Project CODAPE II

Project description

CODAPE II develops a collaborative, cross-company design environment for power electronic systems that enables systematic and iterative optimization of the entire system while simultaneously exploiting the improvement potential of individual sub-components.

Current power electronics design processes suffer from slow, manual iteration cycles because standard components - particularly magnetic elements such as chokes and transformers - rarely deliver optimal performance under specific technical and regulatory constraints, forcing frequent custom development. Power semiconductor modules offer numerous degrees of freedom in layout, materials, thermal management, driver circuits, and contacting. Yet systematically exploring these options usually requires many prototype loops and close interaction with end users. Furthermore, control strategies also influence final system performance.

In consequence, CODAPE II integrates both hardware and control co-optimization. To handle the resulting high number of design variants and multi-physical couplings, the project

• combines advanced design space exploration methods with mathematical optimization algorithms,
• parallelizes model evaluations using GPU acceleration, CPU techniques or clever matrix formulations,
• and automatically derives precise component-level requirements directly from the ongoing system-level optimization loop.

The initial focus lies on power semiconductor modules and magnetic components, with industrial partners pre-selecting priority technology variants at the project start to keep the scope manageable. Ultimately, CODAPE II aims to close the design loop between system and component development in an IP-secure manner. This allows one to shorten development cycles and to deliver significantly better-tailored, higher-performing power electronic products that strengthen the competitive position of German industry.