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Nagamori Foundation held the Fourth Nagamori Awards Ceremony at Kyoto Hotel Okura on Sunday, September 02, 2018 for the winners of the awards and the recipients of the research grant for 2018. The ceremony was attended by approximately 210 people including many academics, the winners of Nagamori Awards, research grant recipients, and those related to Nagamori Foundation.
After presentations and panel exhibition by the six award winners followed by review from the members of Nagamori Foundation’s Review Committee, Dr. Bulent Sarlioglu, Associate Professor, Associate Director of Wisconsin Electric Machines and Power Electronics Consortium, College of Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA was chosen to receive the Grand Nagamori Award.
The ceremony began with Prof. Hori, the Review Committee’s Chairman, explaining how the winners were selected, followed by the announcement of the Fourth Nagamori Awards, for which each winner received a commendation certificate and a prize cup from Mr. Nagamori, President of Nagamori Foundation. Then, representing the award winners, Dr. Sarlioglu gave a speech to express the pleasure of receiving the award.
Dr. Sarlioglu, the winner of the Grand Nagamori Award was presented with an extra prize of 5 million yen, and the winners of Nagamori Awards, 2 million yen.
The next part of the ceremony was to present research grants (“Research Grant 2018”) to the researches by 25 young researchers, mostly associate or assistant professors at universities (11 new and 14 ongoing recipients). Dr. Yuki Yokokura, Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical, Electronics and Information Engineering, Nagaoka University of Technology, made a speech to appreciate the grant on behalf of all the grant recipients.
There were also two special lectures given at the Awards Ceremony, by Dr. Hiroshi Matsumoto of RIKEN, on “What can scientists do today to ensure a better future a century from now?” and Dr. Kouhei Ohnishi, Project Professor of Keio University, on “Haptics-Led Innovation” respectively. The entire ceremony, including the aforementioned awards and grant presentation ceremonies, followed by a celebratory party, ended in great success.
Dr. Bulent Sarlioglu
(Associate Professor, Associate Director of Wisconsin Electric Machines and Power Electronics Consortium, College of Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA)
I am honored and privileged to receive the highly prestigious 4th Nagamori Grand Award.
Worlds energy is scarce, and energy demand is going up. So, we need to use our energy more efficiently. Almost all power generation (except solar power for example) require generators. Motors use roughly 50 % of electricity, and some motors need power electronic drives. Hence, the energy efficiencies of generators, motors, and drives are extremely important to save valuable resources and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
With this motivation, my research focuses on research and development of new electric machines that have high efficiency with low weight and super-efficient power electronic converters with wide bandgap devices. I pioneered new motor topologies using doubly-salient and flux-switching permanent magnet machine structures which include the permanent magnets in the stator. Also, I contributed heavily to use wide bandgap devices for power electronic inverter drives which achieve more than 50% weight, and volume reduction and reduction of the losses increasing the efficiency, e.g., efficiency increased to 98% from 96%. I also focus on the improvement of the efficiency of conventional motors. I believe future cars, airplanes, and trains will use more motors for propulsion and other systems. Hence, there is a massive potential for motor and drive research and development.
I want to thank and extend my utmost respect to Mr. Nagamori, who founded and led the Nidec Corporation and dedicated his life developing motors that influenced our lives from micromotors in hard disks to motors used in robotics, actuators, appliances and many other places. The recognition will help my professional research goals in the area of electric motors, generators, actuators, and drives that will contribute to Nagamori foundations principle "maintain our affluent lives while also perpetually conserving the global environment." I know I am very fortunate to receive this award. I want to thank everyone who helped me to grow professionally in my career. I will do my best to merit this recognition and contribute to the society's benefit by innovation and improvement of efficiency and sustainability.
