Department of Electrical Engineering Professor Seok Jul-gi (45) won the '2014 Society Level Prize Paper: Transaction Second Place Prize Award' from the Industry Application Society (IAS) under the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

 IEEE IAS was established in 1965 for the theories and practical application of design, control, installation, safety and reliability of electric energy application systems and devices. It is the world's largest academic organization pertaining to electric energy application composed of four department and 30 sub-departments.

 The award that Professor Seok received is the most prominent award given by reviewing all papers in all academic sectors dealt with by IAS. IAS reviews papers published in academic conferences in each sub-department and publishes them in internationally renowned academic journals such as Transactions on Industry Applications (Journal Citation Report, JCR, top 16%) over six times in year by IEEE. IAS selects three outstanding papers from over 300 papers published every year to award them.

 As a corresponding author, Professor Seok published the research results on 'torque and magnetic flux control of broadband activated buried permanent magnet synchronous motor that operates in fields with limited voltage and electric current' in the January 2013 issue of 'Transactions on Industry Applications'. This study, which was jointly performed by the labs of Professor Seok and Professor Robert D. Lorenz of the University of Washington, was on the control of efficient utilization of 'buried permanent magnet synchronous motor' that is widely used in the industry including recent environment-friendly electric automobiles and household appliances such as air conditioners.

 In research until now, it was impossible to use the maximum usable voltage of electric motor driving devices in broadband driving sectors due to internal control collision issues. In order to overcome such issues, Professor Seok solved the internal collision issue of control devices by designing electric motor modeling and integrated control devices in the discrete-time domain using the idea that electric motors are modeled and control devices are designed in the continuous-time domain in other studies. Through this, it was confirmed in this study that just by changing the software without additional parts in the broadband speed sector, it can be possible to use max voltage and enhance usage rate by approximately 11%.

 Professor Seok said, "In the case of electric automobiles, because motors are driven by batteries with limited capacities, using the battery power at maximum efficiency is essential for extending fuel efficiency and driving distance," and added, "The research results published last year can be directly applied in not only electric automobiles that require low-loss driving, but also household appliances such as air conditioners, as well as high-speed drive operation product fields. Moreover, it was possible to produce high fuel-efficiency and highly efficient products just by changing the software without adding parts."

 Professor Seok, who conducted follow-up research to raise the technical perfection and developed simple control methods registered domestic patents and applied for international patents, said, "We presented improved research results at the Energy Conversion Congress and Expo in the IEE energy conversion sector held in Pittsburgh USA on September 16." He added, "The research results presented here is now in the stage of applying to industrial products together with Korean conglomerates, and its application will be expanded to high speed drive fields in which efficiency is important, as well as high power density household appliances."

 Professor Seok earned his bachelor's, master's, and PhD in electric engineering at Seoul National University and is currently working as a professor at YU since March 2001. Professor Seok, whose main field of study is power conversion and electric motor controller, became the first Korean to be appointed as the chairman of the paper award committee of the IEEE Industrial Driver Committee Journal and Society where he served for two years, and has been serving as an IEEE senior member, which has a lifelong tenure, from 2008.

 Meanwhile, Professor Seok is scheduled to receive this award at the '49th IAS Annual Meeting' that will be held in Vancouver, Canada on October 9.