The Industrial Electronics (IE) Chapter and The IA/PELS Chapter in Singapore Section jointly invited Professor Bimal K. Bose, Condra Chair of Excellence (Endowed Chair) in Power Electronics of the University of Tennessee and Life Fellow of IEEE, to give a distinguished lecture on “Artificial Intelligence Techniques: An Advancing Frontier in Power Electronics”. The lecture was held in the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore on 26 June 2006.

Professor Bose started with a broad introduction of different disciplines of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques such as expert system (ES), fuzzy logic (FL), artificial neural network (ANN), and genetic algorithm (GA). Then he focused his lecture on artificial neural networks and their applications in power electronics and motor drives. ANN represents the most generic form of AI to emulate human thinking. The massive parallel computation capability of neuro-computer along with inherent fault-tolerance and harmonic filtering properties provides a powerful tool for intelligent control and estimation in power electronic systems. Professor Bose particularly presented his own research on ANN applications in waveform processing and delayless filtering, vector drive signal processing, and space vector PWM techniques in multi-level converters. He pointed out that AI-based techniques can solve complex problems which are difficult to solve by traditional methods. Currently, AI technology is advancing at a fast rate, and its applications in power electronics are also increasing fast. The potential impact of AI on power electronics is tremendous. The frontier of AI is bringing a new challenge to traditional power electronics engineers.

About 50 people from universities, polytechnics, research institutes and industry attended the lecture. They had fruitful discussions with Professor Bose after his lecture.

Professor Bose'S BIOGRAPHY

 

Dr. Bimal K. Bose (Life Fellow, IEEE) held the Condra Chair of Excellence (Endowed Chair) in Power Electronics in the University of
Tennessee, Knoxville since 1987, where he was responsible for teaching and research program in power electronics and motor drives. Concurrently, he served as Distinguished Scientist (1989-2000) and Chief Scientist (1987-89) of EPRI-Power Electronics Applications Center, Knoxville. Prior to this, he was a research engineer in General Electric Corporate R & D Center (now GE Global Research Center) , Schenectady, NY for 11 years (1976-87), an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY for 5 years (1971-76), and faculty member of Bengal Engineering College (now Bengal Engineering and Science University) for 11 years (1960-71). Dr. Bose has extensive research experience in power electronics and motor drives that includes power converters, PWM techniques, microcomputer/DSP control, electric/hybrid vehicle drives, renewable energy systems, and artificial intelligence (expert system, fuzzy logic and neural network) applications in power electronics and motor drives. He has been a power electronics consultant in a large number of industries. He holds Honorary Professorships in Shanghai University (1991), China University of Mining and Technology (1995), Xian Mining University (also Honorary Director of Elec. Engg. Inst.) (1998), Huazhong Univ. of Science and Technology (2002), and Honorary Adviser of Beijing Power Electronics R&D Center (1990).