Nam-Pyo Suh
President, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)
Speaker
Nam-Pyo Suh is
the President of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
(KAIST). He served as a professor at the University of South Carolina before
joining the faculty at MIT in 1970. At MIT he held a number of leading
positions: he founded the Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity and the
MIT-Industry Polymer Processing Programme. He was head of the department of
Mechanical Engineering (1991–2001), director of the MIT Manufacturing Institute
and also headed MIT’s Park Center for Complex Systems. Nam-Pyo Suh’s research
into polymers played a role in the development of microcellular plastic, known
as MuCell, and he contributed significantly to tribology research, which
explores the interaction of surfaces in relative motion. He is also the creator
of Axiomatic Design Theory, which provided the framework for the invention of
the On-Line Electric Vehicle (OLEV)
In 1984,
Mr Suh was appointed the assistant director for Engineering of the National
Science Foundation by President Ronald Reagan and confirmed by the US Senate. He
was inaugurated as president of Korea Advanced Institute of Science and
Technology in July 2006.
Mr Suh is the author
of over 300 papers and seven books, he holds more than 70 patents and edited
several books. He is the recipient of seven honorary doctoral degrees and of
numerous awards. He has served on the board of a range
of publically listed technology companies. He has consulted for the UN,
National Laboratories, World Bank and the Korean government.
Presentation Summary
The KAIST Online Electric Vehicle has been developed
with the idea that it is more efficient not to carry energy on a vehicle (the
traditional model) but to supply the energy, as it is needed.
This has been achieved by laying subterranean
powerlines which wirelessly transfer energy to a pick up unit in the vehicle
running along the road. The vehicle takes energy as it needs it, and only needs
to carry small onboard batteries, approximately twenty percent the size of
batteries in competing electric vehicles.
Power transfer from cable to vehicle is via induction,
using shaped magnetic field in resonance (SMFiR), and has proven extremely efficient
at eighty-five percent.
The system has a range of other potential
applications: aeroplanes as they move around the runway; trains, replacing
overhead power lines; ships for navigation around harbours.
