Advances in Reliability and Artificial Intelligence for Power Electronic Systems

Power Electronics is a key technology for the global electrification including sustainable energy production, enabling large energy savings and electrification of the transport sector. In this context, reliability is key to achieve lower cost, lower material consumption and high confidence of a product – and recently artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging as a key discipline to further shape the next generation of power electronics technology. At the same time the power electronic systems are growing in complexity including both hardware and software, thereby reliability considerations in design, testing, and operation are important. Further, AI offers new opportunities for condition monitoring, better lifetime prediction, and more robust decision-making. This paper provides a roadmap for advancing reliability engineering and AI applications in power electronic systems by reviewing recent advances and trends covering system-level reliability practices, multiple related standards, critical components (both active and passive), mission-profile-based analysis and testing approaches, as well as uncertainty-aware reliability analysis. It further discusses how AI-based methods can enhance reliability prediction by doing predictive maintenance and optimized design. Finally, the paper outlines future challenges and opportunities, like how to deal with new power devices including their packaging, hybrid testing concepts, applying virtual sensors and digital twins using AI, analyzing complicated systems and also how to integrate circular economy into the design of power electronics technology.