PhD position (Junior Scientist) - Flatten the Filter! Intelligent Active Noise Cancellation for a Novel “Silent” EMI Filter (f/m/d)

YOUR FUTURE RESPONSIBILITIES

Between 2019 & 2022, SAL & industry partners developed the world’s most compact onboard charger in the Tiny Power Box project. New records will be broken in the follow-up “Tiny Power Box 2.0”.

Your will collaborate with leading EU industry partners, be supported by the scientific team at SAL and receive academic supervision from TU Graz. In this PhD, you will be responsible for the following tasks: 

• By means of literature review, simulation and hardware measurement, evaluate EMI sources for a defined topology & hardware prototype.
• Develop a hardware and software concept for applying active noise cancellation to electronic noise in power converters. Consider feedback loops and energy efficiency.
• Design, simulate & build prototype hardware to deploy & test your algorithms. Benchmark your active noise cancelling prototype against power-density-optimized passive EMI filters.
• Contribute to a simulation-based power density optimization for seeing where active, hybrid or passive EMI filters offer best compactness with the rest of the power topology.
• Work with other PhD students & scientific staff in the same project. Together, the team will use your research & designs in a beautiful and optimized automotive charger demonstrator.
• Technical and academic support of master student and interns.
• Scientific publication and dissemination of your findings at relevant conferences & journals.

YOUR PROFILE

• Master’s degree in Electrical / Electronic Engineering or Physics (or similar / equivalent).
• Good knowledge of power electronics (basics of Si, GaN & SiC power devices, topologies, and EMI filter design considerations)
• Good knowledge of MATLAB (and/or PYTHON)
• Experience with electronic filter concepts and filter hardware designs.
• Experience with power circuit simulation tools (e.g. PLECS, LTspice, Simplis / Simetrix).
• Experience with electronics laboratory equipment (e.g. oscilloscopes, supplies, soldering etc.).
• Experience with FEM simulation tools a plus.
• Experience with FPGA and/or DSP programming is a plus.
• Applied experience in control theory and/or optimization algorithms is a strong plus.
• Applied experience in power electronics passive EMI filter design is a strong plus.
• Eager to learn new things and deep dive into niche technical topics.
• Work as part of a larger scientific team, good communications skills.
• Highly motivated for research on cutting-edge technologies for power electronics and enthusiastic for green technology for a renewable energy future.
• Excellent taste in music and/or food.
• Willing to be creative and think “outside of the box”.
• Self-organized and target-oriented working style.
• Fluency in English, both written and spoken.
• Take pride in hard work and excellent results.

IMPORTANT FACTS ABOUT SAL

• Diversified research activities with plenty of technical challenges.
• State-of-the-art lab facilities and instruments.
• Internal and external training opportunities for further development.
• Home Office possible.
• € 4 per day food allowance in restaurants or € 2 per day in supermarkets.
• Family- & kids-friendly.
• Free coffee/milk/tea & fresh fruits.

This position is subject to the Collective Agreement for employees in non-university research (Research CA) in occupational group E. For this position, your monthly salary will be EUR 3.274, paid 14 times a year.