Access profile

Applicants who meet the admission requirements to enter the doctoral programme in Electronic Engineering and can be accepted without the need for bridging courses must meet three conditions:

• Specific research training in the area of electronic technology.
• Oral and written communication skills in English.
• Have contacted a lecturer associated with the programme who considers that the applicant has the ability and motivation to start a doctoral thesis in one of the subject areas.

The first condition is met if the applicant has gained at least 60 ECTS credits for an EHEA master’s degree with a research focus, or a qualification that proves an equivalent level of training and leads to a doctoral programme in the country of issue, and that these master’s degree credits correspond to training in the area of electronic technology or one of the four subject areas covered by the programme. The list of main entrance qualifications shows which degrees meet this condition. Holders of these qualifications can be admitted without having to take bridging courses. Other qualifications can be identified that could meet the admission requirements, depending on the specialisation and the academic pathway followed by students.

The second condition in the admission requirements is met if the applicant’s native language is English or he/she holds an official, internationally recognised English language certificate (First Certificate, TOEFL, certificates from official language academies) or through a personal interview.

The third condition in the admission requirements is met when, after a meeting with the applicant, the lecturer gives a positive evaluation to the programme coordinator.

Main entrance qualifications
Some of the official Spanish qualifications that meet the first condition in the admission requirements. Candidates who hold these qualifications could be admitted without having to take bridging courses. These qualifications are:
• master's degree in Electronic Engineering
• master’s degree in Automatic Systems Engineering and Industrial Electronics
• master’s degree in Electronic Engineering and Automatic Control
• master's degree in Telecommunications Engineering, specialisation in Electronics
• master’s degree in Network Engineering and Communications, specialisation in Electronics
• master’s degree in Engineering and Management of Telecommunications, specialisation in Research
• master’s degree in Micro- and Nanotechnology Engineering
• master’s degree in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, specialisation in Physical Sciences and Technologies, Information Technologies, Energy and Environment
• master’s degree in Energy and Power Electronics

Other qualifications have some specialisations or academic pathways that could meet the first condition in the admission requirements. These include:
• master's degree in Industrial Engineering
• master's degree in Energy Engineering
• master's degree in Biomedical Engineering
• master’s degree in Information Technologies and Communications
• master’s degree in Physics
• master’s degree in Photonics

In these cases, students may be admitted, but the academic committee of the doctoral programme will examine the candidate’s academic record and determine whether they have obtained specific research training in the field of electronic technology or need to take bridging courses.

Output profile

Doctoral candidates who complete a doctoral degree will have acquired the following competencies, which are needed to carry out quality research (Royal Decree 99/2011, of 28 January, which regulates official doctoral studies):

a) A systematic understanding of the field of study and a mastery of the research skills and methods related to the field.
b) An ability to conceive, design or create, put into practice and adopt a substantial process of research or creation.
c) An ability to contribute to pushing back the frontiers of knowledge through original research.
d) A capacity for critical analysis and an ability to assess and summarise new and complex ideas.
e) An ability to communicate with the academic and scientific community and with society in general as regards their fields of knowledge in the manner and languages that are typical of the international scientific community to which they belong.
f) An ability to foster scientific, technological, social, artistic and cultural progress in academic and professional contexts within a knowledge-based society.

The award of a doctoral degree must equip the graduate for work in a variety of settings, especially those requiring creativity and innovation. Doctoral graduates must have at least acquired the personal skills needed to:

a) Develop in contexts in which there is little specific information.
b) Find the key questions that must be answered to solve a complex problem.
c) Design, create, develop and undertake original, innovative projects in their field.
d) Work as part of a team and independently in an international or multidisciplinary context.
e) Integrate knowledge, deal with complexity and make judgements with limited information.
f) Offer criticism on and intellectually defend solutions.

Finally, with respect to competencies, doctoral students must:
a) have acquired advanced knowledge at the frontier of their discipline and demonstrated, in the context of internationally recognised scientific research, a deep, detailed and well-grounded understanding of theoretical and practical issues and scientific methodology in one or more research fields;
b) have made an original and significant contribution to scientific research in their field of expertise that has been recognised as such by the international scientific community;
c) have demonstrated that they are capable of designing a research project that serves as a framework for carrying out a critical analysis and assessment of imprecise situations, in which they are able to apply their contributions, expertise and working method to synthesise new and complex ideas that yield a deeper knowledge of the research context in which they work;
d) have developed sufficient autonomy to set up, manage and lead innovative research teams and projects and scientific collaborations (both national and international) within their subject area, in multidisciplinary contexts and, where appropriate, with a substantial element of knowledge transfer;
e) have demonstrated that they are able to carry out their research activity in a socially responsible manner and with scientific integrity;
f) have demonstrated, within their specific scientific context, that they are able to make cultural, social or technological advances and promote innovation in all areas within a knowledge-based society;
g) have demonstrated that they are able to participate in scientific discussions at the international level in their field of expertise and disseminate the results of their research activity to audiences of all kinds.

Number of places

20

Duration of studies and dedication regime

Duration
The maximum period of study for full-time doctoral studies is three years, counted from the date of admission to the programme to the date of submission of the doctoral thesis. The academic committee of the doctoral programme may authorise a doctoral candidate to pursue doctoral studies on a part-time basis. In this case, the maximum period of study is five years, counting from the date of admission to the programme to the date of submission of the doctoral thesis. For calculating these periods, the date of admission is considered to be the date of the first enrolment for tutorials, and the date of submission the moment in which the Doctoral School officially deposits the doctoral thesis.

For full-time doctoral candidates, the minimum period of study is two years, counted from the date of an applicant's admission to the programme until the date on which the doctoral thesis is deposited; for part-time doctoral candidates it is four years. When there are justified grounds for doing so, and the thesis supervisor and academic tutor have given their authorisation, doctoral candidates may request that the academic committee of their doctoral programme exempt them from the minimum period of study requirement.

The calculation of periods of study will not include periods of absence due to illness, pregnancy or any other reason provided for in the regulations in force. Students who find themselves in any of these circumstances must notify the academic committee of the doctoral programme, which, where appropriate, must inform the Doctoral School. Doctoral candidates may also temporarily withdraw from the programme for up to one year, and this period may be extended for an additional year. Doctoral candidates who wish to interrupt their studies must submit a justified request to the academic committee of the doctoral programme, which will decide whether or not to approve the request. Each programme will establish conditions for readmission to doctoral studies.

Extension
If full-time doctoral candidates have not applied to deposit their thesis by the end of the three-year period of study, the academic committee of the programme may authorise an extension of up to one year. In exceptional circumstances, a further one-year extension may be granted, subject to the conditions established by the corresponding doctoral programme. In the case of part-time doctoral candidates, an extension of two years may be authorised. In both cases, in exceptional circumstances a further one-year extension may be granted by the Doctoral School's Standing Committee, upon the submission of a reasoned application by the academic committee of the doctoral programme.

Dismissal from the doctoral programme
A doctoral candidate may be dismissed from a doctoral programme for the following reasons:

• The doctoral candidate submitting a justified application to withdraw from the programme.
• The maximum period of study and of extensions thereof ending.
• The doctoral candidate not having enrolled every academic year (unless he or she has been authorised to temporarily withdraw).
• The doctoral candidate failing two consecutive assessments.
• The doctoral candidate having disciplinary proceedings filed against him or her that rule that he or she must be dismissed from the UPC.

Dismissal from the programme implies that doctoral candidates cannot continue studying at the UPC and the closing of their academic record. This notwithstanding, they may apply to the academic committee of the programme for readmission and the committee must reevaluate them in accordance with the criteria established in the regulations.

Organization

• Moll Echeto, Francesc

• del Rio Fernandez, Joaquin
• Martinez Garcia, Herminio
• Moll Echeto, Francesc
• Puigdollers Gonzalez, Joaquim
• Rodriguez Montañes, Rosa

University of the Balearic Islands (UIB)

• Department of Electronic Engineering (PROMOTORA)

doctorat.eel@upc.edu

Access profile

Applicants who meet the admission requirements to enter the doctoral programme in Electronic Engineering and can be accepted without the need for bridging courses must meet three conditions:

• Specific research training in the area of electronic technology.
• Oral and written communication skills in English.
• Have contacted a lecturer associated with the programme who considers that the applicant has the ability and motivation to start a doctoral thesis in one of the subject areas.

The first condition is met if the applicant has gained at least 60 ECTS credits for an EHEA master’s degree with a research focus, or a qualification that proves an equivalent level of training and leads to a doctoral programme in the country of issue, and that these master’s degree credits correspond to training in the area of electronic technology or one of the four subject areas covered by the programme. The list of main entrance qualifications shows which degrees meet this condition. Holders of these qualifications can be admitted without having to take bridging courses. Other qualifications can be identified that could meet the admission requirements, depending on the specialisation and the academic pathway followed by students.

The second condition in the admission requirements is met if the applicant’s native language is English or he/she holds an official, internationally recognised English language certificate (First Certificate, TOEFL, certificates from official language academies) or through a personal interview.

The third condition in the admission requirements is met when, after a meeting with the applicant, the lecturer gives a positive evaluation to the programme coordinator.

Main entrance qualifications
Some of the official Spanish qualifications that meet the first condition in the admission requirements. Candidates who hold these qualifications could be admitted without having to take bridging courses. These qualifications are:
• master's degree in Electronic Engineering
• master’s degree in Automatic Systems Engineering and Industrial Electronics
• master’s degree in Electronic Engineering and Automatic Control
• master's degree in Telecommunications Engineering, specialisation in Electronics
• master’s degree in Network Engineering and Communications, specialisation in Electronics
• master’s degree in Engineering and Management of Telecommunications, specialisation in Research
• master’s degree in Micro- and Nanotechnology Engineering
• master’s degree in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, specialisation in Physical Sciences and Technologies, Information Technologies, Energy and Environment
• master’s degree in Energy and Power Electronics

Other qualifications have some specialisations or academic pathways that could meet the first condition in the admission requirements. These include:
• master's degree in Industrial Engineering
• master's degree in Energy Engineering
• master's degree in Biomedical Engineering
• master’s degree in Information Technologies and Communications
• master’s degree in Physics
• master’s degree in Photonics

In these cases, students may be admitted, but the academic committee of the doctoral programme will examine the candidate’s academic record and determine whether they have obtained specific research training in the field of electronic technology or need to take bridging courses.

Access requirements

Applicants must hold a Spanish bachelor’s degree or equivalent and a Spanish master’s degree or equivalent, provided they have completed a minimum of 300 ECTS credits on the two degrees (Royal Decree 43/2015, of 2 February)

In addition, the following may apply:

• Holders of an official degree awarded by a university in Spain or any other country in the European Higher Education Area, pursuant to the provisions of Article 16 of Royal Decree 1393/2007, of 29 October, which establishes official university course regulations, who have completed a minimum of 300 ECTS credits on official university degrees, of which at least 60 must be at the master's degree level.
• Holders of an official Spanish bachelor’s degree comprising at least 300 credits, as provided for by EU regulations. Holder of degrees of this kind must complete bridging courses unless the curriculum of the bachelor’s degree in question included research training credits equivalent in value to those which would be earned on a master's degree.
• Holders of an official university qualification who, having passed the entrance examination for specialised medical training, have completed at least two years of a training course leading to an official degree in a health-sciences specialisation.
• Holders of a degree issued under a foreign education system. In these cases, homologation is not required, but the UPC must verify that the degree certifies a level of training equivalent to an official Spanish master's degree and qualifies the holder for admission to doctoral studies in the country where it was issued. Admission on this basis does not imply homologation of the foreign degree or its recognition for any purpose other than admission to doctoral studies.
• Holders of a Spanish doctoral qualification issued under previous university regulations.

Note 1: Doctoral studies entrance regulations for holders of an undergraduate degree awarded before the introduction of the EHEA (CG 47/02 2014)

Note 2: Governing Council Decision 64/2014, which approves the procedure and criteria for assessing the fulfilment of academic admission requirements for doctoral studies by holders of non-homologated foreign degrees (CG 25/03 2014)

Admission criteria and merits assessment

The academic committee checks compliance with the admission requirements according to current legislation. It makes the decision on admission and whether bridging courses are required. The decision is based on the documents that have been submitted, and the principles of merit and equal opportunities are upheld.

The following aspects are assessed for each applicant and points are given for each one:

• Suitability of the competencies gained by students in their entrance qualification (up to 3 points).
• Academic record (up to 3 points).
• Knowledge of the English language (up to 1 point).
• Assessment by the research group and integration into projects (up to 3 points).

The points for each aspect will be added to give each applicant’s entrance score. In general, candidates who meet the conditions in the admission requirement and obtain an entrance score of at least 6 points will be admitted. If the demand is greater than the offer of places, applicants will be ranked according to the score obtained. Applicants who gained the highest scores will be admitted first.

Criteria for establishing bridging courses

For the following three admission cases:

1. Applicants who have a bachelor’s degree (or equivalent) and master’s degree issued in Spain.
2. Applicants who have a university qualification issued in Spain or another country within the European Higher Education Area that qualifies them to access master’s degree studies and who have gained at least 300 ECTS credits in all their university courses, of which at least 60 credits must have been awarded for master’s degree studies.
3. Applicants who have a qualification obtained in a foreign education system that does not require homologation, once the UPC has checked that the qualification demonstrates a level of training equivalent to the Spanish master’s degree and qualifies the holder to access doctoral studies in the country of issue.

• If the applicant demonstrates that they meet all three admission requirements, they are accepted on the programme without having to take bridging courses and are assigned a tutor.
  
• If, after an examination of the academic record for the master’s degree, the applicants have not demonstrated sufficient specific research training in the electronic technology field but they have the approval of a research group to prepare their doctoral thesis, they will be admitted on the condition that they take certain bridging courses, after consultation with the proposed tutor.

4. In the case of applicants who hold a Spanish bachelor’s degree whose duration was at least 300 ECTS credits, in accordance with European community regulations:

• If applicants meet the three specific admission requirements because the bachelor’s degree curriculum includes research credits that are equivalent in terms of training value to research credits from master’s degree courses, they are accepted on the programme without having to take bridging courses and are assigned a tutor.
• If the bachelor’s degree curriculum does not include research credits that are equivalent in terms of training value to research credits from master’s degree studies, but the applicants have the approval of a research group to prepare the doctoral thesis, they are accepted with the requirement of taking bridging courses, after consultation with the proposed tutor.

Training complements

The academic committee for the programme may require that doctoral students pass specific bridging courses. In this case, it will monitor the bridging courses that are taken and establish suitable criteria to limit their duration.

The bridging courses will be on research training, but doctoral students will never be required to enrol for a number of credits equal to or above 60 ECTS. The academic regulations of doctoral studies state that bridging courses may also be cross-disciplinary. However, this point is likely to be amended so that bridging courses are only associated with research credits, particularly when an applicant enters the doctoral programme with a bachelor’s degree worth 300 ECTS.

Considering the doctoral student activity report (DAD), the academic committee of the programme could propose additional measures to those established in the regulations that lead to the withdrawal of doctoral students who do not meet the established criteria.

As described in the admission requirements, bridging courses are only required of students who are admitted and do not have evidence of specific research training in the area of electronic technology. Students who hold one of the main entrance qualifications specified in the admission requirements will not be assigned any bridging courses.

The bridging courses that are required will always consist of ECTS credits associated with research subjects from the master's degree in Electronic Engineering at the UPC or the UIB, or other related master’s degrees, that are proposed by the thesis tutor.

For students described in cases 1, 2 or 3 in the section on admission requirements, the number of credits will be between 5 and 30, and will be established depending on the applicant's academic record and after consultation with the proposed tutor.

For students described in case 4 in the section on admission requirements, the number of credits will be between 15 and 50, and will be established depending on the applicant’s academic record and after consultation with the proposed tutor.

Bridging courses should be passed within a year from the first enrolment, and the academic committee of the programme will be responsible for verifying this at the time of the annual tutorial assessment. Students will be considered to have passed the bridging courses if they have passed the assessments established in the master’s degree subjects for which they have enrolled.

Enrolment period for new doctoral students

Students enrolling in the doctoral programme for the first time must do so by the deadline specified in the admission decision.

Unless otherwise expressly indicated, enrolments corresponding to admission decisions issued from the second half of April on must be completed within the ordinary enrolment period for the current academic year.

More information at the registration section for new doctoral students

Enrolment period

Ordinary period for second and successive enrolments: first half of October in the current academic year.

More information at the general registration section

Procedure for the preparation and defense of the research plan

Doctoral candidates must submit a research plan, which will be included in their doctoral student activity report, before the end of the first year. The plan may be improved over the course of the doctoral degree. It must be endorsed by the tutor and the supervisor, and it must include the method that is to be followed and the aims of the research.

At least one of these annual assessments will include a public presentation and defence of the research plan and work done before a committee composed of three doctoral degree holders, which will be conducted in the manner determined by each academic committee. The examination committee awards a Pass or Fail mark. A Pass mark is a prerequisite for continuing on the doctoral programme. Doctoral candidates awarded a Fail mark must submit a new research plan for assessment by the academic committee of the doctoral programme within six months.

The committee assesses the research plan every year, in addition to all of the other activities in the doctoral student activity report. Doctoral candidates who are awarded two consecutive Fail marks for the research plan will be obliged to definitely withdraw from the programme.

If they change the subject of their thesis, they must submit a new research plan.

Formation activities

Activity: Tutorial.
Hours: 288.
Type: compulsory.
Description:
Advice, assistance, monitoring and assessment of doctoral students so that they gain the competencies they are expected to have by the end of the programme.
Tutorials are held periodically during the entire programme.

Activity: Writing research reports as part of funded research projects.
Hours: 20.
Type: optional.
Description: Participation in funded research projects and the preparation of progress reports and final reports, as training in carrying out research with teams from the same and other institutions, and with a contractual structure.

Activity: Attendance of conferences.
Hours: 24.
Type: optional.
Description: Attendance of scientific conferences relating to the research area that are preferably international and of proven relevance, to find out the latest advances in the doctoral student’s research area and to make contact, present and discuss the progress of the research with other researchers working in the same area.

Activity: Publications.
Hours: 30.
Type: compulsory.
Description: Publication of the thesis results in indexed journals, preferably high impact journals (JCR index), patents accepted, or publications at international conferences of proven relevance (notable conference, according to UPC classification).
Type: compulsory. Estimate of time in hours to write a four-page article = 30 hours.
Doctoral students are expected to carry out this activity between the second and third years of the thesis.
In the annual tutorial assessment of the second year, doctoral students must describe a paper they have published.
Before the thesis submission is authorised, doctoral students must also describe a paper they have published. In all cases, the doctoral student should be the first author.

Activity: Doctoral-company meetings.
Hours: 8.
Type: optional.
Description: Participation in doctoral meetings, to disseminate the research work within the university community and in the surrounding social and business environment, with a view to joining the job market.

Activity: Mobility.
Hours: 480.
Type: optional.
Description: Research visit to centres abroad to complete part of the thesis, in order to participate in different teams/work systems, establish collaborations and benefit from the experience and resources of other work teams.
Research visits: Calculation of 40 hours a week for 12 weeks approximately.

Activity: Assessment based on doctoral student activity report (DAD) and research plan.
Hours: 4.
Type: compulsory.
Description: Validation of the academic progress of doctoral students and of the objectives and methodology that they are following in the research work.

Activity: Courses and conferences.
Hours: 10.
Type: optional.
Description: Enhancement of knowledge in the area related to the doctoral thesis research, by attending courses and talks given by lecturers who are not involved in the programme. Previous example: http://eel.postgrau.upc.edu/informacion-academica/cursos-y-seminarios.

Activity: Participation in specific seminars of research groups within the university.
Hours: 10.
Type: optional.
Description: Participation in seminars organised by research groups within the university, as an internal forum for presentation and discussion of individual and joint research progress.

Procedure for assignment of tutor and thesis director

The academic committee of the doctoral programme assigns a thesis supervisor to each doctoral candidate when they are admitted or enrol for the first time, taking account of the thesis supervision commitment referred to in the admission decision.

The thesis supervisor will ensure that training activities carried out by the doctoral candidate are coherent and suitable, and that the topic of the candidate’s doctoral thesis will have an impact and make a novel contribution to knowledge in the relevant field. The thesis supervisor will also guide the doctoral candidate in planning the thesis and, if necessary, tailoring it to any other projects or activities undertaken. The thesis supervisor will generally be a UPC professor or researcher who holds a doctoral degree and has documented research experience. This includes PhD-holding staff at associated schools (as determined by the Governing Council) and UPC-affiliated research institutes (in accordance with corresponding collaboration and affiliation agreements). When thesis supervisors are UPC staff members, they also act as the doctoral candidate’s tutor.

PhD holders who do not meet these criteria (as a result of their contractual relationship or the nature of the institution to which they are attached) must be approved by the UPC Doctoral School's Standing Committee in order to participate in a doctoral programme as researchers with documented research experience.

The academic committee of the doctoral programme may approve the appointment of a PhD-holding expert who is not a UPC staff member as a candidate’s thesis supervisor. In such cases, the prior authorisation of the UPC Doctoral School's Standing Committee is required. A UPC staff member who holds a doctoral degree and has documented research experience must also be proposed to act as a co-supervisor, or as the doctoral candidate’s tutor if one has not been assigned.

A thesis supervisor may step down from this role if there are justified reasons (recognised as valid by the committee) for doing so. If this occurs, the academic committee of the doctoral programme will assign the doctoral candidate a new thesis supervisor.

Provided there are justified reasons for doing so, and after hearing any relevant input from the doctoral candidate, the academic committee of the doctoral programme may assign a new thesis supervisor at any time during the period of doctoral study.

If there are academic reasons for doing so (an interdisciplinary topic, joint or international programmes, etc.) and the academic committee of the programme gives its approval, an additional thesis supervisor may be assigned. Supervisors and co-supervisors have the same responsibilities and academic recognition.

The maximum number of supervisors of a doctoral thesis is two: a supervisor and a co-supervisor.

For theses carried out under a cotutelle agreement or as part of an Industrial Doctorate, if necessary and if the agreement foresees it this maximum number of supervisors may not apply. This notwithstanding, the maximum number of supervisors belonging to the UPC is two.

More information at the PhD theses section

Permanence

The academic committee of the programme may authorise an extension of up to one year for full-time doctoral candidates who have not applied to deposit their thesis by the end of the three-year period of study, in the terms outlined in the Academic Regulations for Doctoral Studies of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. In the case of part-time candidates, an extension of two years may be authorised. In both cases, in exceptional circumstances a further one-year extension may be granted by the Doctoral School's Standing Committee, upon the submission of a reasoned application by the academic committee of the doctoral programme.

A doctoral candidate may be dismissed from a doctoral programme for the following reasons:

• The doctoral candidate submitting a justified application to withdraw from the programme.
• The maximum period of study and of extensions thereof ending.
• The doctoral candidate not having enrolled every academic year (unless he or she has been authorised to temporarily withdraw).
• The doctoral candidate failing two consecutive assessments.
• The doctoral candidate having disciplinary proceedings filed against him or her that rule that he or she must be dismissed from the UPC.

Dismissal from the programme implies that doctoral candidates cannot continue studying at the UPC and the closing of their academic record. This notwithstanding, they may apply to the academic committee of the programme for readmission and the committee must reevaluate them in accordance with the criteria established in the regulations.

International Mention

The doctoral degree certificate may include International Doctorate mention. In this case, the doctoral candidate must meet the following requirements:

a) During the period of study leading to the award of the doctoral degree, the doctoral candidate must have spent at least three months at a respected higher education institution or research centre outside Spain to complete courses or do research work. The stays and activities carried out must be endorsed by the thesis supervisor and authorised by the academic committee of the programme. The candidate must provide a certifying document issued by the person responsible for the research group of the body or bodies where the stay or activity was completed. This information will be added to the doctoral student’s activity report.
b) Part of the thesis (at least the summary and conclusions) must be written and presented in one of the languages commonly used for science communication in the relevant field of knowledge, which must not be an official language of Spain. This rule does not apply to stays and reports in Spanish or to experts from Spanish-speaking countries.
c) At least two PhD-holding experts belonging to a higher education institution or research centre outside Spain must have issued officially certified reports on the thesis.
d) The thesis examination committee must have included at least one PhD-holding expert from a higher education or research institution outside Spain who was not responsible for the candidate’s stay abroad (point a) above).
e) The thesis defence must have taken place on UPC premises or, in the case of joint programmes, at the location specified in the collaboration agreement.

List of authorized thesis for defense

Last update: 06/10/2022 04:45:23.

List of lodged theses

• RAFIEZADEH, ROYA: Contributions to the Characterization and Design Optimization of Power Converters Based on Switching-Cell Arrays
  
  Author: RAFIEZADEH, ROYA
  Thesis file: (contact the Doctoral School to confirm you have a valid doctoral degree and to get the link to the thesis)
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING
  Department: Department of Electronic Engineering (EEL)
  Mode: Normal
  Deposit date: 28/09/2022
  Reading date: pending
  Reading time: pending
  Reading place: pending
  Thesis director: BUSQUETS MONGE, SERGIO | ALEPUZ MENENDEZ, SALVADOR SIMON
  Committee:
       PRESIDENT: CÓBRECES ÁLVAREZ, SANTIAGO
       SECRETARI: BORDONAU FARRERONS, JOSE
       VOCAL: DE PABLO GÓMEZ, SANTIAGO
  Thesis abstract: The search for standardization in power converter design is motivated by the potential of a significant decrease in design time, a significant decrease in converter cost, and an increase in converter performance features. A systematic design process of power converters employing standard components is to be found. One recent approach to reach this goal consists of the design of power converters based on the so-called switching-cell arrays (SCAs). An SCA is a matrix arrangement of highly optimized switching cells (SCs) that can be interconnected in different ways to implement active neutral-point-clamped converter legs with different voltage and current ratings. These legs can then be used to implement the complete switching block of power converters. Each SC is composed of an active switch with an antiparallel diode controlled by a self-powered gate driver. The design process of power converter legs based on SCAs offers several degrees of freedom and advantages, and a thorough exploration of the potential of this new promising approach remains a pending issue. The general purpose of this thesis is to explore the potential of the power converter design based on SCAs built upon a limited number of different SCs. This research is focused on the search for the optimal diversity of SCs, SCAs configurations, and switching strategies to implement optimized SCA-based power converter legs considering efficiency, reliability, and simplicity. To be able to compare different possible designs of SCA-based power converter legs, firstly, an appropriate steady-state average thermo-electrical model is derived to allow estimating the losses and temperature of all power semiconductor devices within the converter leg. The effectiveness and accuracy of this model in capturing the main performance features of the system are verified through analytical and experimental comparisons. Secondly, to further extend the performance analysis, a fast reliability assessment of neutral-point-clamped topologies through Markov models is developed. Model assumptions are verified through experimental tests. Besides, the reliability comparison of different converter leg configurations based on the proposed model is presented. Then, employing the proposed thermo-electrical and reliability models, the thermal and reliability benefits of configuring the power semiconductor block of power converters with several small standard power semiconductor devices instead of a few larger ones at a fixed total chip area are explored. The effectiveness of a finer power semiconductor device granularity is analyzed in the context of a synchronous buck converter design under different operating conditions and while employing SCAs to implement the semiconductor-component block of the power converter leg. Finally, an automated design optimization approach based on a surrogate algorithm is presented to determine the optimal design configuration of SCA-based power converter legs, including the number of parallel SCs in each converter leg position and the distribution of switching losses among SCs. Two types of conversion systems are considered in order to illustrate the design optimization approach: a synchronous buck de-de converter and a three-phase dc-ac converter.
  

Last update: 06/10/2022 04:30:28.

List of defended theses by year

• AGHAZADEH DAFSARI, SEYED RASOUL: Timed Array Antenna System: Application to Wideband and Ultra-Wideband Beamforming Receivers
  
  Author: AGHAZADEH DAFSARI, SEYED RASOUL
  Thesis link: http://hdl.handle.net/10803/674303
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING
  Department: Department of Electronic Engineering (EEL)
  Mode: Normal
  Reading date: 03/05/2022
  Thesis director: MARTINEZ GARCIA, HERMINIO
  

  Committee:
       PRESIDENT: LOPEZ VILLEGAS, JOSE MARIA
       SECRETARI: COSP VILELLA, JORDI
       VOCAL: URANGA DEL MONTE, ARANTZAZU
  Thesis abstract: Antenna array systems have a broad range of applications in radio frequency (RF) and ultra-wideband (UWB) communications to receive/transmit electromagnetic waves from/to the sky. They can enhance the amplitude of the input signals, steer beams electronically, and reject interferences thanks to beamforming technique. In an antenna array beamforming system, delay cells with the tunable capability of delay amount compensate the relative delay of signals received by antennas. In fact, each antenna almost acts individually depending upon time delaying effects on the input signals. As a result, the delay cells are the basic elements of the beamforming systems. For this purpose, novel active true time delay (TTD) cells suitable for RF antenna arrays have been presented in this thesis. These active delay cells are based on 1st- and 2nd-order all-pass filters (APFs) and achieve quite a flat gain and delay within up to 10-GHz frequency range. Various techniques such as phase linearity and delay tunability have been accomplished to improve the design and performance. The 1st-order APF has been designed for a frequency range of 5 GHz, showing desirable frequency responses and linearity which is comparable with the state-of-the-art. This 1st-order APF is able to convert into a 2nd-order APF via adding a grounded capacitor. A compact 2nd-order APF using an active inductor has been also designed and simulated for frequencies up to 10 GHz. The active inductor has been utilized to tune the amount of delay and to reduce the on-chip size of the filter. In order to validate the performance of the delay cells, two UWB four-channel timed array beamforming receivers realized by the active TTD cells have been proposed. Each antenna channel exploits digitally controllable gain and delay on the input signal and demonstrates desirable gain and delay resolutions. The beamforming receivers have been designed for different UWB applications depending on their operating frequency ranges (that is, 3-5 and 3.1-10.6 GHz), and thus they have different system requirements and specifications. All the circuits and topologies presented in this dissertation have been designed in standard 180-nm CMOS technologies, featuring a unity gain frequency ( ft) up to 60 GHz.
  

• ALFARO ARAGÓN, CARLOS ARTURO: Una nueva perspectiva del modelado y control de microrredes eléctricas y convertidores de potencia
  
  Author: ALFARO ARAGÓN, CARLOS ARTURO
  Thesis file: (contact the Doctoral School to confirm you have a valid doctoral degree and to get the link to the thesis)
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING
  Department: Department of Electronic Engineering (EEL)
  Mode: Article-based thesis
  Reading date: 28/06/2022
  Thesis director: GARCIA DE VICUÑA MUÑOZ DE LA NAVA, JOSE LUIS | GUZMAN SOLA, RAMON
  

  Committee:
       PRESIDENT: FIGUERES AMORÓS, EMILIO
       SECRETARI: CASTILLA FERNANDEZ, MIGUEL
       VOCAL: GARCERÁ SANFELIU, GABRIEL
  Thesis abstract: This doctoral thesis focuses on the modeling and control of electrical microgrids and triphasic converters. The starting points of this research work are based on previous work on modeling electrical microgrids working in isolated mode, and on the theoretical basis of control based on the slope method, widely studied in electrical microgrids. In addition, this work is basedon previous work on predictive control applied to three-phase converters, and on the theoretical bases of this type of control widely used in Power Electronics. The main contribution of this doctoral thesis is the deduction of a large-signal mathematicalmodel that describes the dynamics of the active and reactive powers that flow through converters connected in the microgrid.This proposal will make it possible to obtain new control techniques for three-phase converters connected in microgrids, suchas model-based predictive control, for example. It should be noted that the use of this model can be used as a tool to deducethe global stability of the microgrid. The systems treated in this thesis are a three-phase rectifier with a unity power factor anda three-phase microgrid composed of five three-phase inverters.
  

• CANZIANI AMICO, FRANCO: Design and Implementation of Rural Microgrids ¿ Laguna Grande Case Study
  
  Author: CANZIANI AMICO, FRANCO
  Thesis link: http://hdl.handle.net/10803/675056
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING
  Department: Department of Electronic Engineering (EEL)
  Mode: Normal
  Reading date: 22/07/2022
  Thesis director: CASTILLA FERNANDEZ, MIGUEL | MIRET TOMAS, JAUME
  

  Committee:
       PRESIDENT: FIGUERES AMORÓS, EMILIO
       SECRETARI: GARCIA DE VICUÑA MUÑOZ DE LA NAVA, JOSE LUIS
       VOCAL: GARCERÁ SANFELIU, GABRIEL
  Thesis abstract: In 2015 the United Nations established the 17 Sustainable Development Goals: a set of interrelated objectives and a guide to reach a more sustainable and higher quality future for all humanity.The goals were set with a timeline for 2030, the seventh goal refers specifically to the universal access to ¿affordable and clean energy¿. Taking account the considerable fraction of world population that do not have access to electricity, especially in rural areas, this goal still requires a great effort and investment.Rural hybrid microgrids, that integrate and manage solar and wind energy resources to provide electricservice to remote locations, are a promising solution to reach this ¿last mile¿ scenario. However, as is reported in the literature, there is still scarce information about the performance of these systems based on measured data obtained in real working field conditions. This work aims to contribute to this aspect mainly by analyzing the data obtained in the 9 kW Laguna Grande community hybrid microgrid, which is cooperative since 2016 in the coast of Perú, and has been equipped with sensors and data acquisitionsystems that measure and register solar radiation, wind speed, temperatures, and all the relevant electric parameters.As a preliminary study, the rural electrification gap and costs are assessed, as well as the availability of solar and wind resources in the area of interest. A literature and state of the art review is undertaken followed by the definition of the microgrid concept and the different ways in which a rural microgrid can be configured. The particular way in which the Laguna Grande microgrid is configured and instrumented is described. Measured meteorological conditions as solar radiation, wind speed and temperature are analyzed and related to the power generated by the photovoltaic arrays and wind turbine. This in turn leads to a balance with respect to the power delivered to the community and consequently to the voltage levels of the battery bank. Battery dynamics concepts are used to determine the depth of discharge (DOD) of the batteries in a real time regime. The statistics of the DOD values allows for the duration of the battery to be estimated which is a key factor to the microgrid economics and reliability.A parametric study is done to assess the effect of varying battery size on the technical andeconomic performance of the microgrid; similarly, with generating capacity in both photovoltaic arraysand wind turbines. Complementarily, a commercial software is used to optimize the microgrid, introducing state of the art components as lithium-ion batteries, power electronics and photovoltaic modules for a future upgrade. Finally, this study would not be complete without emphasizing the importance and adequate consideration of the human factor for the success and long-term sustainability of rural electrification projects.
  

• CARANDELL WIDMER, MATIAS: Contributions to the design of energy harvesting systems for autonomous sensors in low power marine applications
  
  Author: CARANDELL WIDMER, MATIAS
  Thesis link: http://hdl.handle.net/10803/674152
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING
  Department: Department of Electronic Engineering (EEL)
  Mode: Article-based thesis
  Reading date: 28/04/2022
  Thesis director: DEL RIO FERNANDEZ, JOAQUIN | GASULLA FORNER, MANUEL
  

  Committee:
       PRESIDENT: SEAN HOLMES, ANDREW
       SECRETARI: GOMARIZ CASTRO, SPARTACUS
       VOCAL: CHUMBINHO, ROGERIO
  Thesis abstract: Oceanographic sensor platforms provide biological and meteorological data to help understand changes in marine environment and help to preserve it. Lagrangian drifters are autonomous passive floating platforms used in climate research to obtain surface marine data. They are low-cost, versatile, easy-to-deploy and can cover large extensions of the ocean when deployed in group.These deployments can last for years, so one of the main design challenges is the autonomy of the drifter. Several energy harvesting (EH) sources are being explored to reduce costs in battery replacement maintenance efforts such as solar panels. Drifters must avoid the impact of the wind because this may compromise proper surface current tracking and therefore, should ideally be mostly submerged. This interferes with the feasibility of solar harvesting, so other EH sources are being explored such as the oscillatory movement of the drifter caused by ocean waves. Wave energy converters (WEC) are the devices that turn this movement into energy.The motion of the drifter can principally be described by 3 oscillatory degrees of freedom (DoF); surge, heave and pitch. The heave motion includes the buoyancy¿s response of the drifter, which can be explained by a mass-spring-damping model. By including the wave¿s hydrodynamic load in this model, it is converted into a nonlinear system whose frequency response includesthe wave¿s frequency and the natural frequencies from the linear system. A smart option to maximize the captured energy is to design the inner WEC with a natural frequency similar to that of the drifter's movement. In this thesis, a 4 DoF model is obtained. This model includes the heave, the surge and the pitch motion of the drifter in addition to the inner pendulum motion relative to the buoy. Simultaneously, different pendulum-type WECs for small-size oceanic drifters are proposed. One of these converters consists of an articulated double-pendulum arm with a proof mass that generates energy through its relative motion with thebuoy. Different experimental tests are carried out, with a prototype below 10 cm in diameter and 300 g of total mass, proving the capability of harvesting hundreds of microwatts in standard sea conditionsEH sources require an additional power management unit (PMU) to convert their variable output into a constant and clean source to be able to feed the sensor electronics. PMUs should also ensure that the maximum available energy is harvested with a maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithm. Some sources, such as WECs, require fast MPPT as its output can show relatively rapid variations. However, increasing the sampling rate may reduce the harvested energy. In this thesis, this trade-off is analyzed using the resistor-based fractional open circuit voltage-MPPT technique, which is appropriate for low-power EHsources. Several experiments carried out in marine environments demonstrate the need for increasing the sampling rate. For this purpose, the use of a commercial PMU IC with additional low-power circuitry is proposed. Three novel circuits with a sampling period of 60 ms are manufactured and experimentally evaluated with a small-scale and low-power WEC. Results show that theseconfigurations improve the harvested energy by 26% in comparison to slow sampling rate configurations.Finally, an EH-powered oceanographic monitoring system with a custom wave measuring algorithm is designed. By using the energy collected by a small-size WEC, this system is capable of transmitting up to 22 messages per day containing data on itslocation and measured wave parameters.
  

• CARRIÓ DÍAZ, DAVID: Simulació 2D/3D de cèl.lules solars de silici de contactes posteriors
  
  Author: CARRIÓ DÍAZ, DAVID
  Thesis link: http://hdl.handle.net/10803/675063
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING
  Department: Department of Electronic Engineering (EEL)
  Mode: Normal
  Reading date: 25/07/2022
  Thesis director: ORTEGA VILLASCLARAS, PABLO RAFAEL
  

  Committee:
       PRESIDENT: DELLA PIRRIERA, MÓNICA BEATRIZ
       SECRETARI: VOZ SANCHEZ, CRISTOBAL
       VOCAL: GALINDO LORENTE, SERGI
  Thesis abstract: In order to optimize photovoltaic conversion efficiency, various solar cell architectures based on monocrystalline silicon (c-Si) have emerged in the past. Solar cells with interdigitated back contacts IBC (Interdigitated Back-Contacted cell), by placing the contacts on the back, allow greater absorption of light, and improve the integration of the cells in the module. Throughout the thesis, various designs and types of c-Si IBC cells will be studied, some of them finally manufactured in the laboratory of the Micro and MNT Nanotechnologies of the UPC. After studying the state of the art in this type of structures in chapter 1 of the thesis, an introduction will be made to the physical models used in the simulation in chapter 2. In addition, the concept of unitary cell and minimum cell will introduced in order to reduce time and memory resources during simulations. Periodic repetition of the unit cell in the X and Y axes reproduces the total solar cell electrical behavior by current scaling. In chapter 3, IBC structures with back point contacts with constant unit cell are studied. This type of contact structure is suitable for the laser technology available to the MNT group for the manufacture of solar cells. In this case, by lasing dielectric layers containing aluminum and phosphorus, p+ and n+ contacts are achieved, respectively. The simulations will allow determining the optimal distance or pitch between contacts, as well as the efficiency potential that can be achieved through this concept, considering the recombination speed of the base contact. In chapter 4, alternatives of greater complexity are analyzed to mitigate the effect of poor passivation of the base contacts, either using point contacts or structures based on more conventional techniques based on doped regions in strips, for example. In this chapter, an important and novel geometric parameter is defined, such as the emitter coverage factor (FE). This parameter takes into account the weight of the emitter contacts/regions in the performance of the device, and it should be the higher as possible to mitigate the pernicious effect of having a base contact with poor passivation. In addition, various strategies will be discussed, either keeping the unit cell constant or increasing using either point contacts or using large doped regions (large emitter coverage strategy). Thanks to the concepts used in this chapter, the MNT group has been able to develop solar cells with laser point contacts in collaboration with the Laser Center of the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM) with efficiencies over 20 %. In chapter 5, the effect of the series resistance of the metallization grid and contacts is analyzed, as well as how to include it in the simulations. In chapter 6, simulations will allow dimensioning and studying the best geometry to apply to IBC solar cells with black silicon (b-Si) nanostructures on the front surface. Thanks to the simulations, photolithography masks have been designed for manufacturing of IBC b-Si solar cells, in collaboration with the Finnish University of Aalto, achieving efficiencies beyond 22 %, which are the highest achieved to date. by combining an IBC structure with front b-Si. Also, as a result of the simulations, photolithography masks have been designed for the manufacture of a black minimodule in collaboration with the Finnish company Valoe. Finally, in chapter 7, the potential offered by IBC solar cells for low and medium concentration applications is explored.
  

• CISNEROS FERNÁNDEZ, JOSE AGUSTÍN: Low-Power High-Channel-Count CMOS ROICs for Multiplexed Arrays of Graphene Transistors in Large-Area µECoG
  
  Author: CISNEROS FERNÁNDEZ, JOSE AGUSTÍN
  Thesis file: (contact the Doctoral School to confirm you have a valid doctoral degree and to get the link to the thesis)
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING
  Department: Department of Electronic Engineering (EEL)
  Mode: Normal
  Reading date: 07/07/2022
  Thesis director: SERRA GRAELLS, FRANCESC | GUIMERA BRUNET, ANTON
  

  Committee:
       PRESIDENT: DELGADO RESTITUTO, MANUEL
       SECRETARI: MOLL ECHETO, FRANCESC DE BORJA
       VOCAL: MORA LOPEZ, CAROLINA
  Thesis abstract: There is an increasing interest on the development of neural interfaces able to decipher the neural activity across multiple regions of the brain. The ultimate goal is understanding how the underlying brain dynamics drive the cognitive activities, such learning and moving or the response towards impairing diseases. Despite the huge advance in neuroscience, there is still a lack of knowledge for a complete conception of the brain, mainly because the neural activity spans over a wide range of temporal and spatial resolutions making it difficult to be recorded with a single technology.The electrical nature of the brain activity makes electrophysiology of paramount importance for the deep study of brain dynamics. Indeed, the current state-of-art invasive electrophysiological techniques include intracortical monolithic CMOS ROICs able to resolve the neural activity from single neurons, and epicortical hybrid MEAs for the recording of µECoG signals. The monolithic solutions have benefited from the scalability of CMOS technologies, with on-chip recording sensors and circuits, while hybrid neural interfaces still suffer from the point-to-point connectivity limitations and they have been mainly focused on exotic materials and discrete electronics.This PhD thesis explores novel multiplexing techniques for graphene active sensing arrays by means of tailored ROIC architectures and mixed-signal CMOS circuits, which extend the state-of-art coverage to larger areas with high-density neural interfaces by solving the current connectivity restrictions of hybrid systems. In this sense, this research presents two 1024-channel ROIC demonstrators in 1.8-V 180-nm CMOS technology representing a substantial increment on the channel count in hybrid systems while keeping the system integration at low cost and low complexity.The first research line, proposes a conservative approach based on a time-domain multiplexing scheme to minimize the connectivity for G-SGFET-only sensor arrays by moving the selection switches to the CMOS ROIC. Apart from solving the connectivity issue, the proposed multiplexing scheme is able to reduce the array technological complexity while preserving the demonstrated DC-coupled neural recording capability of G-SGFET sensors. Moreover, a modular ROIC architecture and accompanying CMOS circuits are introduced to overcome the main design challenges on channel-count scalability, like individual offset current cancellation or the degradation of the AFE noise figures. In addition, electrical tests together with in-vivo experimental results are presented to support the system capabilities of this first complete state-of-art hybrid ROIC specially designed for G-SGFET sensors.The second research line proposes a novel frequency-domain multiplexing technique capable of exploiting the intrinsic mixer capabilities of the graphene transistor to achieve a truly switch-less operation of high-channel-count G-SGFET-only probes. The mixing process allocates in continuous time the desired neural signal from the gate of the sensor into a desired frequency band avoiding both CMOS flicker noise and sampled noise folding. Scalability in this state-of-art advancement is reached by means of a custom modular ROIC architecture and specific CMOS circuit blocks. Indeed, the solutions are presented for the main design challenges in terms of generation of the required harmonic carriers and optimization of the shared full scale occupancy. The resulting neural interface is still DC coupled and capable of infra-slow recording. Finally, electrical test and in-vivo experiments are reported to support the working hypothesis.
  

• LUMBRERAS CARRASCO, DAVID: Development of an active power filter based on wide-bandgap semiconductors
  
  Author: LUMBRERAS CARRASCO, DAVID
  Thesis link: http://hdl.handle.net/10803/675092
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING
  Department: Department of Electronic Engineering (EEL)
  Mode: Normal
  Reading date: 19/07/2022
  Thesis director: ZARAGOZA BERTOMEU, JORDI | MON GONZÁLEZ, JUAN
  

  Committee:
       PRESIDENT: ROMERO CADAVAL, ENRIQUE
       SECRETARI: LAMICH AROCAS, MANUEL
       VOCAL: ESPINA MASRAMON, JORGE
  Thesis abstract: Electrical and electronic equipment needs sinusoidal currents and voltages to function properly. Equipment such as computers, household appliances, electric vehicle chargers, and LED lights can distort the grid and worsen grid quality. Distorted electrical grids can cause malfunctions, reduce service life, and decrease the performance of connected equipment. Industry commonly solves these problems using active power filters, which can minimise the harmonics of the grid, eliminate undesirable reactive power, and restore balance to unbalanced power grids.This thesis deals with the design and implementation of an active power filter based on wide-bandgap semiconductors, which have properties that are superior to classical silicon devices. An active power filter¿s design must take advantage of these benefits to build converters that are smaller, more efficient, and consume fewer resources. However, wide-bandgap semiconductors also present design challenges. Because the most commonly used active power filters in the industry are based on two-level voltage source converters, the research for this doctoral thesis focuses on this converter topology. Moreover, its main objective is to contribute new modulation techniques that are specially designed to work with wide-bandgap semiconductors. The proposed modulations consider different aspects, such as the computational cost of the algorithms, converter losses, and the electromagnetic distortion generated.First, this thesis presents a hexagonal sigma-delta (H-S¿) modulation based on sigma-delta (S¿) modulation. The properties of this modulation are studied, and the technique is compared with other widely used modulations. The comparison considers efficiency, harmonic distortion, the electromagnetic compatibility of the converter, and the type of wideband semiconductor used. In addition, a fast algorithm is mathematically developed to simplify the presented modulation and reduce its computational cost.Secondly, this thesis presents a family of sigma-delta modulations specially designed to improve electromagnetic compatibility: the reduced common-mode voltage sigma-delta (RCMV-S¿) modulations. These modulations avoid using the vectors that generate the maximum common-mode voltage, which significantly reduces the generated electromagnetic distortion without affecting the performance of the converter and its harmonic distortion. Finally, the proposed modulations are applied in a wide-bandgap power converter working as an active filter. Thus, it is verified that the techniques presented in this thesis will obtain satisfactory results when implemented in commercial active power filters.
  

• LUO, CHENGYANG: Textile UHF-RFID Antenna Sensors Based on Material Features, Interfaces and Application Scenarios
  
  Author: LUO, CHENGYANG
  Thesis link: http://hdl.handle.net/10803/674757
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING
  Department: Department of Electronic Engineering (EEL)
  Mode: Article-based thesis
  Reading date: 21/06/2022
  Thesis director: FERNANDEZ GARCIA, RAUL | GIL GALI, IGNACIO
  

  Committee:
       PRESIDENT: BONACHE ALBACETE, JORDI
       SECRETARI: AMANTE GARCIA, BEATRIZ
       VOCAL: SIEIRO CÓRDOBA, JAVIER JOSÉ
  Thesis abstract: Radio frequency identification over measurable ultra-high frequency textile substrates (UHF-RFID) is a promising technology to develop new applications in the field of health and the Internet of Things (IOT), due to the massive use of fabrics and the technological maturity of embroidery techniques. This thesis is the result of a compendium of publications on this topic. First, as a result of the analysis of the state of art, a systematic review entitled 'Wearable textile UHF-RFID sensors: A systematic review' has been published.The thesis aims to improve research on UHF-RFID textile-based sensor technology. Thanks to the analysis of the state of art, three novel research objectives have been set that are worth exploring. The first is to study novel detection functions for textile UHF-RFID based sensor technology; the second is to find a connection/interface solution between textile antennas and integrated circuit (IC) chips and the third is to reduce the costs of such technology to promote future commercial applications. To contextualize the thesis, it includes the necessary theoretical fundamentals and the manufacturing and characterization methods used during it.As a result of the work derived from the first objective, a scientific article entitled ¿Textile UHF-RFID Antenna Sensor for Measurements of Sucrose Solutions in Different Levels of Concentration¿ has been published. In this work, a textile UHF-RFID tag with two detection positions is proposed for sucrose solution measurements. The two detection positions with the different detection functions show good performance and can offer two options for future full applications. In addition, another scientific article entitled ¿ Textile UHF-RFID Antenna Embroidered on Surgical Masks for Future Textile Sensing Applications¿ has been published to support the first objective. The inspiration for this work came from the current pandemic situation. This work develops three progressive designs of textile UHF-RFID antennas over surgical masks due to the current global epidemic situation. Reliability testing demonstrated that the proposed designs can be used for human healthcare focused applications.As a result of the second objective, a research article entitled 'Experimental Comparison of Three Electro-textile Interfaces for Textile UHF-RFID Tags on Clothes' has been published. This work proposes three electro-textile interfaces integrated with the corresponding textile UHF-RFID antennas and provides the chip-textile connection solutions (through sewing, push buttons and insertion). As a result of this objective, an electro-textile interconnect system has been proposed together with its electrical model, which allows the correct adaptation of impedances between the RFID antennas and the integrated circuit. It is worth noting that the mixed-use feasibility of the proposed electro-textile interfaces and the designed textile UHF-RFID antennas has been verified, reducing the cost in the design procedure in applications where the read range requirements of the order of 1 meter.The third objective has been achieved and exposed by a scientific article entitled 'Electro-textile UHF-RFID Compression Sensor for Health-caring Applications'. It proposes a single UHF-RFID based compression textile sensor that can be used simultaneously in two different healthcare application scenarios, which directly impacts on cost reduction.
  

• NTINAS, VASILEIOS: Harnessing Memristor circuits and device variability in Emergent Computing applications
  
  Author: NTINAS, VASILEIOS
  Thesis file: (contact the Doctoral School to confirm you have a valid doctoral degree and to get the link to the thesis)
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING
  Department: Department of Electronic Engineering (EEL)
  Mode: Change of supervisor + Temporary seizure
  Reading date: 04/04/2022
  Thesis director: RUBIO SOLA, JOSE ANTONIO | SIRAKOULIS, GEORGIOS
  

  Committee:
       PRESIDENT: LOPEZ VALLEJO, MARISA
       SECRETARI: RODRIGUEZ MONTAÑES, ROSA
       VOCAL: CORINTO, FERNANDO
  Thesis abstract: Nowadays, due to the increasing amount of information and its demanding processing, conventional CMOS technology and von Neumann computing architecture struggle to keep pace, as they meet their respective limitations either from physical or practical standpoints, i.e. miniaturization limits, increasing costs, heat and energy consumption. In this vein, the memristor comes as a promising candidate to push the limits of recent technology and computing. Memristor devices provide unprecedented features for a single nanoelectronic device, such as non-volatile analog information storage with fast and low power operation. However, memristor devices are still in their infancy, as they are still facing major issues that hinder their wide commercialization. The modeling of their dynamical behavior is still being investigated, and we are far from a standard memristor model that accurately captures the characteristics of fabricated memristor devices considering also numerical stability at large-scale simulations. Also the adjustment of its conductivity arises from intrinsically stochastic processes which result in high variability during the operation of the device, also affecting its functionality within a circuit.Thus, in this thesis, memristor device modeling has been addressed in a two-fold approach. On one hand, working on an existing physics-based memristor model, the necessary mathematical transformations are performed to derive an analytical and transcendental form of the device's dynamical behavior under constant positive and negative stimulus, respectively, enabling the analytical study of the memristor's programming. On the other hand, a probabilistic mathematical framework for stochasticity-aware memristor modeling has been developed based on the master equations of Markov jump processes. The proposed framework captures the probabilistic switching of memristor devices that originates from the device's intrinsic stochasticity, allowing also multi-state stochastic memristor modeling. In circuit level, memristor's stochasticity imposes detrimental variability on the programming of memristor devices. To tackle this problem, I adopted a counter-intuitive approach based on the nonlinear system phenomenon called Stochastic Resonance (SR), which postulates that a properly selected noisy signal can improve the performance of a nonlinear system. Originally, SR was used to enhance the resistance window of a memristor. Then, in this thesis, that phenomenon was studied for a wider variety of memristor models, including device variability, which was also demonstrated with experimental measurements on single memristor devices. A detailed study on the noise-aided programming of a memristor in ReRAM memory cells, either individually or in an array, has been performed, showcasing the power-efficiency of the proposed noise-aided approach as the nominal programming voltage amplitudes can be reduced in the presence of noise without damaging the programming accuracy.The beneficial exploitation of memristor's stochasticity within a novel computing paradigm has been investigated during this thesis. Considering an Emerging Computing setup, the Cellular Automata (CA), memristor devices are incorporated into the CA array to expand CA's abilities, utilizing memristor's probabilistic switching, establishing the novel memristor-based Probabilistic CA (MemPCA). Thus, the effect of memristor into the simplest CA form, Elementary CA, is studied, resulting in the improvement of system entropy for a certain amount of switching probability. Moreover, the first transistor-level implementation of ECA with the all-memristor approach has been performed, with memristor devices participating in both cell and rule modules. The proposed novel MemPCA implementation achieves high operation speed, due to the ultra-fast source of entropy per cell, i.e. the memristor device. MemPCA's functionality is showcased in both deterministic and probabilistic operation.
  

• RIPOLL VERCELLONE, EDGAR: Design and implementation of wireless nodes for the Internet of Things
  
  Author: RIPOLL VERCELLONE, EDGAR
  Thesis link: http://hdl.handle.net/10803/674226
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING
  Department: Department of Electronic Engineering (EEL)
  Mode: Article-based thesis
  Reading date: 01/04/2022
  Thesis director: GASULLA FORNER, MANUEL | REVERTER CUBARSI, FERRAN
  

  Committee:
       PRESIDENT: CASAS NEBRA, ROBERTO JOSE
       SECRETARI: CASAS PIEDRAFITA, JAIME OSCAR
       VOCAL: PENELLA LÓPEZ, MARIA TERESA
  Thesis abstract: The Internet of Things is a trending topic these days. However, energy is often the major job stopper for broad adoption of this technology, which have three tight constraints: extremely cost oriented, long service life and small size. As a consequence, developers must overcome many challenges related to the optimal management of the energy available to power a node. Thismanagement is not only limited to the power supply, but also comprises the smart energy consumption of the node. Three challenges are addressed in this work: the first associated with the node¿s sensing system, the second, with the power consumption when the node is not operating, and the third, with the energy harvesting. The contributions of this thesis are presented as an articlebased dissertation of three journal publications and three conference articles, where each publication addresses one of thechallenges.The first contribution is related to the node¿s sensing system. Particularly, the electronic gas meters¿ sensing system. A novel sensing system for gas meters has been developed. It is based on a dual magnetic sensing: a) low-cost, low-power primary sensing via reed switches connected to the microcontroller's (MCU) digital inputs, and b) secondary sensing using Hall-effect sensors coupled to the MCU's analogue inputs. Furthermore, both sensing systems use an active and a passive element to provide an output that is immune to external interfering magnets. To establish the dependability of the prototype, it was implemented and evaluated under various test scenarios.The second contribution of this research work has proposed, analyzed, and evaluated a contactless wake-up circuit for an MCU that makes use of a light-emitting diode (LED) operating as a hotodetector and is lighted by a smartphone flashlight. The circuit comprises a high-pass filter and a voltage-level translator that connects the LED to the MCU through an appropriate resistor inparallel. When lighted by a switching flashlight, the LED produces a square voltage, which is translated into logic levels at the wakeup circuit output. A firmware embedded in the MCU also ensures that a specified series of logic pulses at a specific rate is received in order to activate the MCU. These additional stages make it more robust against ambient light interferences. Note that LEDsmanufacturers do not disclose information regarding how LEDs respond to light. Consequently, this second contribution is complemented with the current-voltage characterization of several types of LEDs.Finally, in the third contribution, the energy challenge associated with the node¿s power source is addressed. Specifically, the energy harvesting of radiofrequency (RF) signals present in the environment is chosen among all available energy sources. A compact Thévenin model for a rectenna is proposed in this study.The investigated rectenna comprises an L matching network and a halfwaverectifier. The developed model is simpler and more compact than those previously proposed in the literature, and it contains explicit and simple analytical expressions of the Thévenin voltage, resistance, and power efficiency. The experimental findings support the suggested model, demonstrating a linear current¿voltage relationship as well as a maximum efficiency (60%) at -10dBm. At the rectenna output, an MPPT was also employed to automatically work at the highest efficiency point, with an overall efficiency nearing 50% at -10 dBm. Further experiments were carried out, this time with a nearby transmitting antenna, to power a sensor node with a power demand of 4.2 µW.
  

• VALLE FRAGA, JUAN JOSÉ: Design, Fabrication, Characterization and Reliability Study of CMOS-MEMS Lorentz-Force Magnetometers
  
  Author: VALLE FRAGA, JUAN JOSÉ
  Thesis link: http://hdl.handle.net/10803/674302
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING
  Department: Department of Electronic Engineering (EEL)
  Mode: Article-based thesis
  Reading date: 06/04/2022
  Thesis director: FERNÁNDEZ MARTÍNEZ, DANIEL | MADRENAS BOADAS, JORDI
  

  Committee:
       PRESIDENT: BARNIOL BEUMALA, NURIA
       SECRETARI: DOMINGUEZ PUMAR, MANUEL MARIA
       VOCAL: KAYNAK, MEHMET
  Thesis abstract: Today, the most common form of mass-production semiconductor device fabrication is Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) technology. The dedicated Integrated Circuit (IC) interfaces of commercial sensors are manufactured using this technology. The sensing elements are generally implemented using Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems (MEMS), which need to be manufactured using specialized micro-machining processes. Finally, the CMOS circuitry and the MEMS should ideally be combined in a single package.For some applications, integration of CMOS electronics and MEMS devices on a single chip (CMOS-MEMS) has the potential of reducing fabrication costs, size, parasitics and power consumption, compared to other integration approaches. Remarkably, a CMOS-MEMS device may be built with the back-end-of-line (BEOL) layers of the CMOS process. But, despite its advantages, this particular approach has proven to be very challenging given the current lack of commercial products in the market. The main objective of this Thesis is to prove that a high-performance MEMS, sealed and packaged in a standard package, may be accurately modeled and manufactured using the BEOL layers of a CMOS process in a reliable way. To attain this, the first highly reliable novel CMOS-MEMS Lorentz Force Magnetometer (LFM) was successfully designed, modeled, manufactured, characterized and subjected to several reliability tests, obtaining a comparable or superior performance to the typical solid-state magnetometers used in current smartphones. A novel technique to avoid magnetic offsets, the main drawback of LFMs, was presented and its performance confirmed experimentally.Initially, the issues encountered in the manufacturing process of MEMS using the BEOL layers of the CMOS process were discouraging. Vapor HF release of MEMS structures using the BEOL of CMOS wafers resulted in undesirable damaging effects that may lead to the conclusion that this manufacturing approach is not feasible. However, design techniques and workarounds for dealing with the observed issues were devised, tested and implemented in the design of the LFM presented in this Thesis, showing a clear path to successfully fabricate different MEMS devices using the BEOL.
  

• VEGA BRU, DIDAC: Silicio macroporoso para cristales fotónicos y otras aplicaciones avanzadas
  
  Author: VEGA BRU, DIDAC
  Thesis file: (contact the Doctoral School to confirm you have a valid doctoral degree and to get the link to the thesis)
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING
  Department: Department of Electronic Engineering (EEL)
  Mode: Temporary seizure
  Reading date: 14/01/2022
  Thesis director: RODRIGUEZ MARTINEZ, ANGEL
  

  Committee:
       PRESIDENT: DIOS OTIN, VICTOR FEDERICO
       SECRETARI: HORRILLO GÜEMES, MARÍA DEL CARMEN
       VOCAL: MARIN PALACIOS, Mª PILAR
  Thesis abstract: This thesis deals with the study of macroporous silicon structures and their application to different technological areas. Macroporous silicon is a material that was described, in the form in which it is used in this thesis, for the first time at the beginning of 1990, since then several applications have been suggested for this material, but to date it has not been observed that these have gone beyond the laboratory and research to its commercial development for the most part.Macroporous silicon is an artificial material whose structure is based on the creation of holes of a certain size in a mass of silicon. The optical and physical characteristics will depend on the morphology of these holes. A field of great interest is that of photonic applications. The creation of periodic structures allows the passage of electromagnetic waves through the material to be altered, creating so-called photonic crystals. These structures quickly gained attention as they promise the creation of optical devices with dimensions comparable to the wavelength and whose spectral characteristics can be designed according to the required specifications.Macroporous silicon has also been proposed as a photonic crystal for the creation of selective optical filters. Possible applications for such devices include gas detection or thermo-photovoltaic applications. An interesting application is the creation of anti-reflection coatings. Macroporous silicon is also proposed for selective thermal emitters.Other applications of macroporous silicon not related to optical systems include electronic devices (high-capacity capacitors), energy storage (batteries), micro-fluidic applications (drug delivery, Brownian filters), chemical applications (reactors, catalysts), etc.One aspect to consider for macroporous silicon photonic crystals is the fabrication technology. Typical master technologies have certain disadvantages such as the cost or the robustness of the devices. In contrast, this thesis works with a technology of great simplicity and flexibility: the electrochemical etching of silicon. This fabrication technique makes it possible to obtain structures with very high aspect ratios and modulated pore profiles. This results in three-dimensional photonic crystals. The applications of three-dimensional structures are those studied in this thesis.The range of possible applications of macroporous silicon is very wide, so only some of them have been studied, specifically as a demonstration platform. This thesis studies the application of macroporous silicon as anti-reflection coatings, selective thermal emitters, filters and gas sensors. The applications of capacitors and FET transistors are also studied. Other applications have also been studied in collaboration with other research groups.Finally, one of the most important aspects of this work has been the development of the technology, procedures and know-how to reduce the dimensions of macroporous silicon structures and obtain structures with periodicities of 700 nm and smaller, whose pores have profiles that can be modulated and with direct application to optical applications such as gas detection.
  

Last update: 06/10/2022 05:01:04.

Research groups

• DISEN-Distributed Sensor Networks
• e-CAT-Electronic Circuits and Transducers
• EPIC-Energy Processing and Integrated Circuits
• GREP-Power Electronics Research Group
• GRUP ISI-Instrumentation, Sensors and Interfaces Group
• GSS-Sensor Systems Group
• HIPICS-High Performance Integrated Circuits and Systems
• IEB-Electronic and Biomedical Instrumentation
• ISSET-Integrated Smart Sensors and Health Technologies
• MCIA-Motion Control and Industrial Applications Research Group
• MNT-Micro and Nanotechnologies Research Group
• QINE-Low Power Design, Test, Verification and Security ICs
• RFEMC-Grup de Radiofrequencia i Compatibilitat Electromagnetica en Xarxes de Comunicacions
• SARTI-MAR-Sistemes d'Adquisicio Remota de dades i Tractament de la Informacio en el Medi Mari
• SEPIC-Power and Control Electronics Systems
• TIEG-Terrassa Industrial Electronics Group

Electronic Systems Group (GSE), UIB

Electronic Engineering Group (GEE), UIB

Teachers

• Alarcon Cot, Eduard
• Alepuz Menendez, Salvador
• Altet Sanahujes, Josep
• Aragones Cervera, Xavier
• Arias Pujol, Antoni
• Arumi Delgado, Daniel
• Balado Suarez, Luz Maria
• Bermejo Broto, Sandra
• Biel Sole, Domingo
• Bordonau Farrerons, Josep
• Bragos Bardia, Ramon
• Busquets Monge, Sergio
• Cabestany Moncusi, Joan
• Carrasco Lopez, Juan Antonio
• Casanella Alonso, Ramon
• Casas Piedrafita, Jaime Oscar
• Castilla Fernandez, Miquel
• Chavez Dominguez, Juan Antonio
• Cosp Vilella, Jordi
• Cuadras Tomas, Angel
• del Rio Fernandez, Joaquin
• Delgado Prieto, Miquel
• Dominguez Pumar, Manuel M.
• Fernandez Chimeno, Mireya
• Fernandez Garcia, Raul
• Gago Barrio, Javier
• Garcia de Vicuña Muñoz de la Nava, Jose Luis
• Garcia Gonzalez, Miquel A.
• Garcia Hernandez, Miguel Jesus
• Gasulla Forner, Manel
• Gil Gali, Ignacio
• Gomariz Castro, Spartacus
• Gonzalez Diez, David
• Guinjoan Gispert, Francesc
• Jimenez Serres, Vicente
• Lamich Arocas, Manuel
• Lopez Garcia, Mariano
• Lopez Gonzalez, Juan Miguel
• Lopez Lapeña, Oscar
• Lopez Martinez, Antonio Miguel
• Madrenas Boadas, Jordi
• Manich Bou, Salvador
• Martin Garcia, Isidro
• Martinez Garcia, Herminio
• Matas Alcala, Jose
• Mateo Peña, Diego
• Miret Tomas, Jaume
• Moll Echeto, Francesc
• Mon Gonzalez, Juan
• Moreno Arostegui, Juan Manuel
• Moreno Eguilaz, Juan M.
• Nescolarde Selva, Lexa Digna
• Orpella Garcia, Albert
• Ortega Redondo, Juan Antonio
• Ortega Villasclaras, Pablo Rafael
• Pallàs Areny, Ramon
• Parisi Baradad, Vicenç
• Polo Cantero, Jose
• Pons Nin, Joan
• Puigdollers Gonzalez, Joaquim
• Quilez Figuerola, Marcos
• Ramos Castro, Juan Jose
• Ramos Lara, Rafa
• Reverter Cubarsi, Ferran
• Riu Costa, Pere Joan
• Rodriguez Martinez, Angel
• Rodriguez Montañes, Rosa
• Romeral Martinez, J.L.
• Rosell Ferrer, Javier
• Rubio Sola, Jose Antonio
• Salaet Pereira, Joan Ferran
• Salazar Soler, Jorge
• Serrano Finetti, Roberto Ernesto
• Silva Martinez, Ferran
• Silvestre Berges, Santiago
• Torrents Dolz, Josep Maria
• Turo Peroy, Antonio
• Voz Sanchez, Cristobal
• Zaragoza Bertomeu, Jordi