Innovative Electronics Company Offers Potential in Venus Landing, Army Transportation

Lostetter, owner of Arkansas Power Electronics International Inc. (APEI), and the employees of his firm, represent a growing phenomenon — high-tech businesses forming and working in collaboration with the University of Arkansas to the benefit of both.

When Lostetter came to the University of Arkansas as a graduate student, he started his research with Kraig Olejniczak, a former professor in the electrical engineering department, who is now dean at Valparaiso University. Olejniczak formed APEI as a consulting firm, and when he left the university in 2002, he sold the company to Lostetter, who began to branch out into research and development.

“We had the intellectual know-how, but not the tools,” Lostetter said.

Today, APEI makes about $1 million in revenues, with half coming from awards including Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants and half from contracting and consulting. In addition to projects with NASA and the U.S. Armed Forces, the company has projects funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, the National Institute for Standards and Technology and the Arkansas Science and Technology Authority.

“The SBIR program tries to fund high-risk ideas that could have big payoffs in the future,” Lostetter said. In the case of APEI, this means working on high-temperature power electronics for interplanetary probes, like ones that might be used on Venus; creating high power density industrial electric motor drives for use in combat vehicles; and developing high-voltage switches for power transmission lines to minimize the likelihood of massive blackouts.

APEI owns a patent for Multichip Power Modules, electronic modules that offer improved electrical performance under extremes of temperature, pressure and other stressful conditions. The researchers at APEI also examine the properties of silicon carbide in electronic devices, a material that may have the ability to operate at temperatures up to 600 degrees Celsius, while current silicon-based electronic components break down at temperatures of 150 degrees. They currently have contracts with the U.S. Army to develop high-temperature electronics components for hybrid electric combat vehicles, and with NASA to develop ultra-lightweight, high-efficiency silicon-carbide-based power electronic converters for science mission vehicles.

The company currently has space at the University of Arkansas’ Genesis Technology Incubator in south Fayetteville. APEI employs eight full-time engineers, six of whom earned their degrees from the U of A, and four part-time employees. They also employ interns from the university through a technical internship program.

“Most of the engineers we have came through that program,” Lostetter said.

The company and the university also benefit from collaboration with faculty members on research projects. APEI is working with the newly formed National Center for Reliable Electric Power Transmission, headed by electrical engineering professor Alan Mantooth, to try to develop purely electronic systems to make the nation's power grid more reliable and efficient.

“APEI is an excellent example of how the University of Arkansas Technology  Development Foundation seeks to add value to our corporate partners through relationships that lead to collaborative research and development that engages our students and faculty,” said Phil Stafford, director of the University of Arkansas Technology Development Foundation. “In the end, the goal of the Arkansas Research and Technology Park is to catalyze a technology-based economy in the state and provide more opportunities for our graduates to live and work in Arkansas.”