Prof. Brad Lehman

Google Scholar Profile

Dr. Brad Lehman is presently a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Northeastern University (Boston, MA) and previously was a Hearin Hess Distinguished Assistant Professor at Mississippi State University. Dr. Lehman was Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS from 2013-2018 and previously has been the recipient of the 2015 IEEE (PELS) Power Electronics Society Modeling and Control Technical Achievement Award, a 2016 IEEE Standards Medallion, the 2018 IEEE Award for Achievement in Power Electronics Standards, and the 2019 IEEE PELS Harry A. Owen, Jr. Distinguished Service Award. He has been listed in the inaugural edition of the book The 300 Best Professors, Princeton Review, 2012. Dr. Lehman performs research in power electronics and controls, with applications to solar energy, LED lighting, battery energy management systems, and reliability. Before becoming a professor, Brad was the head swimming and diving coach at Georgia Institute of Technology.

Keynote Speech: The Future Influence of Artificial Intelligence on Power Electronics, Renewable Energy, and Microgrids

The revolution in Artificial Intelligence is finally beginning to influence the power electronics and renewable energy fields. This talk will discuss its particular impact on areas like: power processing, power converter design, renewable energy operation, microgrids and other emerging application areas. For example: 1) smart PV panels have been built that can self-heal or reconfigure to produce higher power output when shaded or faulted; 2) Weather forecasts that utilize Deep Learning can be incorporated into energy management schedulers for solar photovoltaic microgrids to optimize profits; 3) Power electronic converter design algorithms may become automated in the future using machine learning approaches. However, the computational processing also requires huge demands on the power supply, especially when multiple GPUs are used. All these trends from AI have led to new technologies, problem statements, and control problems for the power electronics industry. These difficulties and opportunities will be discussed.