2001 William E. Newell Power Electronics Award Recipient
Hirofumi Akagi was born in Okayama, Japan in 1951. He received his B.S. degree from Nagoya Institute of Technology in 1974, and his M.S. and Ph. D. degrees from Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1976 and 1979, in all electrical engineering. In the same year, Dr. Akagi joined Nagaoka University of Technology as an Assistant and then Associate Professor. In 1987, he was a Visiting Scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology for ten months. From 1991 to 1999, he was a Professor at Okayama University. From March to August of 1996, he was a Visiting Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and then Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Since January 2000, he has been a Professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology.
Over the past twenty years, Dr. Akagi has conducted comprehensive research on static power converters, ac motor drives, high-frequency resonant inverters for induction heating and corona discharge treatment processes, and utility applications of power electronics such as active filters for power conditioning and FACTS (Flexible AC Transmission Systems) devices.
Most importantly, Dr. Akagi initiated the instantaneous power theory in three-phase circuits in 1983. His paper entitled ``Instantaneous reactive power compensators comprising switching devices without energy storage components'' was presented at the IEEE IAS Annual Meeting in 1983, and then it was published in the IEEE Transactions on IAS in 1984. The Transactions paper has been referred to very often in the international literature, and it has been followed with many papers including and/or expanding the basic concept created in the original paper.
Dr. Akagi has applied the theory to power electronics equipment, in particular to active filters for power conditioning. Moreover he has invented a practical hybrid active-passive filter, winning the best prize paper award for the IEEE IAS Transactions in 1991. A hybrid filter for power conditioning, based on the results of this prize paper, has been installed at the Yamanashi test line for high-speed magnet-levitation trains in Japan. The hybrid filter consisting of a 5-MVA series active filter and a 25-MVA shunt passive filter has been operating according to expectations since 1997.
Dr. Akagi has published over 120 peer-reviewed journal papers, including 47 IEEE Transactions papers in the field of power electronics. He is a recipient of the IEEE IAS Transactions prize paper award for 1991, and the IEEE PELS Transactions prize paper award for 1998, along with seven IEEE IAS committee prize paper awards from the industrial power converter committee and the industrial drive committee.
Source: Flyer from Award Presentation