Category Archives: People

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Dr. Rohith Pottekkat

          Dr. Rohith Pottekkat received his Ph.D. in Power Electronics from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, in 2024, and an M.Tech. in Electrical Engineering with a specialization in power electronics and power systems from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, in 2013. He completed his B.Tech. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering at the Government Engineering College, Thrissur, India, in 2010.

       His current research focuses on standalone power supplies using induction generators. During his Ph.D., Rohith worked on hybrid multilevel inverter topologies for induction motor drives, concentrating on the elimination of lower-order harmonics and enhanced DC bus utilization. He has also undertaken power electronics and embedded systems projects, implementing hardware for motor drives and grid-connected inverter applications. His main areas of interest and technical expertise include power converter design, digital controller design, and embedded systems development for power electronics applications.

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Post-Doctoral Fellow

EMAIL

rpottekk@cougarnet.uh.edu

Sai Sushma Pasupuleti

Sai Sushma Pasupuleti is a researcher in Electrical and Computer Engineering with a Bachelors in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad, India. She earned her M.S. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mandi, Himachal Pradesh, India, where her work was recognized with the Best Thesis Award and the Ms. Kiran Bala Aurora Memorial Reward.
Currently, she is pursuing her Ph.D. at the University of Houston, Texas, USA. Her research focuses on power electronic converters, pulsed power systems, PCB design, designing and control of magnetics, data driven methods for power electronic converters and motor drive applications. Sai Sushma’s recent work received support from the IES-SYP Travel Grant for IECON-2024, where she presented her latest research findings. She continues to engage in developing innovative solutions in power electronics and energy systems.

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Ph.D Student

EMAIL

spasupu3@cougarnet.uh.edu

Massiagbe Diabate

Massiagbe Diabate received her bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering in 2021 and her master’s in Electrical Engineering in 2023 from the University of Houston in Texas, USA. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Houston in Texas, USA. Her research interest focuses on power electronics converters for fuel cell technology, and Energy Management Systems (EMS) of Energy Storage Systems (ESSs), such as Hydrogen and Batteries for Microgrids.

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Ph.D Student

EMAIL

mfdiabat@cougarnet.uh.edu

 

Hassan Zahid Butt

Hassan received his bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Air University, Islamabad, Pakistan in 2016 and master’s degree in Electrical Engineering – Power from National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan in 2019. He has worked as a R&D Engineer in SkyElectric Pvt. Ltd. from 2019 to 2022, specializing in Li-Ion based Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS). He is currently working towards his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering at the University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA. His research interests include Microgrid Optimal Sizing & Optimal Energy Management Strategy involving BESS.

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Ph.D Student

EMAIL

hbutt@cougarnet.uh.edu

Ann Mary Toms

Ann received her Bachelor’s degree (B.Tech) in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from University of Kerala in 2017 and a Master’s degree (M.S.) in Electrical Engineering from Rochester Institute of Technology in 2022.  From 2017 to 2020, she worked as an Electrical Engineer for CKR Consulting Engineers in Dubai, UAE.  She is currently working towards her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at the University of Houston.  Her research interest includes microgrid optimal sizing and energy management, grid integration of renewable generation, demand side management and battery storage system planning.

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Ph.D Student

EMAIL

atoms2@cougarnet.uh.edu

 

Resistive Superconducting Fault current limiter integrated with Hybrid DC Circuit Breakers for HVDC System Protection

High voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission system in the subsea industry is being considered as an efficient power transmission solution as the number of power conductors and the reactive power consumption are minimal. However, one of the key challenges in HVDC transmission systems lies in the lack of reliability against short circuit faults. Serious faults can generate surge currents more than one hundred times the normal operating currents. These faults can result in damage to expensive equipment if circuit breakers (CBs) are not fast enough and rated for such a high level of faults. For offshore HV transmission systems, the cost of an unplanned outage as a result of a fault on a HVDC export cable is typically 10-fold to 100-fold the cost of the same failures in onshore HV networks. In view of this, it is desirable to introduce a reliable means of limiting the fault currents so that the CBs open at lower fault currents without any damage.


Resistive-type superconducting fault current limiters (R-SFCLs) made with high-temperature superconducting (HTS) tapes are expected to be the most effective, small-sized and offer reliable protection against such faults due to high critical current density and quick superconducting to normal-state transition. In this project, the fault current limiting performance of DCCB topology, without and with R-SFCL integration, is obtained. Further, the response time of various CB topologies like MCB, Resonant CB (RCB), IGBT based HCB (similar to ABB topology) and thyristor based CIHCB (also called DCCB topology) are also investigated. The integration of R-SFCL decreases the peak current flowing through the breaker, and this enables reduction in the size of breaker. Further, the power loss of CBs for different response time of R-SFCL is analyzed to select the superconductors for R-SFCL and suitable CB topology for future subsea HVDC power transmission systems.

Bharat Bohara

Bharat Bohara received his Bachelors of Engineering (B.E) in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from the Kathmandu University (KU), Nepal in 2015, and Masters of Technology (M.Tech) in Energy and Control System Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, India in 2019. He worked as a Computer Vision Engineer from Aug. 2019 to Aug. 2021 at the Emotix, a robotic startup company in India that builds AI-based companion robots for children. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Houston, TX, USA. His research interests include applications of machine learning in power electronics, computer vision, reinforcement learning, and efficient neural network implementation in FPGAs.

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Ph.D Student

EMAIL

bbohara@cougarnet.uh.edu

OFFICE

N308 Engineering Building 1

Ravi Kumar Gaddala

Ravi Kumar Gaddala received his Bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Bapatla Engineering College, Bapatla, India and Master’s of Technology in Power Electronics and Drives from Indian Institute of Technology Mandi, India in 2016 and 2019, respectively. Later, he worked as an assistant project engineer and junior research fellow at IIT Guwahati and IIT Bhubaneswar in 2019 and 2020, respectively, India. He is currently pursuing Ph.D. in electrical engineering at University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA. His research interests include renewable energy-based grid forming inverters, battery energy storage system, robust control techniques and efficient power sharing methods for power electronic converters.

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Ph.D Student

EMAIL

rgaddala@cougarnet.uh.edu

OFFICE

N308 Engineering Building 1

Anil Kumar Reddy Siddavatam

Anil received his bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Sree Vidyanikethan Engineering College, Tirupati, India in 2017 and the master’s degree in Power Electronics from National Institute of Technology, Calicut, India in 2020. He worked as a PGET (Design Engineer) in Engineering design and research centre at Power Transmission & Distribution IC, Larsen & Toubro Constructions, Chennai, India from August 2020 to July 2021. He is currently pursuing Ph.D. in the department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at University of Houston in Texas, USA. His research interests include switched mode power supplies, internal model control of dual active bridge DC-DC Converter and co-ordinated control of circuit breaker for aerospace applications.

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Ph.D Student

EMAIL

asiddava@cougarnet.uh.edu

OFFICE

N308 Engineering Building 1

Virendra Singh

Virendra Singh received his B.Tech degree in Electrical Engineering from Gurukula Kangri Vishwavidyalaya Haridwar, India in 2017 and the M.Tech. degree in Power Electronics and Drives from the Indian Institute of Technology Mandi, India, in 2019. He was a project engineer in Indian Institute of Technology Madras from November 2019 to October 2020. Currently, he is pursuing Ph.D. in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Houston, Texas, USA. His research interests include microgrids, sensorless control of PMSM drives for subsea applications, and electric vehicles.

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Ph.D Student

EMAIL

vsingh27@cougarnet.uh.edu

OFFICE

N308 Engineering Building 1

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