CITCEA-UPC

CITCEA-UPC is a technology transfer centre which was created in 2001 within the UPC (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, BarcelonaTech), and it is specialized in responding to electrical and electronic technological challenges. The aim of the centre is to receive these challenges and solve them by creating a functional prototype that will serve the companies to eventually develop a new commercial product or to solve a new technological problem created by the growth and evolution of the society.

The centre is formed by 9 UPC professors, 7 PhD, 15 hired engineers and 30 undergraduate and postgraduate students.  The centre received on 2001 the TECNO certification, created by the Government of Catalonia, through ACCIÓ. This certification recognizes CITCEA-UPC as a Catalan technology reference centre with high capacity and experience to carry out projects of all kinds, whether from commercial projects with private companies to European projects in cooperation with various institutions and companies throughout Europe. CITCEA-UPC is part of the TECNIO network, which includes research centres and technology transfer centres that are able to develop top-level technological projects. Moreover, in 2009 the centre was given official recognition by the Research Agency from the Catalan Government, AGAUR, about being a consolidated research group of Catalonia. This recognition has been renewed in 2014.

The expertise of CITCEA-UPC lies in all kinds of applications where control of energy and/or movement are needed. In this area, the technologies developed are power electronics, digital control and communications. The applications of these technologies range from automation of processes and machines to renewable energy and the electric grid, among many others.

The fields of specialization where CITCEA-UPC has deep knowledge through basic research and applied research for industry are:

• Power electronics: converters, battery chargers and DSP control.
• Digital control: signal processing, analogic to digital conversion, state observation, non-linear and multivariable control.
• Automation and industrial communication: control and management, movement, high-speed transmission hardware and software design.
• Electric vehicles: impact, laws, charging protocols and specifications and business models.
• Smart grids: efficiency, market and regulation, monitoring, design, power quality and security in the energy supply.
• Wind energy: grid integration, turbines technology, offshore power plants and HVDC.
• Solar energy: grid integration, inverters, panel emulation and PV followers.
• Microgrids: design, grid synchronization, storage, anti-islanding and IEC 61850 communications.
• Electric machines: engine and generators design, Finite element simulations, drives, vectorial control and sensorless control

CITCEA-UPC is member of:

• ECPE European Centre for Power Electronics (http://www.ecpe.org/);
• IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (www.ieee.org/);
• EPE European Power Electronics and Drives Association (www.epe-association.org/);
• CIGRÉ International Council on Large Electric Systems taking part of the working group “SC B4 HVDC and Power Electronics” (“B4-55 HVDC Connection of Offshore Wind Power Plants” and “B4-58 Devices for Load flow Control and Methodologies for Direct Voltage Control in a Meshed HVDC Grid);
• LPQI. Leonardo Power Quality Initiative, Global Community for Sustainable Energy Professionals (http://www.leonardo-energy.org/);
• CHAdeMO Association for EV communications protocol;
• EtherCAT Technology Group
• CAN in Automation - International users' and manufacturers' group.

Members of CITCEA-UPC take part in the “Academics Forum of Friends of the Supergrid (FOSG)” and belong to the editorial board of “IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery”, “Power & Energy Society (IEEE-PES)” and “Task Force on Microgrid Control”.

During the last five years, CITCEA-UPC has obtained the following scientific and technological results:

• Published articles: 113
• Books and book chapters: 11
• Congress presentations: 72
• PhD thesis advised: 28
• Patents: 4
• Total number of citations: 882
• European competitive projects: 23
  • 2 FP7
  • 4 H2020
• National competitive projects: 33
• Private technology transfer projects: 72