David Alister Lowther

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Research interests

Numerical methods in low frequency electromagnetics with particular emphasis on electromagnetomechanical systems ranging from MEMS devices through medical applications to large motors and generators.

The development of stochastic optimization techniques for the automatic improvement of prototype designs of low frequency electromagnetic devices. This is coupled with numerical sensitivity analysis to improve the effectiveness of the optimizers.

Interactive graphics and visualization (including full 3D visualization) of electromagnetic fields in electrical machines, actuators, transformers, etc.

Knowledge based techniques applied to the design and analysis of low frequency electromagnetic devices. In particular, this includes the complete range of electrical machines such as brushless dc, induction and switched reluctance motors as well as generators.

Research sub-areas

Computer-aided design of low frequency electromagnetic devices with particular emphasis on electrical machines, actuators and transformers plus the coupling to power electronic drives, as well as thermal, structural and vibration analysis.

The development of numercial analysis techinques such as the finite element method, meshless methods, etc.

Expert systems applied to the design of low frequency electromagnetic equipment

Software engineering and the architecture of large simulation and virtual prototyping systems including the ise of parallel processing systems.