Speaker: Prof. Tomislav Dragicevic
Date: October 22nd 2020 at 11am ET
Abstract: Power electronics technology is in the heart of the ongoing green transition. In particular, power electronic converter systems (PELS) serve as grid interfaces to renewable energy sources, storage systems, electrical vehicles, and flexible loads. Therefore, as fundamental building blocks, power converters will not only have a major effect on the efficiency and reliability of future power systems, but will also be in charge of ensuring their stable and secure operation. Challenges such as decreased system inertia, static voltage deviations and dynamic voltage instability arise in this scenario and they can be partially solved through effective control, design and placement of PELS in future power systems. Moreover, a well-coordinated cooperative effort of many PELS requires tight coupling of power electronics with advanced computation and communication technologies. This will make the power-converter based system increasingly vulnerable to cyber-attacks. This lecture will discuss some of the research challenges mentioned above and present several recent research results where artificial intelligence (AI) inspired solutions have been developed. Lecture will also discuss future research directions in the field of AI applied to converter-based power systems.
Bio: Tomislav Dragičević (S’09-M’13-SM’17) received the M.Sc. and the industrial Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Zagreb, Croatia, in 2009 and 2013, respectively. From 2013 until 2016 he has been a Postdoctoral researcher at Aalborg University, Denmark. From 2016 until 2020 he was an Associate Professor at Aalborg University, Denmark. From 2020 he is a Professor at the Technical University of Denmark.
He made a guest professor stay at Nottingham University, UK during spring/summer of 2018. His research interest is application of advanced control, optimization and artificial intelligence inspired techniques to provide innovative and effective solutions to emerging challenges in design, control and cyber-security of power electronics intensive electrical distributions systems and microgrids. He has authored and co-authored more than 250 technical publications (more than 120 of them are published in international journals, mostly in IEEE), 8 book chapters and a book in the field.
He serves as an Associate Editor in the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, in IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, in IEEE Emerging and Selected Topics in Power Electronics and in IEEE Industrial Electronics Magazine. Dr. Dragičević is a recipient of the Končar prize for the best industrial PhD thesis in Croatia, a Robert Mayer Energy Conservation award, and he is a winner of an Alexander von Humboldt fellowship for experienced researchers.