Postdoctoral researcher for multilevel inverter development

About the role

The position is a postdoctoral research role within the Flanders Make IRVA project IMVEP at Ghent University. You will work in the EnSy lab and core lab MIRO on high‑speed electric drive applications.

Key responsibilities

• Design, build and experimentally validate a multilevel inverter prototype, including topology, semiconductor selection, power stage, gate drive, PCB layout and magnetic component design.
• Develop and implement modulation and control strategies on rapid‑prototyping platforms, covering voltage balancing and fault‑condition operation.
• Create scalable loss, thermal and cost models for the inverter‑motor subsystem and integrate them into the co‑design tool.
• Assess insulation stress and partial‑discharge behaviour of machines fed by multilevel inverters.
• Plan and execute experimental campaigns on motor test benches and HIL setups to quantify performance and validate models.
• Interact with industrial partners for requirement definition, progress reporting and validation cases.
• Disseminate results through publications, conference contributions and project reports.

Required profile

• PhD in electrical or electromechanical engineering with specialization in power electronics or electric drives.
• Significant post‑doctoral or industrial experience in designing and testing power‑electronic converter prototypes.
• Experience with multilevel inverter topologies (T‑type, NPC, cascaded H‑bridge) and their modulation/control.
• Hands‑on work with Si‑IGBT, SiC and GaN devices, including loss and thermal analysis.
• Proficiency in digital control implementation on DSP, FPGA or dSPACE platforms and HIL/real‑time simulation.

Required skills

• Multilevel inverter design and hardware validation
• Power electronics prototyping (schematic, PCB layout, magnetic design)
• Si‑IGBT, SiC, GaN device handling and thermal analysis
• MATLAB/Simulink modelling and simulation
• Embedded control on DSP/FPGA/dSPACE
• Hardware‑in‑the‑loop and real‑time testing
• High‑voltage laboratory work and insulation coordination

What we offer

• Indefinite‑duration contract starting 1 December 2026 (or later)
• Salary according to university PD1‑PD4 scale for doctorate holders
• 36 days of holiday, bicycle allowance, eco‑vouchers and extensive training opportunities