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Custom electronics design - Advanced analog design - Power electronics - Instrumentation and low noise - High frequency/high current design - Specialty power supply design Design seminars Failure investigations Design
reviews and sanity checks |
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Electromagnetic
design - Magnetic suspensions and Maglev - Magnetic braking - Linear and rotary motors and
actuators - Finite element analysis (2D and 3D) - Custom magnetics - Non-contact power transfer (resonant and
inductive) |
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In
business since 1995 in the metro Boston/Worcester area, we provide
multidisciplinary engineering research and development in a variety of electrical
and mechanical areas, including advanced analog, power electronics,
electromechanical, thermal and magnetic design and failure investigations.
Background of Principal
Dr. Marc Thompson is
President of Thompson Consulting,
Inc. and Teaching Professor of Electrical Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Dr.
Thompson holds 8 patents
and has authored numerous publications and 2 textbooks based on his consulting
and research work.
Dr. Thompson has the B.S.,
M.S., E.E. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science,
all from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.)
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For his curriculum
vitae, follow this link. (For an up-to-date
CV please contact us directly).
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For thumbnail sketches of some of his past
engineering consulting projects, go here.
Engineering Consulting
and R/D
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Electromechanical actuators ·
High efficiency magnetic design ·
Eddy current braking ·
High speed, precision and low-noise analog
design ·
Power electronics and power converter design ·
Non-contact power supplies ·
Custom magnetics and
non-contact transformers ·
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Advanced magnetic design ·
Motors ·
System modeling and simulation ·
Finite-element analysis ·
PSPICE and PSIM analysis for electronic, power
and thermal circuit design |
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Failure investigations ·
High speed switching design using silicon and GaN MOSFETs ·
Maglev and magnetic suspensions ·
Control system design ·
Semiconductor laser diode drivers ·
Optoelectronics ·
Design seminars ·
Technical report preparation ·
Induction heating ·
MATLAB, Mathematica,
Ansoft 3D, FEMM and 3D FastHenry
analysis and simulation tools ·
Inductive power transfer systems |
Dr. Thompson received
the Ph.D., E.E., M.S., and B.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His doctoral thesis at MIT "High
Temperature Superconducting Magnetic Suspension for Maglev" concerned the
design and test of high-temperature superconducting suspensions for Maglev and
the implementation of magnetically-based ride quality control. Dr. Thompson has
authored a number of papers concerning superconducting magnetic suspension
design, scaling laws, and actuation.
Below, you can find
links to Dr. Thompson’s MSEE and Ph.D theses.
Courses at W.P.I. and
other Design Seminars
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Samples of course slides from Analog Circuits are here
and
here
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Samples of slides from Power Electronics
Recent
Additions to Website
Dr.
Thompson interviewed about “Hyperloop”
FTA
Urban Maglev “Lessons Learned” --- Federal Transit Authority Report No.
0026
Photo of “Floater Rider” magnetic
levitation demo at the 2012 Worcester Polytechnic Institute Spark Party
Dr. Thompson’s Ph.D. thesis on Maglev, available here from MIT
Dr. Thompson’s Master’s thesis on high speed laser diode drivers
available here
from MIT
IEEE podcast discussing Shanghai Maglev: http://spectrum.ieee.org/podcast/transportation/mass-transit/transrapid-internationals-maglev
List of patents (downloadable in
PDF format)
Magnemotion
M3 Maglev system description
Description
of the General Atomics Urban Maglev System
Company overview is here (in PDF format)
A
bibliography of references related to inductance calculation methods
Analog
Circuits and Intuition, syllabus
Samples of slides from Analog
Circuits are here and here ---
from my analog grad class
Power Electronics, syllabus
--- from my Power Electronics graduate class
A sample of slides from Power
Electronics
Electromechanics,
syllabus --- from my grad class covering electric motors and generators
Notes from a 3-day seminar on electromechanics and machines: Day 1: Basics Day 2: Magnetics Day 3: Machines
Notes from a short course on
Power Quality: Power Quality Outline Notes on EMI Day 1 Notes 1 Day 1 Notes 2 Day 2 Notes 1 Day 2 Notes 2 Day 3 Notes 1 Day 3 Notes 2
Power Distribution, syllabus
--- from my grad class on electrical power distribution
Link
to Dr. Thompson’s patents at the USPTO
American
Maglev Technology --- technical assessment for Florida Department of
Transportation, 2013
Chubu
HSST Maglev Final Report, Federal Transit Administration, 2004
Nifty levitation videos from Nijmegen High Field Magnet Laboratory … Levitated frog Levitated grasshopper Levitated strawberry
Analog
and Power Electronics Laboratory Demonstration Videos:
Illustration
of Faraday’s Law of induction using a magnetic sniffer
coil
Video of the “Floater Rider”
magnetic levitation and guidance in our lab, revised
Video of
levitating aluminum coil --- levitating a single coil with induced eddy
currents
Generating
voltage with a moving permanent magnet --- showing how you can generate
voltage, by Faraday’s law
A
mass-spring system and resonance --- fun with a simple mass-spring system,
with not much damping
Line
current drawn by incandescent vs. compact fluorescent lamps --- interesting
illustration of real-world power quality issues
Line
current drawn by a laptop charger --- surprisingly low power factor
Levitating
the “Floater Rider” with a thyristor converter
--- using a triac converter to levitate coils above
an aluminum plate
Triac converter with resistive load --- driving a light
bulb with a triac converter, and looking at the
current waveforms. See how power factor
changes.
Transformer,
unloaded and loaded --- looking at the line current drawn by the primary of
a transformer
TTL
gate buck converter design and demo --- a very crude buck DC/DC converter
made with an off-the-lab-shelf TTL gate
Phase
-controlled converter with LR load --- a thyristor
converter driving an inductive load
Transformer
loaded with a half-wave rectifier --- more interesting power quality issue
Papers:
N. Medora, A. Kusko
and M. Thompson, “Impact of
Line Voltage Sag on Switch Mode Power Supply Operation,” 2008 3rd IEEE Conference
on Industrial Electronics and Applications,
"Eddy Current
Magnetic Levitation--- Models and Experiments," IEEE Potentials,
vol. 19, no. 1, Feb./March 2000, pp. 40-44
M.
T. Thompson, R. D. Thornton and A. Kondoleon, "Scale Model
Flux-Canceling EDS Maglev Suspension --- Part I: Design and Modeling,"
IEEE Transactions on Magnetics, vol. 35, no.
3, May 1999, pp. 1956-1963
M.
T. Thompson and R. D. Thornton, "Scale Model
Flux-Canceling EDS Maglev Suspension --- Part II: Test Results and Scaling
Laws," IEEE Transactions on Magnetics,
vol. 35, no. 3, May 1999, pp. 1964-1975
"Estimating Inductance
of Wire Loops," Newsletter of the IEEE Power Electronics
Society, Volume 10, No. 2, April 1999, pp. 3
"Inductance Calculation
Techniques --- Part I: Classical Methods," Power Control and Intelligent Motion, vol. 25, no. 12, December
1999, pp. 40-45
"Inductance Calculation
Techniques --- Part II: Approximations and Handbook Methods," Power Control and Intelligent Motion,
1999, website http://www.pcim.com
"Simple Models and
Measurements of Magnetically-Induced Heating Effects in Ferromagnetic Fluids,"
IEEE Transactions on Magnetics, vol. 34, no.
5, September 1998, pp. 3755-3764
M.
T. Thompson and M. F. Schlecht, "High Power Laser Diode
Driver Based on Power Converter Technology," IEEE Transactions on
Power Electronics, vol. 12, no. 1, Jan. 1997, pp. 46-52
Online
Symposium for Electrical Engineers, “Permanent Magnet
Electrodynamic Brakes…”
Online
Symposium for Electrical Engineers, “Inductance
Calculation Techniques…”
“Tips for Designing High-Gain Amplifiers” --- Electronic
Design Magazine, 1994
“Design Linear Circuits using OCTC
Calculations” --- Electronic Design
Magazine, 1993
“SCTC Analysis Estimates Low Frequency –3dB Point”
--- Electronic Design Magazine, 1993
“Network Tricks Aid in OCTC Circuit
Analysis” --- Electronic Design
Magazine, 1993
“Designing Video Circuits” --- Part 1 --- Part 2 --- Part 3 --- ESD: The Electronics System
Design Magazine, 1988
Textbook ... "Intuitive Analog Circuit Design" (now
available in revised 2nd Edition)
The revised text includes Powerpoint lecture slides, MATLAB design exercises, as well
as numerous LTSPICE circuit simulations throughout the text. (The LTSPICE files
are also provided). The 2nd edition, revised throughout, includes
new lab demos and new chapters covering JFET amplifiers and amplifier noise.
1st edition
table of contents and preface are here, in PDF format.
2nd edition,
Barnes & Noble link
2nd edition book link from Elsevier
For
book errata, email us here.
Book
review from IEEE for the 2nd
edition
Textbook ... "Power Quality in Electrical Systems" by Kusko and Thompson
Textbook on power quality
standards, design issues and mitigating strategies, available in 2007 from
McGraw Hill, co-authored with Dr. Alexander Kusko. An outline of
the book is found here. A link to the book front and back cover is shown here.
Amazon.com link to the book is here
Textbook ... "Analog Circuits (World Class Designs)"
Contributor of 3 chapters
to "Analog Circuits (World Class Designs)," edited by Bob Pease,
available from Elsevier, 2007.
Textbook ... "Portable Electronics (World Class
Designs)"
Contributor of 1 chapter to
"Portable Electronics (World Class Designs)," edited by John Donovan,
available from Elsevier, 2009.
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Contact
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Thompson Consulting, Inc. 9
Jacob Gates Road |
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Links
Curriculum
Vitae of Marc Thompson, Ph.D
Thompson
Consulting Inc. consulting projects
Maglev
(PhD) and other (MSEE) research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Teaching
at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and other design seminars
Links
to manufacturers' websites, applications notes, etc.
Do you see any errors
or omissions? Please contact webmaster@thompsonrd.com
Thompson Consulting, Inc. ("
© 1998-2016 Thompson Consulting,
Inc., all rights reserved.
Updated