Zeljko Pantic
North Carolina State University, NC·Engineering
Electronics deep in the ocean are usually sealed inside thick metal cylinders that keep the inside at surface pressure while the water outside pushes at hundreds of times that. These enclosures are costly, heavy, hard to cool and prone to leaks or implosion.
- Fields
Engineering
Earth & Environmental Science
- Topics
power electronics
pressure-tolerant electronics
hydrostatic pressure
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through May 2027
What they work on
- Develop test hardware and procedures to measure how inductors, capacitors and wide bandgap semiconductor switches behave at hydrostatic pressures up to 10,000 psi.
- Derive analytical and empirical electro-thermal-pressure models of power electronic components and identify pressure-induced deterioration and failure mechanisms.
- Design, build and test three power conversion units in a pressure-compensated environment, producing guidance on packaging, material selection and converter topologies.
- Prototype an Underwater MicroGrid that converts multiple power sources to supply both continuous low-power sensors and brief high-current acoustic loads in a deep-ocean observatory node.
- Build pressure-tolerant subsystems for an Autonomous Observatory Node, including a MIMO acoustic communication array, and validate them at 10,000 psi and in ocean tests at 500 m depth.
More about the research
A better option is to build power electronics, the circuits that convert and deliver electricity, that can survive being directly exposed to deep-sea pressure. These two projects study how electrical components behave under extreme pressure and apply that knowledge to powering ocean observation systems.
Why it matters
Pressure-tolerant power electronics could reduce cost and improve reliability, efficiency, cooling and maintenance for offshore energy, subsea oil extraction, underwater vehicles and ocean exploration. An autonomous observatory node could let ocean scientists in seismology, ocean chemistry and marine biology run sensor networks far from shore. It could also support earthquake early detection.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Alex Hanson
University of Texas at Austin, TX·Engineering·Early-career
Develop rapid yet accurate models of energy loss in inductors and transformers at MHz frequencies, so magnetic component designs can be optimized quickly.
Farhina Haque
University of Akron Main Campus, OH·Engineering
Model the dielectric (insulating) properties of the interphase layer around nanoparticles in polymer nanocomposites as a function of interphase thickness and nanoparticle volume fraction.
Michael Krieg
University of Hawaii at Manoa, HI·Engineering
Develop iceberg-referenced localization algorithms that track an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) and drifting floats relative to an iceberg that is drifting and rotating, so robots can navigate a moving reference frame.
The school
North Carolina State University: 40 labs on PI Pages, $717M a year on research, 603 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
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