCEPU) in Thermal Power Engineering and Automation, qualified as a MPhil in Electric Power System and Automation in 1995 from Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), Beijing, China and is awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Queen’s University Belfast, United Kingdom in 2003 for his work in ‘Nonlinear Identification and Control of a Turbogenerator using multiple models’. He is a member of Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) in United Kingdom and a member of Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, USA affiliated with IEEE Power and Energy System Society, Control System Society, Transportation Electrification Community, Communication Society and in the past Power Electronics Society, and Computer Society. He is currently a senior specialist engineer in system architecture and integration with application in aerospace, marine and energy and nuclear systems at Electric Power and Control Systems (EPACS), Rolls Royce plc, England.

Prior to join Rolls Royce plc., he had an extensive research and industrial track record and had worked in a number of Institution and companies including Electric Power Research Institute, China/Beijing DianYan ZhiShen Control Technology Ltd. (1992~1999), Queen’s University, Belfast (1999~2003), the Robert Gordon University (2003~2005), Mitsui Babcock Energy Ltd.(2005~2008), and Doosan Power Systems Ltd (2008~2012) where he held positions in various capacity including systems and control engineer, team leader, project manager, research fellow, lead EC&I engineer. This had provided him with a breadth of knowledge/skills and rich experiences portable across industrial sectors and enabled the high level thinking and system thinking in complex programs involving multiple disciplines. His expertise and area of interest includes thermal power generation, electric power and energy systems, power plant automation, emission control system (NOx reduction and Carbon Capture), intelligent system and control, control & instrumentation, electrical power systems, electric machine/drive and power electronics and transportation electrification, smart grid technology etc.  

He has contributed to the IET Power Generation Control Conference in 2007 and 2008 where he has both helped the conference programs as an industrial committee member and delivered a speech on the need of design guidelines for UK power generation control and panel discussion as a panelist. He is serving as an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transportation Electrification eNewsletter and is one of the founding Editors since 2013 and has been a reviewer for a number of international journals and conferences including IEEE Transaction on Energy Conversion, IEEE Transaction on Power Systems, IEEE Transaction on Industrial Electronics, and IEEE Transaction on Power Electronics etc.