Dr Nathan Marks
Postdoctoral Researcher
School of Engineering
- Email:nathan.marks@newcastle.edu.au
- Phone:(02) 4921 6148
Career Summary
Biography
Nathan graduated with a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering (Honours 1 and University Medal) from the University of Newcastle, Australia in 2011. This was followed by a Doctor of Philosophy (Electrical Engineering) in 2016 also from the University of Newcastle, Australia.
His PhD thesis investigated control and performance aspects of Cascaded H-Bridge (CHB) multilevel converters as a grid interface for photovoltaic (PV) power systems. Particular areas of focus were: managing cell and phase power imbalances; developing new maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithms for the CHB converter PV topology; and PV array current sensorless operation.
Following his PhD, Nathan joined Towers Group in 2016 as an embedded Electrical Research Engineer with the Australian Department of Defence Science and Technology (DST) Group in Melbourne, Australia. This role supported the future submarine program with development of real-time electrical models of maritime platforms using the Real Time Digital Simulator (RTDS), as well as the development, commissioning and operation of a 100 kW power hardware-in-the-loop (PHIL) experimental system for maritime platform apparatus.
Nathan took an opportunity to return to the University of Newcastle in 2020 for his current role as a Postdoctoral Researcher working on modelling and validation of electric machines for maritime propulsion. Activities have included: finite element analysis (FEA); power electronic system topology design; custom electric machine design; magnetic, temperature, torque, vibration and acoustic instrumentation design for measurement of electric machine characteristics; and development of a distributed power electronic control architecture.
He has a broad range of research interests in power electronic applications including: electric machines and drives; renewable energy systems such as solar photovoltaics and battery energy storage; control and modulation of converter topologies; multilevel converters; and real-time simulation.
Nathan is a member of the IEEE, IEEE Industrial Electronics Society and IEEE Power and Energy Societies where he occassionally reviews articles for their publications.
Qualifications
- Doctor of Philosophy in electrical Engineering, University of Newcastle
- Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical) (Honours), University of Newcastle
Keywords
- Electric Machines and Drives
- Electrical Engineering
- Multilevel Converters
- Power Electronics
- Renewable Energy Systems
Fields of Research
| Code | Description | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| 400904 | Electronic device and system performance evaluation, testing and simulation | 40 |
| 400805 | Electrical energy transmission, networks and systems | 60 |
Professional Experience
UON Appointment
| Title | Organisation / Department |
|---|---|
| Postdoctoral Researcher | University of Newcastle School of Engineering Australia |
Academic appointment
| Dates | Title | Organisation / Department |
|---|---|---|
| 20/2/2023 - 30/6/2023 | Lecturer | School of Engineering, The University of Newcastle Australia |
| 20/7/2020 - | Postdoctoral Researcher | School of Engineering, The University of Newcastle Australia |
| 1/9/2015 - 29/2/2016 | Research Associate | School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science | University of Newcastle Australia |
Professional appointment
| Dates | Title | Organisation / Department |
|---|---|---|
| 15/2/2016 - 26/6/2020 | Electrical Research Engineer | Towers Group/Defence Science and Technology Group Australia |
Teaching
| Code | Course | Role | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| ELEC1700 |
Digital and Computer Electronics 1 The University of Newcastle, Faculty of Engineering and built Environment, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science |
Tutor/Lab Demonstrator | 26/7/2010 - 25/11/2011 |
| ELEC1700 |
Digital and Computer Electronics 1 The University of Newcastle, Faculty of Engineering and built Environment, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science |
Lecturer | 23/2/2015 - 26/6/2015 |
| ELEC3130 |
Electric Machines and Power Systems The University of Newcastle, Faculty of Engineering and built Environment, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science |
Tutor/Lab Demonstrator | 27/2/2012 - 28/11/2014 |
| ELEC2320 |
Electrical and Electronic Circuits School of Engineering, The University of Newcastle |
Course Coordinator | 20/2/2023 - 30/6/2023 |
| ELEC3250 |
Power Electronics The University of Newcastle, Faculty of Engineering and built Environment, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science |
Tutor/Lab Demonstrator | 27/2/2012 - 28/11/2014 |
| ELEC1300 |
Electrical Engineering 1 The University of Newcastle, Faculty of Engineering and built Environment, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science |
Tutor/Lab Demonstrator | 26/7/2010 - 25/11/2011 |
Publications
For publications that are currently unpublished or in-press, details are shown in italics.
Journal article (1 outputs)
| Year | Citation | Altmetrics | Link | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 |
Marks ND, Kong WY, Birt DS, 'Stability of a switched mode power amplifier interface for power hardware-in-the-loop', IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, 65 8445-8454 (2018) Power hardware-in-the-loop (PHIL) is an attractive, real-time system testing and validation technique. Virtual models can be replaced with physical equipment to emulate system int... [more] Power hardware-in-the-loop (PHIL) is an attractive, real-time system testing and validation technique. Virtual models can be replaced with physical equipment to emulate system integration testing, and perform model validation without the cost and risk of a full scale power system. Power amplifiers are the principal components that facilitate the power interface between the physical and the virtual systems. This necessary interfacing introduces dynamics that do not exist in the real system and is the source of stability and accuracy issues affecting PHIL applications. This paper presents a stability analysis of a practical PHIL system based on the ideal transformer model interface algorithm that utilizes a voltage source converter for power amplification. A systematic approach to evaluate the expected stability characteristics of PHIL experiments is developed. The analysis in this paper shows that in a practical system, the power amplifier's filter, sampling, and measurement filtering are all shown to influence the stability in a counterintuitive way, leading to a nonmonotonic stability characteristic. An experimental PHIL platform based on a real-time digital simulator real-time computer has been used to validate the analysis and confirm the effects of the practical interface. Switching dead-time is also shown to have a significant stabilizing effect.
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Conference (14 outputs)
| Year | Citation | Altmetrics | Link | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 |
Marks ND, Summers TJ, 'Comparison of Sinusoidal and Rectangular Current Excitations in Multiphase Trapezoidal Back EMF Permanent Magnet Machines', 2022 32ND AUSTRALASIAN UNIVERSITIES POWER ENGINEERING CONFERENCE, AUPEC, AUSTRALIA, Adelaide (2022) [E1]
|
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| 2021 |
Stringfellow J, Kong WY, Birt D, Marks ND, Torresan H, 'Real-Time Simulation of a Naval Platform Power and Energy System', Proceedings of 2021 31st Australasian Universities Power Engineering Conference, AUPEC 2021, Perth, Australia (2021) [E1]
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| 2020 |
Marks ND, Summers TJ, Betz RE, 'Improving the Robustness of Dynamic Mechanical Load Emulation', 2020 Australasian Universities Power Engineering Conference (AUPEC 2020) : Proceedings, Hobart, Tas. (2020) [E1]
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| 2019 | Kong WY, Marks ND, 'Hardware-in-the-loop for naval platform power and energy test and evaluation', Pacific International Maritime Conference (imc 2019): Proceedings, Sydney (2019) [E1] | ||||||||||
| 2019 |
Marks ND, Kong WY, Birt DS, 'Impacts of linear controllers for power interfaces in ideal transformer model based power hardware-in-the-loop', Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Industrial Technology, Melbourne, Vic. (2019) [E1]
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| 2018 |
Marks ND, Kong WY, Birt DS, 'Interface Compensation for Power Hardware-in-the-Loop', 2018 IEEE 27TH INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS (ISIE), Cairns, AUSTRALIA (2018) [E1]
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| 2015 |
Marks ND, Summers TJ, Betz RE, 'Current sensor-less control of a Cascaded H-Bridge photovoltaic system', 3rd International Conference on Renewable Energy Research and Applications, ICRERA 2014 (2015) [E1] The control of Cascaded H-Bridge (CHB) photovoltaic (PV) systems typically requires the power generated by the PV arrays to be measured. The power measurement is used to generate ... [more] The control of Cascaded H-Bridge (CHB) photovoltaic (PV) systems typically requires the power generated by the PV arrays to be measured. The power measurement is used to generate the reference current to inject power into the grid as well as for Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT). The number of current sensors required for high level number systems increases their cost and complexity. Power estimation can be used to eliminate current sensor requirements by inferring the PV power from other measurements. This paper presents a power estimation method for a CHB PV system with a Model Predictive Control (MPC) scheme. The performance is shown to be comparable to measurement via simulation results.
|
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| 2015 |
Marks ND, Summers TJ, Betz RE, 'Phase shifted maximum power point tracking in a cascaded H-Bridge photovoltaic power system', 2015 17th European Conference on Power Electronics and Applications, EPE-ECCE Europe 2015 (2015) [E1] Multilevel Cascaded H-Bridge (CHB) converters have attractive features for the implementation of large scale photovoltaic systems. They can be directly connected to high voltages ... [more] Multilevel Cascaded H-Bridge (CHB) converters have attractive features for the implementation of large scale photovoltaic systems. They can be directly connected to high voltages and the multilevel voltage synthesis reduces the harmonic distortion introduced. In addition, they have individual DC links ideal for connecting photovoltaic arrays. Existing high performance voltage balancing techniques can also be adapted to integrate Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT). This paper considers the impact of Perturb and Observe Maximum Power Point Tracking on the performance of a 19 level three phase CHB converter and proposes the new method of Phase Shifted Perturb and Observe Maximum Power Point Tracking.
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| 2015 |
Marks ND, Summers TJ, Betz RE, 'Current sensorless maximum power point tracking in a cascaded h-bridge photovoltaic power system', 2015 IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition, ECCE 2015 (2015) [E1] Multilevel Cascaded H-Bridge (CHB) converters have attractive features for the implementation of large scale photovoltaic systems. They can be directly connected to high voltages ... [more] Multilevel Cascaded H-Bridge (CHB) converters have attractive features for the implementation of large scale photovoltaic systems. They can be directly connected to high voltages and the multilevel voltage synthesis reduces the harmonic distortion introduced. In addition, they have individual DC links ideal for connecting photovoltaic arrays. Existing high performance voltage balancing techniques can also be adapted to integrate Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT). However, MPPT schemes typically require a measurement of the generated photovoltaic power to operate, leading to a significant number of current sensors in a multilevel system. This paper considers a 19 level three-phase CHB converter photovoltaic power system without sensing the photovoltaic array current for MPPT. The converter control strategy is used to infer the information necessary for the MPPT algorithms to operate. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the performance of the proposed implementation of MPPT.
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| 2014 |
Marks ND, Summers TJ, Betz RE, 'Reactive power requirements for cascaded H-Bridge photovoltaic systems', IECON Proceedings (Industrial Electronics Conference) (2014) Cascaded H-Bridge (CHB) multilevel converters provide a number of attractive features for photovoltaic (PV) power systems. They have high quality output waveforms, high efficiency... [more] Cascaded H-Bridge (CHB) multilevel converters provide a number of attractive features for photovoltaic (PV) power systems. They have high quality output waveforms, high efficiency and the ability to incorporate multiple Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) schemes. This paper investigates the ability of the CHB PV system to export maximum power for different configurations of PV arrays among the H-Bridges. It is shown that there is a minimum number of H-Bridges required to have PV arrays to ensure the maximum power is extracted without reactive power compensation. Reactive power must be injected or absorbed to extract maximum power when the minimum number is not reached. Simulation and experimental results are presented to validate the investigation.
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| 2014 |
Marks ND, Summers TJ, Betz RE, 'Control of a 19 level cascaded H-bridge multilevel converter photovoltaic system', 2014 IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition, ECCE 2014 (2014) Multilevel Cascaded H-Bridge (CHB) converters have attractive features for the implementation of large scale photovoltaic systems. They can be directly connected to high voltages ... [more] Multilevel Cascaded H-Bridge (CHB) converters have attractive features for the implementation of large scale photovoltaic systems. They can be directly connected to high voltages and the multilevel voltage synthesis reduces the harmonic distortion introduced. In addition, they have individual DC links ideal for connecting photovoltaic arrays. Existing high performance voltage balancing techniques can also be adapted to integrate Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT). This paper considers a 19 level three-phase CHB converter with photovoltaic arrays supplying power. The structure and control of the system is presented, which shows that the DC link voltages can be individually controlled according to MPPT demands, negating the need for DC/DC converters. The system also maintains balanced output currents for power transfer to the grid. Simulation and experimental results are presented that validate the operation of the system.
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| 2013 |
Marks ND, Summers TJ, Betz RE, 'Finite control set model predictive control with increased prediction horizon for a 5 level cascaded H-bridge StatCom', 2013 15th European Conference on Power Electronics and Applications, EPE 2013, Lille, FR (2013) [E1]
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| 2013 |
Marks ND, Summers TJ, Betz RE, 'Challenges for capacitor voltage balancing in a cascaded h-bridge StatCom utilising finite control set Model Predictive Control', 2013 Australasian Universities Power Engineering Conference, AUPEC 2013, Hobart, Tasmania (2013) [E1]
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| 2012 |
Marks ND, Summers TJ, Betz RE, 'Photovoltaic power systems: A review of topologies, converters and controls', AUPEC 2012 22nd Australasian Universities Power Engineering Conference, Bali, Indonesia (2012) [E1]
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| Show 11 more conferences | |||||||||||
Research Supervision
Number of supervisions
Current Supervision
| Commenced | Level of Study | Research Title | Program | Supervisor Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | PhD | Integration of Large Penetrations of Distributed Generation at Distribution Level Voltages | PhD (Electrical Engineering), College of Engineering, Science and Environment, The University of Newcastle | Co-Supervisor |
| 2016 | PhD | Control of Grid Connected Power Electronic Devices to Facilitate the Distributed Generation Future | PhD (Electrical Engineering), College of Engineering, Science and Environment, The University of Newcastle | Co-Supervisor |
Dr Nathan Marks
Position
Postdoctoral Researcher
School of Engineering
College of Engineering, Science and Environment
Contact Details
| nathan.marks@newcastle.edu.au | |
| Phone | (02) 4921 6148 |
Office
| Room | EE109 |
|---|---|
| Location | Callaghan University Drive Callaghan, NSW 2308 Australia |
