Newcastle University
Professor Volker Pickert
- Telephone: +44 (0)191 222 6684
- Email: volker.pickert@ncl.ac.uk
Professor Volker Pickert (MIET/MIEEE) has been a member of the Power Electronics, Drives and Machines Research Group (PEDM) at Newcastle University since October 2003. His previous posts were with Semikron Ltd. working as application engineer and with Volkswagen AG where he was group leader for the development of electric traction drives within the electric vehicle R&D department. Prof. Pickert received his PhD from Newcastle University and his Dipl.-Ing. from RWTH Aachen and Cambridge University. He has 15 years experiences in power electronics and electric drives for electric vehicles, hybrid electric vehicles and fuel cell vehicles.
Prof. Pickert has published over 80 technical papers and gained the IMarEST Denny Medal for the best journal paper in 2011. His research has led to several practical innovations, including the development of a new converter topology for magnet-free motors allowing significant cost reductions in drives. A low power dc/dc converter was developed that has a 50% reduced inductor size compared to traditional dc/dc convert designs. This was achieved without increasing the switching frequency or the complexity of cooling. A new power factor circuit was developed that minimises switching losses and saves 7% on conversion losses. Finally his team developed a new method to calculate the junction temperature for power devices in drives with very high accuracy. This method has been exploited and is now embedded in industrial drives that are manufactured in the UK.
Prof. Pickert was the chairman of the IET bi-annual international PEMD conference in Brighton 2010 and he was the IET Technical Advisor for TTXGP - World's First Zero Carbon, Clean Emission Electric Bike Grand Prix in 2009. He is a member of the IET Power Generation, Conversion and Utilisation (PGCU) professional network Executive Team and the North East representative for the Automotive Interest Group at Business, Innovation and Skills/Local Enterprise Partnerships (BIS/LEP).
