You are here

Luca Corradini - Research

Luca Corradini
Associate Professor
(on leave)

University of Padova
Department of Information Engineering
Via Gradenigo 6/B
35131 Padova - Italy
Phone: +39-049-827-7756
email: luca.corradini@dei.unipd.it

Overview

My core research in the field of Power Electronics mostly revolves around the development and study of digital control techniques for switched-mode power supplies (SMPS). Application scenarios include:

  • Point-of-load DC/DC converters
  • Power factor correction (PFC) AC/DC rectifiers
  • Active power filters for reactive and harmonic power compensation
  • Bidirectional DC/DC resonant converters
  • Automotive High-Brightness LED drivers

Current research projects

  • Power management for energy harvesting systems. This recently opened research line is tackling the topic of energy autonomy of wireless nodes employed in large-scale wireless sensor networks (WSN). The work is tightly tied to a broader department-level project on Energy-Autonomous Wireless Sensor Networks, which gathers faculties from the Automatic Control group, the DEI-Telecommunications group, the Instrumentation and Measurement group and the Power Electronics group.
  • Digital techniques for online efficiency optimization of resonant DC/DC converters. This project aims at developing advanced control and modulation solutions for online efficiency optimization of resonant topologies. Key to the project is to transfer all the additional complexity to the controller rather than augment the power stage with dedicated soft-switching ancillary circuitry. To do so, dedicated digital solutions are being developed which exploit the many degrees of freedom inherently available in resonant topologies based on the dual half-bridge or full-bridge.

Summary of past research activities

High-performance digital control of low-voltage, high-current DC/DC converters:

  • Digital control techniques for fast dynamic response of Point-of-Load regulators:
    • Multisampled digital control
    • Digital hysteretic control based on asynchronous sampling
    • Robust Time-Optimal control
  • Digital auto-tuning and adaptive tuning techniques for DC/DC converters
  • Low-complexity, high-resolution PWM techniques for digital control loops
  • Modular digital controllers for multiphase buck regulators

Autotuning techniques for AC/DC Power Factor Correction rectifiers

Multisampled digital current control for Active Power Filters

Digital control of high-voltage DC/DC converters for electromedical applications

Zero voltage switching techniques for bidirectional DC/DC resonant converters

Digital control of high brightness LED drivers for automotive applications