Department of Electrical Engineering and Automation

Electric drives

Electric drives play an important role, e.g., in a large number of industrial applications, electric vehicles, elevators, and robotics. An electric drive is a system, where an electric motor (or generator) is controlled using a power-electronic converter (such as a frequency converter). Typically, the goal is to control the mechanical motion energy-efficiently as well as with accurate and fast dynamic response.
Electric drives

In modern power grids, power-electronic converters have become indispensable, both in consumption and in generation. As an example, a grid-connected solar inverter converts the DC current produced by solar photovoltaic panels to the AC current. Power converters are also an integral part of energy storage systems. Both hardware and control methods of this kind of converters are very similar to those applied in electric drives..

In the Electric drives group, we carry out research on electric motor drives and power converters, including their analysis, control design, and optimization. Our core competence is developing advanced real-time algorithms for control and estimation. We collaborate actively with the industry and with the leading research groups at universities. We have published our research results in more than 120 technical papers (of which over 40 in IEEE journals). The results have also led to several patents and patent applications.

The group is led by Professor Marko Hinkkanen.

Group members

Latest publications

I-f Control with Zero -axis Current Operation for Surface Mounted Permanent Magnet Synchronous Machine Drives

Dunzhi Chen, Kaiyuan Lu, Dong Wang, Marko Hinkkanen 2023 IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics

Identification of mechanical impedance of an electric machine drive for drivetrain design

Hannu Hartikainen, Lauri Tiitinen, Sampo Laine, Marko Hinkkanen 2023 2023 IEEE International Electric Machines & Drives Conference (IEMDC)

Energy-Efficient Control of Bearingless Linear Motors

Reza Hosseinzadeh, Floran Martin, Marko Hinkkanen 2023 Proceedings - 2023 IEEE International Conference on Mechatronics, ICM 2023

Observer-based power-synchronization control for grid-forming converters

Tuure Nurminen, Rayane Mourouvin, Marko Hinkkanen, Jarno Kukkola, Mikko Routimo, Antti Vilhunen, Lennart Harnefors 2023 2023 IEEE Belgrade PowerTech

Fast Bus Voltage Control of Single-Phase Grid-Connected Converter with Unified Harmonic Mitigation

Akekachai Pannawan, Tanakorn Kaewchum, Sakda Somkun, Marko Hinkkanen 2023 IEEE Access

Dynamic Model of a Virtual Air Gap Reactor

David Sevsek, Marko Hinkkanen, Jarno Kukkola, Matti Lehtonen 2023 IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery

motulator: Motor Drive Simulator in Python

Lauri Tiitinen, Hannu Hartikainen, Luca Peretti, Marko Hinkkanen 2023 2023 IEEE International Electric Machines & Drives Conference (IEMDC)

Generic PLL-Based Grid-Forming Control

Lennart Harnefors, Mario Schweizer, Jarno Kukkola, Mikko Routimo, Marko Hinkkanen, Xiongfei Wang 2022 IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics
More information on our research in the Aalto research portal.
Research portal
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