Prof. Katherine A. Kim has been elected to serve as a Member-At-Large for the IEEE Power Electronics Society (PELS) Administrative Committee. She will serve for three years from 2016 to 2018. Prof. Kim has previously been involved in PELS as the PELS Student Membership Chair in 2013-2014 and as a member of the PELS Student and Young Professionals Committee from 2013 to present. She is honored to receive the Member-At-Large position and looks forward to contributing to the IEEE PELS and the world-wide power electronics community.

The official annoucement can be found here: http://www.ieee-pels.org/mobile-news/2654-results-of-the-2015-pels-member-at-large-election

The Fall 2015 semester is underway at UNIST!

This semester, Prof. Katherine A. Kim is teaching an undergraduate and graduate course as follows:

EE313: Introduction to Control [자동제어공학개론]
Level: Undergraduate Course
Description: Introduction to Controls is an upper-level undergraduate course where you will learn the fundamentals of dynamic system analysis and control theory. Projects and teamwork are important aspects of this flipped-learning-based class. The primary goal of the course is for students to finish the semester with a clear understanding of various realistic dynamic systems and how to design and analyze an effective controller.
Video Lectures: Introduction to Control EE313

ECE839: Special Topics – Power Electronics for Energy Harvesting [에너지 하베스팅 전력전자공학]
Level: Graduate Course
Description: Power Electronics for Energy Harvesting is a Special Topics PhD level course where you will learn the basics of energy harvesting technologies and associated power electronics topology and control methods. The primary goal of the course is for students to gain a clear understanding of power electronics techniques for low-power energy harvesting applications.

We are excited to have a new undergraduate student, HoaeJeong Jeong (정회정), who has joined the PEARS Lab!

Two journal papers from the PEARS Lab have also come out this Fall:

1. “Reexamination of Photovoltaic Hot Spotting to Show Inadequacy of the Bypass Diode,” by Katherine A. Kim and Philip T. Krein, in IEEE J. Photovoltaic., vol. 5, no. 5. pp. 1435-1441, Sept. 2015.
2. “Fluorescent Light Energy Harvesting Using a Capacitive Touch Screen,” by Seulkirom Kim, Katherine A. Kim and Franklin Bien, in Electronics Letters, vol. 51, no. 21. pp. 1695-1697, Oct. 2015.

The UNIST 2015 IEEE International Future Energy Challenge (IFEC) Team traveled to Dearborn, MI, USA, to test their wireless power transfer prototype for the Topic A (High-efficiency Wireless Charging System for Electric Vehicles and Other Applications) competition. Team members were Sangyeong Jeong, Mina Kim, Hyeun-Tae Cho, and Zhanibek Bizak. Faculty advisors were Prof. Katherine A. Kim, Prof. Jeehoon Jung, and Prof. Jingook Kim.

The four-student first-time UNIST Team competed in the IFEC competition and the gained valuable experience designing, building, and testing power electronics hardware. Through the competition, students learned to work as a team and gained experience in making challenging, real-world power electronics hardware that they will use as finish their education and go on to graduate school.

The UNIST Team can be seen testing their Wireless Power Transfer prototype at the competition below. Additional pictures of the IFEC UNIST and other teams at the competition can be found here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/72392935@N06/sets/72157656023270076

Graduate student Hyunji Lee attended the 2015 Workshop on Control and Modeling for Power Electronics (COMPEL) in Vancouver, Canada. She presented a poster for the paper entitled “Comparison of Photovoltaic Converter Configurations for Wearable Applications” in the Energy Harvesting and Power Management Poster Session on Tuesday, July 14, 2015. Hyunji Lee was also honored to receive the 2015 COMPEL Student Travel Grant Award to help make her trip to the conference possible.

PEARS Lab members and Advanced Power Interface & Power Electronics Lab (APIPEL) members attended the Korean Institution of Power Electronics (KIPE) 2015 Annual Conference (전력전자학술대회). The PEARS Lab presented three papers during the conference:

Xuan Hung Mai presented a poster for the paper entitled “Photovoltaic Hot Spot Detection Method Integrated into a Boost Converter” on Tuesday, July 7, 2015.

Hyunji Lee presented the paper entitled “Efficiency Analysis fo Photovoltiac Configurations in Wearable Charging Applications” on Thursday, July 9, 2015.

The paper entitled “A Dynamic Model of Single Crystalline Photovoltaic Cells Incorporating Thermo-Electric Characteristics” was also presented on Thursday, July 9, 2015.

UNIST ECE professors (Prof. Jingook Kim, Prof. Jeehoon Jung, and Prof. Katherine Kim) and students (Sangyeong Jeong, Mina Kim, and Hyeun-Tae Cho) made a strong showing at the IEEE PELS Workshop on Emerging Technologies: Wirelss Power (WoW) on June 5-6 at KAIST, Daejeon, Korea. Three papers were presented during the conference by the students:

Sangyeong Jeong presented the paper entitled “Analytical Investigation of Optimal Wireless Power Transfer Topology for Electric Vehicles” on Friday June 5.

Mina Kim presented the paper entitled “Design Methodology of a 500 W Wireless Power Transfer Converter,” on Saturday June 6.

Hyeun-Tae Cho presented the paper entitled “Comparison of Input Power Factor Correction Techniques for Buck Converters in Single-Phase Wireless Power Transfer Systems” on Saturday June 6.

Congratulations to Hyeun-Tae Cho for sucessfully completing his first conference presentation!

On June 1-5, 2015, Prof. Katherine Kim attended the International Conference on Power Electronics(ICPE)/ECCE-Asia in Seoul, South Korea. She co-chaired the Renewable Green Energy 2 Session on June 2, and presented the paper entitled “Photovoltaic Hot Spot Mitigation Using Voltage-Threshold Control At The Panel Level” on Thursday, June 4, in the Renewable Green Energy 4 Session.

A team of four undergraduate student (including PEARS Lab students Hyeun-Tae Cho and Zhanibek Bizak) has been selected to compete in the final competition of the 2015 IEEE International Future Energy Challenge. They are competing in Topic A where they are building a High-Efficiency Wireless Charging System for Electric Vehicles and Other Applications. The team is currently building and testing the wireless charging system in preparation for the final competition at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, MI, USA, in July 2015.

Team members (as shown in the picture) are Zhanibek Bizak, Sangyeong Jeong, Mina Kim, and Hyeun-Tae Cho. Faculty advisors are Prof. Katherine A. Kim, Prof. Jeehoon Jung, and Prof. Jingook Kim.