Five invited addresses
The 2018 keynote programme brought speakers from Japan, China and France. The subjects ranged from national power grids and speech recognition to robotics, quantum communication and the skills needed for smart grid work.
State of the art of Japanese power grid and future sustainable green energy grid
Tadahiro Goda, Professor
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan
The talk examined how the 2011 earthquake and tsunami changed Japan’s energy situation, including the country’s low energy self sufficiency rate and the planned increase in renewable energy. It introduced smart grid construction, testing equipment for power conditioning systems and storage, a new power flow calculation method and the concept of a future green energy grid based on hydrogen.
Tadahiro Goda worked at Mitsubishi Electric before becoming a professor at Kyushu University and later Doshisha University. His research covers protection and control of power systems, microgrids and smart grids.
Noise robust speech recognition for AI robot
Yoshikazu Miyanaga, Professor
Hokkaido University, Japan
The address presented a noise robust speech recognition system for communication robots. It introduced time varying speech features, dynamic range adjustment and modulation spectrum control, then considered the difficulty of distinguishing similar pronunciation phrases under low signal to noise conditions.
Yoshikazu Miyanaga is a professor at Hokkaido University and has served as Dean of the Graduate School of Information Science and Technology. His interests include speech signal processing, wireless communication signal processing and low power VLSI system design.
Intelligent robot as a cyber physical system in Society 5.0
Shigeki Sugano, Professor
Waseda University, Japan
The talk introduced Society 5.0 and the cyber physical systems that support it, then examined human symbiotic robots. It argued that computational intelligence and mechanical design must be integrated to produce adaptable, affordable and safe robotic systems.
Shigeki Sugano is a professor at Waseda University and has held leadership roles in the Robotics Society of Japan, SICE and IEEE robotics communities. His research covers human symbiotic robot design, safe manipulators and human robot communication.
Differential phase shift quantum key distribution
Zhen Qiang Yin, Associate Professor
University of Science and Technology of China
The address explained how quantum key distribution can distribute secret key bits with security grounded in quantum mechanics. It focused on the differential phase shift protocol and a round robin variant, improved bounds on information leakage and experiments over 30 km and 140 km.
Zhen Qiang Yin received his doctorate from USTC in 2010 and works in the key laboratory of quantum information. His research covers quantum key distribution and quantum information security.
Smart grids: research consideration and current skills for new jobs
Yahoui Hamed, Professor
Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University, France
The talk examined the growth of distributed energy resources, the shift toward direct current loads and the advantages of direct current microgrids. It discussed protection challenges and the skills that new energy jobs require from electrical engineering graduates.
Yahoui Hamed works in the AMPERE Laboratory at Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University. His research covers electrical diagnostics, direct current microgrids, protection and communication systems, and he leads an international master programme in advanced manufacturing and electrical energy management.
The full schedule is on the technical programme page. Speaker notes are shortened from the published 2018 material; names, titles and affiliations are preserved.