Jonathan Kunkle earned his B.S. in Electrical Engineering with focus in power from the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 2000. He also earned his M.S. in Electrical Engineering with focus in power electronics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Madison, Wisconsin in 2015.
Jonathan has expertise in power electronics development. He developed numerous custom SCR and IGBT-based power converter systems and several medium voltage variable speed drives at Robicon/Siemens. He also holds five patents.
As a principal electrical engineer at Curtiss-Wright, Jonathan developed custom high speed PM motor drive systems for the Department of Energy as well as propulsion and auxiliary converters for rolling stock applications.
While at Powerex, Jonathan developed specialized motor drives and converters for several applications, including wind energy, HVAC compressors, and elevators.
As a Principal Power Electronics Engineer at Johnson Controls, Jonathan was a technical leader for multiple simultaneous variable speed drive development programs. He developed the company’s largest variable speed drive (1170HP, 460V, 1280A 117Hz), and then went on to develop an even larger system (1290HP, 380V/460V, 1620A 117Hz induction motor drive) using a novel topology. He also developed Hardware-In-The-Loop systems using Opal RT for simulating power electronic inverter systems with actual control board hardware and developed various printed circuit boards for testing projects.
Since November of 2020, Jonathan has been a full-time Power Electronics Engineer for SEMIKRON. In this role he delivers power electronics system design and development with focus on complex systems and develops printed circuit boards. Some examples of work:
- Two 250kW 250ADC 1100VDC to 480V 3-phase 300Arms bidirectional converter systems with variable switch frequencies that included a novel AC filter and a custom interface PCBA design
- Concepts for an on-board lithium ion battery charging system product line (24V 8kW, 36V 21kW, 48V 21kW, and 80V 21kW) for the material handling industry
- Interface PCBA for allowing SEMIKRON’s standard controller to interface with large IGBT stack assemblies that have fiber optic (POF) gate drive interfaces
He is currently working on a custom Double Pulse Test fixture that will be capable of testing IGBT stacks and inductors up to 1500VDC and 10kA peak.
