Electrical and Electronic Engineering Partnerships
We have a wide range of benefits to offer industrial partners in the electrical and electronic engineering sectors.
Our team
We boast some of the leading academics in electrical and electronic engineering. As well as our excellent teaching and research facilities, we pride ourselves on our services for industry.
We have collaborated with a wide range of businesses, both small and international, through consultation, developing new technologies, and developing our students into world-leading engineers. Our work with industry includes:
- Industrial Advisory Board
- collaborative research
- consultancy for design, evaluation, development and testing
- employee training programmes
- support small- and medium-sized businesses to develop their products
- transfer of IP from our research in to new products and services
- expert witnesses
Industrial collaboration
We aim to develop strong ties with industry to create job opportunities for our students and strengthen research links. These include:
- direct company funded R&D projects
- Technology Strategy Board funded Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTP) and Collaborative Research Projects
- developing work placements for students
- talks from industrial leaders
- career fairs and events
- partnership in UK Research Council and European funded projects
- technology transfer and licensing of IP
- industry funded studentships
We also have a long history of working on advanced motor design and control for Dyson products.
Some past industrial projects:
- fabrication and modelling of titanium dioxide memristor
- asynchronous memory controller with data validation
- camera monitoring system
- information extraction from terrestrial laser scanning data
- investigation into soft switching technique with isolated DC supply
- digital design automation software
- designing earthing systems for onshore wind farm sites
- asynchronous memory controller with data validation
Microelectronics systems design and test
We host a Microelectronics Systems Design and Test consultancy team and offer consultancy in the Systems Design and Test area for large multinationals and small to medium-sized enterprises. This includes:
- research and development
- adaptation or modification of existing hardware and software solutions to match new technologies
- design of new solutions (ASICs, SoCs, FPGA, EDA tools) for new system requirements
We aim to assist companies looking for a better alignment of their business objectives with their existing infrastructure.
Our team can help to assess existing system designs in line with functional requirements and business objectives. This can help you to optimise your design solutions.
Specialist skills
- system timing solutions
- metastability characterisation and synchroniser design
- low power and low EMI system design
- hardware security and cryptographic engine design
- timing measurement, test and validation
- EDA tools for secure and asynchronous hardware design
- built-in test, concurrent error detection
- modelling and analysis of Systems-on-Chip issues
- variability analysis and characterisation
General skills
ASIC design using standard tools (Cadence, Synopsys) and prototyping with FPGA design kits (Altera, Xilinx), offline and online testing, and fault-tolerance solutions.
Advanced electric drives
The Centre for Advanced Electrical Drives has a long history of successful research collaborations, helping our industrial partners to apply cutting-edge research to commercial motor drive products.
We pride ourselves on our ability to deliver:
- high performance, high speed, low-cost, and high-efficiency projects
- professional service offering with a proven track record of success
Advanced propulsion centre UK partnership
We are a member of the prestigious Spokes Network, a national network to support the automotive industry with specialist academic, technological, and commercial expertise, part of the Advanced Propulsion Centre UK.
Services to industry
Motor and drive design
- dedicated researchers in electromagnetic, power electronics, and mechanical
- full range of tools for Motor and Drive design and analysis
Prototype manufacture
- one-off prototype manufacture
- air/water/oil-cooled
- wire erosion of lamination stacks
Drive test
- static testing
- dynamic testing facilities ranging up to 500KW or 100krpm
- rotor overspeed testing
- climatic chambers
Examples
- rare-earth magnet-free traction
- very high fill factor (>80%) windings
- innovative inverter cooling
Expert advice
Our academics are leading experts in the field of power electronics, drives, and machines. This is evidenced by our extensive portfolio of research projects and publications.
We apply innovative thinking to provide business solutions to help our clients build and maintain a competitive edge. This can be either as part of a short-term consultancy project, or a medium- to long-term commercial or collaborative research project.
The Centre for Advanced Electric Drives is part of the Electrical Power research group.
Smart Grid
The Smart Grid Lab and Energy Storage Test Bed are grid connected facilities at Newcastle University.
They are funded through a combined £2 million grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Newcastle University, and industrial partners Northern Powergrid and Siemens.
These key facilities are part of Newcastle’s £200 million flagship project at Newcastle Helix bringing together academia, the public sector, communities, business, and industry to create a global centre for urban innovation and sustainability.
Our services
- Operate and test your technology in an actual or emulated grid at a range of scales (i.e. domestic, commercial, local or regional capacities) before deployment into the field. Evaluate the impacts in real-time.
- Carry out continuous, long-term tests on your battery system (e.g. round trip efficiency and degradation) for a specific real-world application or emulated charge/discharge cycles. Facilitate a cost-benefit analysis for a proposed application.
- Benchmark how your system compares to other technologies. Identify interdependencies and complementarities of different technologies and propose optimised hybrid solutions.
- Emulate an electrical energy storage (EES) technology through dedicated emulators. Reduce development costs.
- Develop optimised control systems for both battery management and its connection with the grid.
- Investigate V2G (vehicle to grid) technologies and the optimal utilisation of car battery systems.
- Provision of expertise to assess possible alternative applications for second-life batteries.
- Compare different EES technologies for a portfolio of grid services and investigate their impact in real time. Recommend which technology fits best for a specific application and identify optimal solutions for maximising grid support and profits.
- Facilitate development of regulations and standards for EES.
- Investigate the challenges and opportunities of linking EES technologies with other systems e.g. renewables in an actual microgrid to create win-win solutions.
Contact us
Industrial collaboration enquiries:
Jeff Neasham
Email: jeff.neasham@ncl.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)191 208 8850
Singapore collaboration enquiries:
Dr Wai Lok Woo
Email: lok.woo@ncl.ac.uk
Telephone: +65 6550 1965
Smart Grid queries:
Email: smartgridlab@ncl.ac.uk