The Laboratory of Electrical Drives (LED) was established in the 1980s of the past century and it became operational within the frame of the Institute of Industrial Power Engineering. For a certain period it was part of the Institute of Electro-heat, Arc Welding and Electrical Traffic. The LED was founded once space requirements were met by means of establishment of the annex building at what was then Faculty of Electrical Engineering. As of 2015 to this date the LED is within the frame of the Institute of Electrical Machines, Transformers and Apparatuses, which provides for the curriculum and the study program for Power Engineering, Automation and Renewable Sources of Energy. In addition, the main scope of the LED covers the three main disciplines: educational, scientific, and research/applied activity. Since its foundation, close cooperation has been established with sister laboratories at the Universities of Erlangen, Zagreb, Novi Sad, and Sofia. Slobodan Mircevski who had a study visit at the University of Erlangen in 1984 provided the idea and concept about the type of equipment that was to be installed at the Laboratory. Since its establishment following professors have acted as Heads of the Laboratory: Prof. Todor Jakimov Ph.D., Prof. Blagoj Dimitrov, Prof. Slobodan Mircevski Asis.., Zdravko Andonov M.A. and Associate Professor Mihail Digalovski. Professor Todor Jakimov was the one who established the LED who was acted as a Dean at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering for one term. In order to cover all the functioning aspects of the Laboratory, additional technical associates have been engaged and they are as follows: Prof. Dimitrije Dilevski, Boris Roskov, and Ljupco Karajanovski who was active until the beginning of 2009. Since 2017 Associate Professor Mihail Digalovski was responsible for covering the curriculum of the LED, whereas Ivan Temelkovski and Technical Associate Ljupco Karajanovski M.A, were responsible for the laboratory exercises.
In addition, a few technical development Projects have been executed at the LEMD including usage of soft starting of induction motors, development of programable logical controllers for elevators, etc. With regard to the applied activity of LED, it is primarily focused on technical inspections and interventions, design and modernization of electric drives and these services, were mostly provided to local companies in the country.
Furthermore, the LED functioning is based upon high-quality embedded equipment used since its establishment, such as AEG Modicon A020 programmable logical controller which was purchased back in 1988. In the years to come, a few additional instruments and devices have been purchased including the device for motor loading with a different type of static loading torques depending of rotating speed, tachometer C.A. with data storage, mobile scopemeter Type: FLUKE 105 Scopemeter Series II, 100 MHz, as well as the aforementioned donated equipment from SIEMENS, ABB and DANFOSS.
Since 2015 to this date the laboratory has been constantly upgraded and it has been managed by Associate Professor Mihail Digalovski Ph.D. For that purpose, many of the laboratory exercises that are executed here are being modified such as relay-contactor controlling is replaced by programmable logical controlling Currently we are dedicated to providing of purchase for new inverters for speed regulation of induction motors as well as preparation of new laboratory exercises.
