A Passion for AC Drives: Giuseppe Laudani – Sicilian Electronic Engineer
February 11, 2025
Developing a groundbreaking product requires accomplished individuals to work together to bring a brand-new concept to life. To achieve this, Sprint Electric has brought in some of the finest electrical engineers together to create Generis, the next generation of AC drive technology.
Giuseppe Laudani joined Sprint Electric to further boost the expertise in AC drive technology. Hailing from Sicily, with a background in electronic engineering and automotive, Giuseppe started working for Sprint Electric in November 2023 and is now based at the HQ in Arundel.
Giuseppe expands on his role at Sprint: “The core of Sprint Electric has traditionally been DC drives, and I was brought in to the company to assist with the expansion into the AC drive market with Generis. I joined Sprint because I have always wanted to work in the drive sector, being fully involved in the design of new product and validating its performance.
“The technology behind Generis is exceptional. The advancement of power electronics makes it possible to exploit these converters to deliver energy regeneration with low harmonics. The four-quadrant control simplifies the control of AC motors and works with both open loop and closed loop to maximise its range of application.
“Sprint has designed the 22kW Generis AC Drive with our patented switching technology. I was hired to work on this project to design the higher power 45kW version of the AC drive. Recently, I designed the 45kW version of Generis, which we are now testing.
“My idea was to use the same size envelope for the 45kW Generis as the 22kW drive, which simplifies the production and the supply chain. This has its challenges, as doubling its power means the power stage has twice the current and there is more heat to be dissipated. We added more powerful fans to cool the drive and because the 45kW version has double the power, it has to work with twice the current. It requires bigger modules, which are physically twice the size but in the same overall envelope.
“The design of the product is the main part of my role, but I am also coordinating the test plan to ensure the product is validated. The compliance testing is essential, and the product needs to be tested according to the regulations. The two main directives are for the drive to work safely at a low voltage, the other is electromagnetic compatibility, so it is absolutely necessary that we achieve compliance with those standards.
“I’m involved with writing the test procedures, elaborating the test plan in order to validate the product to achieve the CE marking certification. We also have the test and validation team of Vivek and Mathias, who work with the drive to find its capabilities and push its limits.
“I grew up in Italy, in the Catania area of Sicily. Catania has a very good tradition of electronic engineering, which is my background. I studied at the University of Catania, where I did the bachelor’s and master’s degree there in microelectronics.”
“I came into UK in 2013, where I went to Imperial College to complete a degree in electrical and electronic engineering. My other passion is football. I also go the gym but there is nothing like playing football to get the blood flowing.
“Before Sprint, I worked for three years at an automotive multinational company, mainly designing power inverters for automotive. I spent one year with an Austrian company, where I designed LED drivers for emergency lighting. The inverters we were designing were high power, up to a maximum power 100kW or 150kW, while the LED drivers were low power, from 1W to few tens of watt.
“I also worked for 2 years at a company doing semiconductor testers for power devices. Although the company was relatively small, our customers were big multinationals that were manufacturing power transistors and power diodes which needed to be tested. I was involved in designing the adapters for the dynamic testing of power devices.
“My career has taught me about the reality of embedding efficiency in products. In automotive, everything is geared around making the product small enough to fit inside the car and to operate within certain temperatures. All these different experiences were crucial to my development in electronic engineering and have provided me with a great base of knowledge to drive Generis forward with Sprint Electric,” said Giuseppe.
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GENERIS THE NEXT GENERATION OF AC DRIVES
A traditional AC drive, or inverter, takes the three-phase AC mains and converts it into a DC voltage with a combination of a rectifier and smoothing capacitor. This ‘DC link’ voltage is then chopped at high frequency to synthesize a variable voltage, variable frequency supply to the motor.
One way to recover the wasted energy is to add an ‘Active Front End’ (AFE) in front of the drive creating what is effectively two inverters back-to-back. However, there is still an intermediate DC link stage, making the solution both bulky and costly.
