BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Ralph M. Kennel was born in 1955 at Kaiserslautern (Germany). In 1979 he got his diploma degree and in 1984 his Dr.-Ing. (Ph.D.) degree from the University of Kaiserslautern.

From 1983 to 1999 he worked on several positions with Robert BOSCH GmbH (Germany). Until 1997 he was responsible for the development of servo drives. Between 1997 and 1999 he was head of the department for predevelopment of fractional horsepower motors in automotive applications.

From 1994 to 1999 Dr. Kennel was appointed Visiting Professor at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (England, UK). From 1999 – 2008 he was Professor for Electrical Machines and Drives at Wuppertal University (Germany). Since 2008 until his retirement in 2022 he was Professor for Electrical Drive systems and Power Electronics at Technische Universitaet Muenchen (Germany).

Dr. Kennel is a Senior Life Member of IEEE, a Fellow of IET (former IEE) and a Chartered Engineer in the UK. Within IEEE he was Treasurer of the Germany Section as well as Region 8 – furthermore he has been Distinguished Lecturer of the Power Electronics Society (IEEE-PELS) as well as Vice President Meetings of the same society.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

• Sensorless/Encoderless/Self-sensing control of AC drives
• Predictive control of power electronics and contactless energy transmission

AWARDS

In 1985 Dr. Kennel got the Award of ETG (within VDE – the German pendant of IEE/IET).

Dr. Kennel has received in 2013 the Harry Owen Distinguished Service Award from IEEE-PELS, the EPE Association Distinguished Service Award in 2015 as well as the EPE Outstanding Achievement Award in 2019.

Dr. Kennel was appointed “Extraordinary Professor” by the University of Stellenbosch (South Africa) from 2016 to 2019 and as “Visiting Professor” at the Haixi Institute by the Chinese Academy of Sciences from 2016 to 2021. There he was appointed as “Jiaxi Lu Overseas Guest Professor” in 2017. In 2018 Dr. Kennel was appointed Guest Professor at Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT), Harbin, China. In 2019 Dr. Kennel was appointed “Honorary Chair Professor“ (“distinguished visiting professor”) at Shandong University in Jinan, China.

In 2018 Dr. Kennel received the Doctoral degree honoris causa from Universitatea Stefan cel Mare in Suceava (Romania).

KEY PUBLICATIONS

1. Schröder, Dierk; Kennel, Ralph: Elektrische Antriebe – Grundlagen – Mit durchgerechneten Übungs- und Prüfungsaufgaben. Springer-Verlag GmbH Deutschland (7. Auflage), 2021.
2. Florian Bauer, Christoph M. Hackl, Keyue Smedley, Ralph M. Kennel: Multicopter-Based Launching and Landing of Lift Power Kites. In: Airborne Wind Energy. Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd., 2018, Pages 463-489.
3. Florian Bauer, Christoph M. Hackl, Keyue Smedley, Ralph M. Kennel: Crosswind Kite Power with Tower. In: Airborne Wind Energy. Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd., 2018, Pages 441-462.
4. Linder, Arne; Kanchan, Rahul; Stolze, Peter; Kennel, Ralph: Model-Based Predictive Control of Electric Drives. Cuvillier Verlag (1. Auflage), 2010.
5. Zhenbin Zhang, Oluleke Babayomi, Tomislav Dragicevic, Rasool Heydari, Cristian Garcia, Jose Rodriguez, Ralph Kennel: Advances and opportunities in the model predictive control of microgrids: Part I–primary layer. International Journal of Electrical Power & Energy Systems (Volume 134), 2022.
6. Zhenbin Zhang, Oluleke Babayomi, Tomislav Dragicevic, Rasool Heydari, Cristian Garcia, Jose Rodriguez, Ralph Kennel: Advances and Opportunities in the Model Predictive Control of Microgrids: Part II–Secondary and Tertiary Layers. International Journal of Electrical Power & Energy Systems (Volume 134, January 2022, 107339), 2022.
7. Haotian Xie; Lei Liu; Yingjie He; Fengxiang Wang; Jose Rodriguez; Ralph Kennel: Gradient Descent-Based Objective Function Reformulation for Finite Control Set Model Predictive Current Control With Extended Horizon. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics (Volume: 69, Issue: 9), 2022, 8667-8678.
8. Haotian Xie; Fengxiang Wang; Yingjie He; José Rodríguez; Ralph Kennel: Encoderless Parallel Predictive Torque Control for Induction Machine Using a Robust Model Reference Adaptive System. IEEE Transactions on Energy Conversion (Volume: 37, Issue: 1, March 2022), 2022, 232-242.
9. de Kock, H.; Kamper, M.; Kennel, R.: Anisotropy Comparison of Reluctance and PM Synchronous Machines for Position Sensorless Control using HF Carrier Injection. IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, 2009.