Power electronics — the key technology for grid integration
Frede Blaabjerg
Aalborg University, Denmark
Abstract: The energy paradigms in many countries (e.g., Germany and Denmark) have experienced a significant
change from fossil-based resources to clean renewables (e.g., wind turbines and photovoltaics) in the past few decades.
The scenario of highly penetrated renewables is going to be further enhanced– Denmark expects to be 100 percent fossil-free
by 2050.
Consequently, it is required that the production, distribution and use of the energy should be as technologically
efficient as possible and incentives to save energy at the end-user should also be strengthened. In order to realize
the transition smoothly and effectively, energy conversion systems, currently based on power electronics technology,
will again play an essential role in this energy paradigm shift. Using highly efficient power electronics in power
generation, power transmission/distribution and end-user application, together with advanced control solutions, can
pave the way for renewable energies.
In light of this, some of the most emerging renewable energies — , e.g., wind energy and photovoltaic, which by
means of power electronics are changing character as a major part in the electricity generation —, are discussed.
Issues like technology development, implementation, power converter technologies, control of the systems, and
synchronization are addressed. Special focuses are paid on the future trends in power electronics for those systems
like how to lower the cost of energy and to develop emerging power devices and better reliability tool.
At last some discussions about other hot topics will be given.
Frede Blaabjerg (S’86–M’88–SM’97–F’03) was with ABB-Scandia, Randers, Denmark, from 1987 to 1988. From 1988 to
1992, he got the PhD degree in Electrical Engineering at Aalborg University in 1995. He became an Assistant Professor
in 1992, an Associate Professor in 1996, and a Full Professor of power electronics and drives in 1998. From 2017 he
became a Villum Investigator. He is honoris causa at University Politehnica Timisoara (UPT), Romania and Tallinn
Technical University (TTU) in Estonia. His current research interests include power electronics and its applications
such as in wind turbines, PV systems, reliability, harmonics and adjustable speed drives. He has published more than
600 journal papers in the fields of power electronics and its applications. He is the co-author of four monographs
and editor of ten books in power electronics and its applications.
He has received 33 IEEE Prize Paper Awards, the IEEE PELS Distinguished Service Award in 2009, the EPE-PEMC Council
Award in 2010, the IEEE William E. Newell Power Electronics Award 2014, the Villum Kann Rasmussen Research Award 2014,
the Global Energy Prize in 2019 and the 2020 IEEE Edison Medal. He was the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON
POWER ELECTRONICS from 2006 to 2012. He has been Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Power Electronics Society from
2005 to 2007 and for the IEEE Industry Applications Society from 2010 to 2011 as well as 2017 to 2018. In 2019-2020
he served as a President of IEEE Power Electronics Society. He has been Vice-President of the Danish Academy of
Technical Sciences. He is nominated in 2014-2020 by Thomson Reuters to be between the most 250 cited researchers
in Engineering in the world.
Role of ICT in Optimal Management of Smart Buildings, Smart Cities and Smart Grids
Professor Saifur Rahman
Virginia Tech, USA
Abstract: Smart grid is a concept with many elements where monitoring and control of each element in the chain of generation, transmission,
distribution and end-use allow the electricity delivery system and use to be more efficient. Smart Grid sits at the top of a four-tier hierarchy
starting with the Smart Buildings and Services which are elements of a Smart Campus, many of them when interconnected forms a Smart City, and many
of them taken together form the Smart Grid. A smart city relies on widely distributed smart devices to monitor the urban environment in real-time,
collects information for intelligent decision making, and facilitates various services to improve the quality of urban living. Smart cities address
urban challenges such as pollution, energy efficiency, security, parking, traffic, transportation, and others by utilizing advanced technologies in
data gathering and communications interconnectivity via the Internet. The proliferation of personal mobile devices and the development of online
social networks, make participatory sensing viable at a large scale, but may introduce many open-ended problems at the same time. This
interconnectedness implies that the Smart Grid and the Smart City must be developed together, and one cannot succeed without the other.
Saifur Rahman (Life Fellow, IEEE) received the B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology (BUET),
Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 1973, M.S. degree in electrical engineering from State University of New York, New York, NY. USA, in 1975, and the Ph.D.
degree in electrical engineering from Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA, in 1978. He is the Founding Director with the Advanced Research Institute,
Virginia Tech, Arlington, VA, USA, where he is the J. R. Loring Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He also directs the Center for
Energy and the Global Environment. He has published over 140 journal papers and has over 400 conference and invited presentations. He is a
Distinguished Lecturer for the PES and has lectured on renewable energy, energy efficiency, smart grid, energy Internet, blockchain, and IoT
sensor integration in over 30 countries.
Prof. Rahman is 2023 IEEE President and CEO. He is an IEEE Millennium Medal Winner. He was the Founding Editor-in Chief of IEEE Electrification
Magazine and the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SUSTAINABLE ENERGY. He served as the Chair of the U.S. National Science Foundation Advisory Committee for
International Science and Engineering from 2010 to 2013. He was the President of the IEEE Power and Energy Society for 2018 and 2019.
Neoteric Frontiers in Cloud, Edge, and Quantum Computing
Professor Rajkumar Buyya
University of Melbourne, Australia
Abstract : Computing is being transformed to a model consisting of services that are delivered in a manner similar to utilities such as water, electricity, gas, and telephony. In such a model, users access services based on their requirements without regard to where the services are hosted or how they are delivered. Cloud computing paradigm has turned this vision of "computing utilities" into a reality. It offers infrastructure, platform, and software as services, which are made available to consumers as subscription-oriented services. Cloud application platforms need to offer (1) APIs and tools for rapid creation of elastic applications and (2) a runtime system for deployment of applications on geographically distributed Data Centre infrastructures (with Quantum computing nodes) in a seamless manner.
The Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm enables seamless integration of cyber-and-physical worlds and opening opportunities for creating new class of applications for domains such as smart cities, smart robotics, and smart healthcare. The emerging Fog/Edge computing paradigms support latency sensitive/real-time IoT applications with a seamless integration of network-wide resources all the way from edge to the Cloud.
This keynote presentation will cover (a) 21st century vision of computing and identifies various IT paradigms promising to deliver the vision of computing utilities; (b) innovative architecture for creating elastic Clouds integrating edge resources and managed Clouds, (c) Aneka 5G, a Cloud Application Platform, for rapid development of Cloud/Big Data applications and their deployment on private/public Clouds with resource provisioning driven by SLAs, (d) a novel FogBus software framework with Blockchain-based data-integrity management for facilitating end-to-end IoT-Fog/Edge-Cloud integration for execution of sensitive IoT applications, (e) experimental results on deploying Cloud and Big Data/ IoT applications in engineering, and health care (e.g., COVID-19), deep learning/Artificial intelligence (AI), satellite image processing, and natural language processing (mining COVID-19 research literature for new insights) on elastic Clouds, (f) QFaaS: A Serverless Function-as-a-Service Framework for Quantum Computing, and (g) directions for delivering our 21st century vision along with pathways for future research in Cloud and Edge/Fog computing.
Dr. Rajkumar Buyya is a Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor and Director of the Cloud Computing and
Distributed Systems (CLOUDS) Laboratory at the University of Melbourne, Australia. He is also serving as the
founding CEO of Manjrasoft, a spin-off company of the University, commercializing its innovations in Cloud
Computing. He has authored over 850 publications and seven textbooks including "Mastering Cloud Computing"
published by McGraw Hill, China Machine Press, and Morgan Kaufmann for Indian, Chinese and international markets
respectively. Dr. Buyya is one of the highly cited authors in computer science and software engineering worldwide
(h-index=161, g-index=359, and 140,800+ citations). He has been recognized as a "Web of Science Highly Cited
Researcher" for seven times since 2016, "Best of the World" twice for research fields (in Computing Systems in
2019 and Software Systems in 2021) as well as "Lifetime Achiever" and "Superstar of Research" in "Engineering
and Computer Science" discipline twice (2019 and 2021) by the Australian Research Review.
Software technologies for Grid, Cloud, and Fog computing developed under Dr.Buyya's leadership have gained rapid
acceptance and are in use at several academic institutions and commercial enterprises in 50+ countries around the
world. Manjrasoft's Aneka Cloud technology developed under his leadership has received "Frost New Product Innovation
Award". He served as founding Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing. He is currently serving as
Editor-in-Chief of Software: Practice and Experience, a long-standing journal in the field established 50+ years ago.
He has presented over 700 invited talks (keynotes, tutorials, and seminars) on his vision on IT Futures, Advanced
Computing technologies, and Spiritual Science at international conferences and institutions in Asia, Australia,
Europe, North America, and South America. He has recently been recognized as a Fellow of the Academy of Europe.
Role of Communications in remote healthcare and overcoming digital divide
Professor Muhammad Ali Imran
School of Engineering, University of Glasgow, UK
Abstract: The high-performance digital connectivity has long been a luxury only enjoyed by urban centres.
The rural communities struggle to get access to digital connectivity and hence the services which rely on this -
including telemedicine. Our research is paving the way to make a step change by introducing low-cost digital
connectivity solutions for the rural communities. We are also working on low-cost sensing solutions and futuristic
advances in remote healthcare and monitoring to reach out to the disadvantaged population groups for improving their
healthcare. This talk will provide an overview of research underpinning this ambition.
The talk will focus on telemedicine enablers both in urban and rural areas: the communication infrastructure and
sensing technologies. For communication infrastructure we will review specific techniques that meet the constraints
of different telemedicine applications (latency, jitter, throughput and reliability). We will also review the medical
sensing paradigms including wearables-based sensors, remote sensing (exploiting RADAR principles and wireless channel
quality variations).
Muhammad Ali Imran (M'03, SM'12, F’22) Fellow IEEE, Fellow Royal Society of Edinburgh, Fellow IET, Fellow
HEA, Fellow RSA and Senior Fellow HEA, is a Professor of Wireless Communication Systems with research interests in
self-organized networks, wireless networked control systems and the wireless sensor systems. He is Dean of Graduate
Studies, College of Science and Engineering at University of Glasgow and also heads the Communications, Sensing and
Imaging CSI research group at University of Glasgow. He is an Affiliate Professor at the University of Oklahoma, USA
and a visiting Professor at 5G Innovation Centre, University of Surrey, UK. He has over 20 years of combined academic
and industry experience with several leading roles in multi-million pounds funded projects. He has filed 15 patents;
has authored/co-authored over 600 journal and conference publications; was editor of 10 books and author of more than
30 book chapters; has successfully supervised over 50 postgraduate students at Doctoral level. He has been a consultant
to international projects and local companies in the area of self-organized networks.
Electrification with High-Efficiency Power Conversion Technologies for Net Zero Emission Behaviors
Jih-Sheng (Jason) La
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, USA
Abstract: Electrification have been recognized as the key to eliminating fossil fuel dependence and paving the
way for achieving the 2050 net-zero emission goal. The overarching strategy involves transitioning modes of
transportation, including scooters, cars, trucks, buses, airplanes, and ships in to electric power sources
primarily fueled by renewable and clean energy. Center to this endeavor are essential technologies such as
traction motor drives and battery chargers. In parallel, grid modernization hinges on advanced power conversion
technologies such as high-voltage high-power inverters and solid-state transformers, all designed to seamlessly
integrate renewable energy source. Today, due to the nature of load in transportation and many other sectors is
mostly DC. Consequently, the renewable integration and power distribution system often involve with unnecessary
power conversion stages or inefficient power conversion technologies, resulting in substantial energy losses. Given
the global electricity capacity exceeding 11 TW, a mere one percent loss translates to a 110-GW, or more than 100
mid-size nuclear power plants capacity. In the early stage of computer industry, the power conversion efficiency
hovered in low 70% range. The technology was gradually improved to around 90% range when the super-junction
semiconductor became commercially available. Today, with the advent of wide bandgap semiconductor devices, further
efficiency improvement is on the horizon. The question is how high can the efficiency achieve. This presentation
will introduce advanced high-efficiency power electronics technologies that leverage the latest generation power
semiconductor devices to approach near-perfect power conversion. Real-world examples of ultrahigh-efficiency power
conversion in EV inverters, fast chargers, PV inverters, and solid-state transformers will be showcased.
Jih-Sheng (Jason) Lai received M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of
Tennessee, Knoxville, in 1985 and 1989. After graduated, he joined Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) Power
Electronics Applications Center as the Senior Engineer and Manager. From 1993, he worked with the Oak Ridge National
Laboratory as the Power Electronics Lead Scientist. In 1996, he switched to academia and joined Virginia Tech.
Currently he is James S. Tucker Endowed Chair Professor and Director of Future Energy Electronics Center (FEEC).
He also holds a Yushan Fellow Visiting Professor position at National Yang-Ming Jiao-Tung University, Taiwan. He
published more than 500 refereed technical papers and received more than 30 U.S. patents in the area of high
power electronics and their applications.
Dr. Lai is an IEEE Life Fellow. He received numerous awards including a Technical Achievement Award in 1995-Lockheed
Martin Award Night and 2016-IEEE Gerald Kliman Innovation Award. His student teams won grand prizes in 2009 TI Engibous
Analog Design Competition and 2011 IEEE International Future Energy Challenge. In 2016 Google Little Box Challenge, his
team won the Top 3 Finalist among 2000+ international teams.
Reconstructing Reality: Creating Digital Twins for the Metaverse
Professor Ming C. Lin
University of Maryland, USA
Abstract: With increasing availability of data in various forms from images, audio, video, 3D models, motion capture, simulation results, to
satellite imagery, representative samples of the various phenomena constituting the world around us bring new opportunities and
research challenges. Such availability of data has led to recent advances in data-driven modeling. However, most of the existing
example-based synthesis methods offer empirical models and data reconstruction that may not provide an insightful understanding of
the underlying process or may be limited to a subset of observations.
In this talk, I present recent advances that integrate classical model-based methods and statistical learning techniques to tackle
challenging problems that have not been previously addressed. These include flow reconstruction for traffic visualization,
learning heterogeneous crowd behaviors from video, simultaneous estimation of deformation and elasticity parameters from images
and video, and example-based multimodal display for VR systems. These approaches offer new insights for learning and understanding
complex collective behaviors, developing better models for complex dynamical systems from captured data, delivering more effective
medical diagnosis and treatment, as well as cyber-manufacturing of customized apparel. I conclude by discussing some possible
future directions and challenges.
Ming C. Lin is currently Distinguished University Professor, Dr. Barry Mersky and Capital One E-Nnovate Endowed Professor, former
Elizabeth Stevinson Iribe Chair of Computer Science at the University of Maryland College Park, and John R. & Louise S. Parker
Distinguished Professor Emerita of Computer Science at the University of North Carolina (UNC), Chapel Hill. She is also an
Amazon Scholar. She obtained her B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of
California, Berkeley. She received several honors and awards, including NSF Young Faculty Career Award, Honda Research Initiation
Award, UNC/IBM Junior Faculty Development Award, UNC Hettleman Award for Scholarly Achievements, Beverly W. Long Distinguished
Professorship, IEEE VGTC Virtual Reality Technical Achievement Award, and many best paper awards at international conferences.
She is a Fellow of National Academy of Inventors, ACM, IEEE, Eurographics, ACM SIGGRAPH Academy, and IEEE VR Academy.
Her research interests include AI/ML, computational robotics, virtual reality, physically-based modeling, multimodal interaction,
and geometric computing. She has (co-)authored more than 300 refereed publications in these areas and several books. She has served
on hundreds of program committees of leading conferences and co-chaired dozens of international conferences and workshops. She is
currently a member of Computing Research Association (CRA) and CRA-Widening Participation (CRA-WP) Board of Directors and Chair of
IEEE Computer Society (CS) Goode Award Committee. She was a former chair of IEEE CS Computer Pioneer Award and IEEE CS Fellow
committee, and the Founding Chair of ACM SIGGRAPH Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award. She is also a former member of IEEE
CS Board of Governors, a former Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (2011-2014), a former
Chair of IEEE CS Transactions Operations Committee, and a member of several editorial boards. She also served on steering committees
and advisory boards of several international conferences, government and industrial technical advisory committees.
Brain-Robot Interaction
Professor José del R. Millán
University of Texas at Austin, USA
Abstract: Future neuroprostheses will be tightly coupled with the user in such a way that the resulting system can replace and restore
impaired upper limb functions because controlled by the same neural signals than their natural counterparts. A key component
of these neuroprostheses is a brain-machine interface (BMI), which enables users to interact with computers and robots through
the voluntary modulation of their brain activity. The central tenet of a BMI is the capability to distinguish different patterns
of brain activity in real time, each being associated to a particular intention or mental task. This is a challenging problem
due to the limited information carried by brain signals we can measure, no matter the recording modality. How then is it possible
to operate complex brain-controlled robots over long periods of time? In this talk I will argue that efficient brain-machine
interaction, as the execution of voluntary movements, requires subject’s learning and the integration of several parts of the
CNS with the external actuators. I will put forward principles to design neuroprostheses, which I will illustrate through
working prototypes of brain-controlled robots and applications for disabled and able-bodied people alike.
Dr. José del R. Millán is a professor and holds the Carol Cockrell Curran Chair in the Chandra Family Department of Electrical
and Computer Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. He is also a professor in the Department of Neurology at Dell
Medical School, professor (by Courtesy) in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, faculty of the Mulva Clinic for the
Neurosciences, and member of the Institute for Neuroscience. He is co-director of the UT CARE Initiative and associate
director of Texas Robotics.
Dr. Millán received a PhD in computer science from the Technical University of Catalonia, Barcelona, in 1992. Prior to joining UT
Austin, he was a research scientist at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission in Ispra (Italy) and a senior researcher
at the Idiap Research Institute in Martigny (Switzerland). Most recently, he was Defitech Foundation Chair in Brain-Machine Interface
at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland.
Dr. Millán has made several seminal contributions to the field of brain-machine interfaces (BMI), especially based on
electroencephalogram signals. Most of his achievements revolve around the design of brain-controlled robots. He has received
several recognitions for these seminal and pioneering achievements, notably the IEEE-SMC Nobert Wiener Award in 2011, elevation
to IEEE Fellow in 2017, and elected Fellow of the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering in 2020. In addition
to his work on the fundamentals of BMI and design of neuroprosthetics, Dr. Millán is prioritizing the translation of BMI to people
who live with motor and cognitive disabilities. In parallel, he is designing BMI technology to offer new interaction modalities for
able-bodied people that augment their abilities.
PHOTONICS, A KEY ENABLING TECHNOLOGY AND ITS ROLE TO ACHIEVE THE UN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS
Professor Azizur Rahman
City, University of London
Abstract: With the advent of semiconductor lasers and low-loss optical fibres in mid 60s, the progress of
Photonics technology has been rapid. Photonics, as the name indicates, manipulates photon or light but much faster,
similar as Electronics manipulate electrons. Photonics has made a significant impact, in the field of optical fibre
links, joining all the countries and major cities by faster Tbit/sec bandwith link, made Internet almost free, thinner
flat screen display for computers and mobile phones, CD and DVD for data storage, and lasers for healthcare and material
processing applications. During the last EU research cycle, Horizon2020, Photonics was identified as one of the 6 Key
Enabling Technologies, and expected to play a key role in shaping the technology landscape of this century.
It is important for all of us to see how we can contribute to social, economical, health or environmental issues.
The UN has identified 17 key suatainable development goals (SDGs) to sustain our survibal in this planet. To tackle
global warming the Paris Agreement has been signed and 130 coutries and all have agreed to net zero-carbon contribution
by 2050. Most of the funding for new EU HorizonEurope will focus the role of technology to achieve these goals. I will
discuss how Photonics can help to overcome some of these big challenges our civilisation is facing now.
B. M. Azizur Rahman received the BEng and M.Sc.Eng. degrees in Electrical Engineering with distinctions from Bangladesh University of
Engineering and Technology (BUET), Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 1976 and 1979, respectively. He also received two gold medals for being the best
undergraduate and graduate students of the whole university in 1976 and 1979, respectively. In 1979, he was awarded with a Commonwealth Scholarship
to study for a PhD degree in the UK and subsequently in 1982 received his PhD degree in Electronics from University College London.
In 1988, he joined City, University of London, as a lecturer, where became a full Professor in 2000. At City University, he led the research group on
Photonics Modelling, specialised in the development and use of rigorous and full-vectorial numerical approaches to design, analyse and optimise a
wide range of photonic devices. He has published more than 700 journal and conference papers, and his journal papers have been cited more than 9600
times with H-index of 43. He has supervised 36 students to complete their PhD degrees as their first supervisor and received more than £13 M in research
grants. Prof. Rahman is Life Fellow of the IEEE, and Fellow of the Optical Society of America and the SPIE.
The Impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on Economy and Society
Professor Mohamed Nurullah
Kingston University, London
Abstract: The main missions and objectives of science and technology research are to search for ‘truth’ and provide benefits to mankind.
Under the Industry 4.0, the Science, Innovation, and Technology are the main ‘conditions for full employment’ and Economic Development which is an
imperative goal of every National Government. Generative AI and Machine Learning, IoTs, Cloud and Edge computing, Decentralised Finance (DeFi),
Sustainable technology, Cybersecurity, Blockchain, Big data, Datafication, Robotics and Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Natural language processing,
Drones, 3D Printing, Genomics, Metaverse, Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Extended Reality (ER), 5G,and Full Stack Development etc
are changing human behaviour and activities. Among these, the rise of the AI and ML technologies have led to an unprecedented level of automation.
AI allows computers to learn and solve problems mimicking human cognition and behaviour. This research explores the ‘dual’ impact of AI on economy
and society that requires appropriate balance of regulation and governance for which the national governments and policy makers, universities, and
the industry need to work together for maximising the benefits of the AI.
Dr Mohamed Nurullah is an Associate Professor (Reader) and former Head of the Department of Accounting, Finance, and Informatics of Kingston
University London. Mohamed is also the Doctoral Programme Coordinator for the Department and holds the Membership of the Faculty's Research Degrees
Committee (FRDC). Mohamed joined Kingston University in 2009 from Glasgow Caledonian University. Prior to that he worked full time for four years at
City, University of London from where he also completed his PhD in 2000. Mohamed teaches finance, financial technology, financial engineering, and
financial regulation at postgraduate level. He has published papers in leading academic journals. He has written reports for the UK government,
and other national and international organisations. He has presented papers in Europe, North America, Australia, and other Asia-pacific countries.
Mohamed has successfully supervised 20 PhD students. He holds visiting positions at the University of Glasgow, City University London, and Amity
University, India. Previously he acted as Chief Examiners for the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment (CISI) and the Institute of
Financial Services (ifs) London.