SDI

The Siemens AG and the Chair for Computer Science 3 (Computer Architecture) start a close collaboration on the field of intelligent power electronics by march 2017.  The progressive digitalization in the field of energy systems as well as industry 4.0 require high scalable and especially multi-functional inverter technologies. For this, the inverter is the essential link between digital and analog world. This can either be the case for the flexible use in drive systems for robots and industrial facilities or for grid applications like to control the flow of energy while charging electric cars. The flexibility is mainly obtained by the software of the controller. That is why in this context we talk about Software Defined Inverter (SDI).

The necessary technological basis to realize such software-architectures is given by the availability of embedded systems with high computational power, tablets or smart-phones to observe and control the system as well as modern cloud-systems for remote maintenance and coordination. But until now it was not achieved to apply this flexibility actual useful to the new challenges of industry 4.0 and smart-grids in its full aspects.

The SDI Community Lab is a joint venture between Siemens AG (Abt. CT REE SDI) and FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg (Chair of Computer architecture). Initial funding for the SDI community lab was kindly provided by the Siemens AG.