Prof. Joachim Holtz, a leading expert in Power Electronics, delivered a Distinguished Lecture at Eastern Mediterranean University

Prof. Joachim Holtz, IEEE Life Fellow, Wuppertal University, Germany, delivered an IEEE Industrial Electronics Society Distinguished Lecture (DL) at the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering of the 43-year-old Eastern Mediterranean University in Northern Cyprus. The title of his lecture was “Predictive Control: When to use and when not?". About 80 students and faculty attended the lecture. Almost all seats in the lecture hall were occupied. Although predictive control has emerged in the 80s, it became a very popular control method in the last decade. Prof. Holtz explained the idea behind predictive control and highlighted the advantages of this control technique which include low switching losses at low switching frequencies, insensitivity to model parameter variations and fast dynamic response. In his talk, Prof. Holtz pointed out the advantages and disadvantages of using predictive control in high, medium and low power levels. He demonstrated that the maximum fundamental output voltage can be achieved provided that the current trajectory remains inside of a rectangular boundary area that rotates aligned and synchronized with the stator flux linkage vector. The realization of predictive control in a high-power drive (up to 28MW) that was built for a grinding mill in a copper mine was shown. The method offers a maximum efficiency of 99.1% at nominal load from AC input to mechanical output. Prof. Holtz concluded that predictive control is suitable for medium to high voltage power converters rather than low voltage power converters.