The electrification of the maritime transport sector represents a priority goal for reducing polluting emissions, especially in port areas, to make them sustainable from an energy and environmental point of view. However, the development and use of electric vessels is still limited, mainly due to the weak energy performance of the energy storage systems currently available on the market. The development of innovative energy conversion and electric propulsion systems on board vessels can overcome these issues, by ensuring adequate performance and efficiency through the synergistic use of different energy storage systems, thus favouring the electrification process also through suitable vessel-to-grid paradigm. In this context, the research activity to carry out will initially concern the study and analysis of the different configurations of the energy conversion and electric propulsion systems on board vessels, especially focusing on the several pilot projects in the sector. Subsequently, integrated configurations of energy conversion, storage and electric propulsion systems will be developed, with particular reference to multi-source, multi-level and/or modular solutions. Advanced energy management and control systems will be also developed with the aim of achieving better performance than existing solutions, not only during propulsion stages (energy saving, cruising range), but also when connected to the port grid (smart charging, power and energy services).

The research activity to carry out will mainly regard electrical engineering topics, more specifically modelling of electrical systems and components (power electronic converters, electrical machines, energy storage systems, etc.), and the design of energy management and control systems. A fair knowledge of MATLAB and a basic knowledge of some programming languages (e.g. C, VHDL, Python) are also very advisable. These skills can be refined appropriately during the PhD thanks to the attendance of specific training courses, including, for example, national and/or international PhD schools on power electronics, electric machines and drives, as well as seminars, conferences and workshops.

The research team consists of professors and researchers that have 20-year experience in design and control of power electronic converters, electrical machines and drives. The team has been working also on energy management and control systems of energy storage systems for more than 10 years, for both vehicular and power system applications. The research group does experimental research activity at the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, whose laboratories are equipped with several devices, instruments, and prototypes preparatory to the proposed research activity (electric drive test bench, multi-level converters, hybrid energy storage systems, real-time simulators, etc.).