The H-Bridges student team from the School of Electrical Engineering (ETF) of the University of Belgrade, Serbia, finished fourth and received the Best Technical Report award in the final of the IEEE International Future Energy Challenge (IFEC), the world’s largest student competition in power electronics.
The IEEE International Future Energy Challenge is organized annually by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a global electrical engineering and electronics organization. The H-Bridges student team has a long tradition of achieving strong results in the competition.
This year’s team consisted of 22 future engineers divided into three subteams: hardware and PCB design, firmware and control, and fundraising and public relations.
The final stage of the competition was held from July 13 to 19 at EnergyVille, a research center of KU Leuven in Belgium. Eight teams from around the world reached this year’s final. In addition to Serbia, the participating countries were the United States, Germany, Poland, India and South Korea.
This year’s IEEE IFEC challenge focused on developing a bidirectional on-board charger for electric vehicles
Each year, the competition sets a different task for participating teams. This year, the teams presented their solutions for a bidirectional on-board charger for electric vehicles to an international expert jury, followed by the final stage of practical prototype testing.
This year’s challenge was designed in response to the growing need to integrate renewable energy sources and develop electromobility and energy storage systems. Unlike conventional chargers, a bidirectional charger enables both the charging of an electric vehicle battery and the transfer of electricity from the vehicle back into the power grid, contributing to greater energy efficiency and power system stability, the H-Bridges team said in a statement.
The fourth-place finish and the Best Technical Report award were the result of almost a year of work. During the development of the project, the team went through several stages, from preparing the initial concept and developing and redesigning the prototype to optimizing the system, conducting numerous laboratory tests, and making final preparations for the international competition.
The team was led by Assistant Professor Aleksandar Milić, with the support of laboratory associates, alumni, and project partners. H-Bridges has won the IEEE IFEC competition twice so far: in 2005 and 2019.
