Reduced-order thermal observer for power modules temperature estimation

In this paper, a reduced order thermal observer with disturbance estimation is applied for temperature monitoring in a power electronics module. Although accurate thermal models of power electronics assemblies are widely available, based e.g. on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solvers, their computational complexity hinders the application in real-time temperature monitoring applications. This paper proposes a reduced order state space observer to provide a real-time estimation of temperature in power electronics modules. The observer is coupled with a disturbance estimator, to minimize the error caused by uncertainties in the model and unknown operating conditions.