Invited by Dept. of Electrical Engineering, and Institute of Aerospace and Special Electrical Machines, Dr Patrick Luk (Cranfield University, UK) delivered a lecture entitled Electric Motors, Electric Drives, Electric Vehicles for over 70 teachers and students from CEE on March 16. Professor Shen Jianxin chaired the lecture.
Dr Patrick Luk first introduced a variety of problems arsing from global energy crisis and environmental pollution, such as ever-increasing carbon dioxide emissions and environmental degradation due to population boom. He further brought forward a new vehicle development plan on the basis of speciality in electrical machine and electrical apparatus. In recent years, rise of electric vehicles, including hybrid vehicles and pure electric vehicles, provides great space for the development of the speciality. However, there are some difficulties in electric vehicle development such as battery issues including improvement of battery performance and waste battery treatment. Type choice for electric motors is also a problem faced by eletrical vehicle manufacturing. He hence made a detailed analysis and comparison on a number of motors which are suitable for electric vehicles, such as permanent magnet synchronous motor and flux switching motor. Finally, he looked ahead to the development of electric vehicles and motor manufacturing. After the lecture, a heated discussion was carried out between Dr Patrick Luk and those present regarding electric vehicle batteries, electric motor design and manufacturing technology.
Dr Patrick Chi-Kwong Luk is currently the Head of Power and Drive Systems Group, in the Department of Engineering Systems and Management, Cranfield University, U.K. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE, Chairman of IEEE Power Electronics Chapter for UK and Republic of Ireland, and Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics. He got his BSc from Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 1983, MPhil from Sheffield University in 1989, and PhD from University of Glamorgan, Wales, in 1992.
He has been the technical advisor to several companies in automotive and electrical drives, including Mitsubishi Electric UK, Lotus Cars, NICE Car Company UK, and Scorpion Energy Systems (HK). He has won a number of industrial awards, including the Innovation Award by Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in 2006, the Excellence Award by Knowledge Transfer Network for his Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) project in 2009. In the last 6 years, he has successfully won over £1.2m research fund as the principal investigator, including a highly prestigious multi-partner EU-programme on the development of an inventive electric powertrain for electric vehicles.
With biography featured in Who’s Who in the World and Who’s Who in Finance and Industry by Marques U.S. since 2001, Dr Luk has published over 90 technical publications and reports, and holds 2 US patents and 2 GB patents in electric drives.
