Hirofumi Akagi Wins 2018 IEEE Medal In Power Engineering

Professor Hirofumi Akagi was awarded the medal for his pioneering contributions to the theory and practice of power conversion systems.

AsianScientist (Apr. 17, 2018) – Hirofumi Akagi, specially appointed professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology (TokyoTech), has been announced as the recipient of the 2018 IEEE Medal in Power Engineering by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

The IEEE is an international association of professionals in the fields of electrical and electronic engineering, headquartered in the US. It is one of the world’s largest technical associations with 430,000 members.

The IEEE Medal in Power Engineering is an award that was established in 2008 to honor researchers and engineers who have contributed in a broad sense to the development of power engineering, including power generation, power transmission, power distribution and power application.

Akagi received this award in recognition of his pioneering contributions to the theory and practice of power conversion systems and their applications.

“The main achievement for which I am receiving this meal is the ‘establishment of a theory of instantaneous reactive power in three-phase circuits and its application.’ After defining the instantaneous reactive power, it took three months to precisely prove the physical meaning using mathematical formula, but the proof itself can be fully understood with linear algebra studied in the first year of university,” said Akagi.

“I applied this instantaneous reactive power theory to a power conversion system, and I can still clearly remember the sparkling surprise and joy I had when I saw experimental waveforms that had until then been impossible to obtain through the application of conventional reactive power theory,” he added.

Akagi first took an interest in power electronics as an undergraduate student in April 1973.

“I continue to study it now, and it is never boring,” he said.



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Source: Tokyo Institute of Technology.
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