Master’s thesis Theoretic studies and practical studies of verification techniques for DC/DC converters for Avionics

Publicerad 2012-12-04

Place of action
Electronic Defence Systems, a business area of Saab, is one of the world’s premier suppliers of solutions for surveillance, avionics and systems to detect, locate and protect against threat. Saab in Jönköping has a wide range of products, mainly for Aerospace applications, including e.g. utility and mission computers, control computers, hydraulic actuators, electric motors and motor controllers. The equipments have in most cases a primary power supply DC/DC or AC/DC which converts the aircraft supplies to secondary voltages like 3.3V and +/-15V. These secondary voltages are connected to the different boards in the equipment which in turn converts them to lower voltages when needed. These DC/DC-converters are close to the load and is therefore called point-of-load converters (POL). There can be as much as 6 POLs on each board. These POL converters are today implemented in analogue technique and designed and simulated with use of control systems theory with outputs in the form of Bode diagrams, pole placement, bandwidth, phase margins, step response. Today we only verify the design in the time domain using step response. The Master’s thesis will increase the verification to include the frequency domain as well.

Your future challenge
The Master’s thesis will be carried out in three steps.
The student will begin with a theoretic study of control theory and simulation of POL converters from an avionics perspective, where the expected result is an identification of possible verification methods.
The second step will be to implement and test a suggested verification method.
After these steps the final result will be an evaluation report where the method is included in a formal document like Hardware Test Specification and Hardware Test Report.

The Master’s thesis position is at Saab’s facilities in Jönköping. The position is suitable for one student. The work can be initiated between the beginning of November to the beginning of June. Oral and written reporting will be required.

Today's demands
A master’s student or a student within the ’Civilingenjörsutbildning’ may apply for the position. It is expected that students from E, Y, Z, or F may possess this knowledge.

Saab serves the global market with world-leading products, services and solutions ranging from military defence to civil security. Saab has operations and employees on all continents and constantly develops, adopts and improves new technology to meet customers’ changing needs. Saab has about 13,000 employees. Annual sales are EUR 2,5 billion. Research and development corresponds to about 20 percent of annual sales.

Torbjörn Månefjord

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