Grid-Connected Advanced Power Systems Hold Fall Industrial Advisory Board Meeting

Karin Alvarado

GRAPES Industrial Advisory Board members, faculty, students and staff met in November 2022.

The Industrial Advisory Board of Grid-connected Advanced Power Systems, commonly known as GRAPES, held its fall meeting recently at the Graduate hotel in Fayetteville, the first heavily attended meeting since November 2019, prior to the pandemic.

"It is great to have so many attending face-to-face meetings again," Alan Mantooth told the packed room.

The fall meeting drew together five partner universities: U of A, University of South Carolina, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Korea University and Yonsei University. Industry leaders from 11 of 14 member companies were also in attendance both in person and virtually. 

The GRAPES meeting included:

• An introduction to the Grid-connected Advanced Power Systems
• Student/Industrial Advisory Board member internship experience panel discussion
• GRAPES Korea presentation
• New member presentation by Arrow Electronics
• Special presentation by Feng Qiu with Argonne Labs
• Project updates
• New project proposal submissions
• Tour of the National Center for Reliable Electric Power Transmission along with a poster session and hardware demonstrations
• Special display by Canoo of their new electric vehicles

The Grid-connected Advanced Power Systems research center, founded in 2009, is currently a Phase III National Science Foundation Industry/University Cooperative Research Center, where engineering faculty from several universities collaborate with industry partners to develop new technologies for advanced power electronic systems, develop new software and tools for controlling embedded- and grid-connected power electronics and to educate engineers who understand the power electronic technologies that are important to the GRAPES Industrial Advisory Board members.

About GRAPES: The center for GRid-connected Advanced Power Electronic Systems facilitates close research interactions between university faculty and students and the industrial members of the center. This relationship gives researchers a direct tie to today's power industry, allowing them to research topics that are closely aligned with industry interests. It also gives the involved companies a clear voice into what the students are learning, and so directly improves the quality of the employees they will hire in the next few years. Nearly 150 undergraduate and graduate students have worked within the center. Many of these students have gone on to work for member companies, while others have continued their educations or gone to work for other companies in the power and power electronics industries.

GRAPES leadership includes founding Director Alan Mantooth, Executive Director Yue Zhao, U of A site Director Roy McCann, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee site Director Rob Cuzner, Rhine-Westphalia Technical University of Aachen site Director Rik DeDoncker, GRAPES Korea site Director Yong-June Shin and University of South Carolina affiliate site Director Adel Nasiri.

For more information on GRAPES, contact Yue Zhao, GRAPES executive director, YueZhao@uark.edu, 479-575-4627. For more information about GRAPES' next meeting, contact Karin Alvarado, KarinA@uark.edu, 479-575-4958.