Joseph Oncken

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Research Scientist at Idaho National Laboratory

The nuclear industry is rapidly developing many advanced-reactor concepts for near-term deployment in both traditional and non-traditional nuclear-powered applications. One such category of advanced reactor is the microreactor, a class of reactor with less than 20MWth power output, intended for applications where the economics or logistics of tradi...

To support the reliable and resilient operation of modular reactors and microreactors, anticipatory control strategies have been proposed for achieving faster-than-real-time predictions and decision-making capabilities in anticipation of potential anomalies, including setpoint changes and cyber incidents. This work presents how anticipatory control...

Advanced reactors, especially microreactors, must take advantage of remote monitoring and control strategies to reduce the commercial cost of deployment and operations costs to compete with existing electrical generators. A robust and flexible remote concept of operations must be developed to support diverse designs and use cases to ensure safe and...

The nuclear industry is developing new advanced reactor technologies, and many companies are conceptualizing designs for microreactors, a class of nuclear reactor with a sub-20 MWth power output designed to be factory fabricated, easily transportable, and simple to control. Microreactors offer promising solutions to several use cases for which larg...

Due to the complexity of a multi-mode Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) powertrain, the energy management strategy of said powertrain is a prime candidate for the application of optimal control methods. This paper presents a predictive control strategy for optimal mode selection and powertrain control for a multi-mode PHEV capable of real-time...

The continued development of connected and automated vehicle technologies presents the opportunity to utilize these technologies for vehicle energy management. Leveraging this connectivity among vehicles and infrastructure allows a powertrain controller to be predictive and forward-looking. This paper presents a real-time predictive powertrain cont...

2020 SAE International. All Rights Reserved. This paper presents an overview of the connected controls and optimization system for vehicle dynamics and powertrain operation on a light-duty plug-in multi-mode hybrid electric vehicle developed as part of the DOE ARPA-E NEXTCAR program by Michigan Technological University in partnership with General M...

The continued push for the reduction of energy consumption across the automotive vehicle fleet has led to widespread adoption of hybrid and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) by auto manufacturers. In addition, connected and automated vehicle (CAV) technologies have seen rapid development in recent years and bring with them the potential to si...

The advancement in vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle- to-infrastructure technologies makes it possible for vehicles to obtain the real-time information related to transportation and traffic infrastructure. This paper presents the development of an optimal velocity generation algorithm that leverages the availability of traffic and road information. Th...

Multi-mode Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs) have shown the advantages over traditional single-mode HEVs. For multi-mode HEVs, selecting an appropriate vehicle mode and determining power- split are keys for the reduction of energy consumption. Scholars have used Dynamic Programming (DP) to determine mode selection and power-split offline due to the l...

With the advancement of vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure technologies, more and more real-time information regarding traffic and transportation system will be available to vehicles. This paper presents the development of a novel algorithm that uses available velocity bounds and powertrain information to generate an optimal velocity...