Graduate / "The flow of electron" needs your review : SOP for Graduate Programs in Electrical Engineering [5]

"The flow of electron"

What if I tell you that by the year of 2040, 80% of world population will achieve self-sufficiency in meeting their electricity need? Decentralized power generation and control, two-way flows of electricity and information will be facilitated to establish an autonomous distributed energy network where an alternative backup setting will be always present, enabling the whole power system to operate with maximum efficiency and reliability. Due to the emerging solicitude for reducing carbon emission sustainable alternative, i.e. renewable energy sources will take the primary role in meeting energy demands. Consumers will not only be a client but also a provider of his surplus energy to the grid. Large scale transformers will be replaced by tiny high-frequency power electronics circuits with huge power handling capability, implementation of flexible AC transmission system will enhance controllability and transfer capability of power system network. Energy efficient self-governing electric vehicles will replace today's petroleum powered transports. Objects that we encounter in our daily life will be smart and interconnected altogether allowing information, the row form of actionable intelligence, to be promptly accessible for anyone. More than any other time in our history, there will be a pressing need for a technological evolution to happen, a new way of applying scientific knowledge, and that will require a drastic change in the present existing power, electronic and information system infrastructure. I want to be a part of this twenty-first century's most crucial endeavor as an innovative successful entrepreneur with in-depth technical knowledge and leave some memorable footprints in this journey.

Living as a conscious citizen of a developing country, where half the people suffer from load-shedding for half of the day and industries are shutting down due to energy crisis, I feel, being an electrical engineer, it is an obligation rather than an option that I must contribute towards a sustainable future for humanity regarding energy crisis. All the topics related to Power Engineering, I found control system, power electronics and renewable energy integration in power system most interesting especially issues relevant to cyber-physical system in smart grid, DSP centered control of power electronic for improving power quality and reliability, smart building and electric vehicle system. I believe **university will allow me to nurture and work towards my passion for Modern Power System Engineering.

Born and raised in a technologically and administratively underprivileged country gives me a privilege of taking uncanny and extent measures to confront unprecedented situations. While modeling a problem, I find, imitating elements of nature to analyze by applying math and physics, ultimately guides to such a way that a problem can readily solve itself. This is the reason I choose electrical engineering for my Bachelor degree. After starting my undergrad in one of the best engineering school in Bangladesh, the limited student research scopes, interest and most of all, thrive to apply my newly-sprung technical knowledge led me to co-found and later taking on the role of President of a university-based student research organization. From that platform and traditional academic conceptual learning, I was able to gain empirical knowledge on digital electronics i.e. microcontroller, logic gates and FPGA's; analog sensor interfacing and signal processing approaches; programming languages; PCB designing tools to bolster my theoretical concepts. I applied those skills to design and built PI controlled line tracker bot to humanoid bi-pedal bot, from quasi-automatic synchronoscope to GUI based battery characteristic analyzer, from ECG signal extraction system to wireless power transmission system. I practically learned about the power of mathematical modeling of a physical system while I had been using MATLAB/SIMULINK to design a PID controller for a self-balancing bot. Later on, I used MATLAB image processing toolbox to identify a specific object and drove a bot toward that individual unit guided by the direction command send/sent from MATLAB via RS-232 protocol.

Recognition and evaluation is a vital part of an Engineer's career. To learn from, measure and keep myself technically up-to-date I joined in IEEE as a student member and served as Vice-chair of IEEE CUET student Branch, Bangladesh. For the similar reason with an intention to impart interest among engineering students, I was an active part of a team who organized the First ever National Level Robo-Fight competition. I participated in Microsoft Imagine cup'14 and presented my teamwork on smartphone operated guidance system for a visually impaired person and was part of the "Advanced Intelligent Remote Medical Assistance & Surveillance System" team, which provided me a chance to work in .Net framework and use of API to communicate with external devices and build a Human Machine Interface software. These extracurricular activities have provided me with a platform to develop a protean identity, equipped me with strong interpersonal skills and effective time management capability, which I believe will be proved phenomenal in building the foundation of a successful & noteworthy career. Although my initial lack of skill in prioritizing tasks resulted in a low grade in my undergrad junior year, I overcome that and learned to put emphasize on my activities more prudently.

After completing my undergrad, I joined in the largest Home appliance manufacturing company of my country as an R&D engineer in the Electronics department. My eagerness to learn and apply allowed me to have the responsibility of introducing electronic control system in refrigerator, which has given me an opportunity to learn from and work directly with Renesas Electronics, a renowned semiconductor company. I was also part of a team assigned to conduct testing procedure development of sensorless vector control of BLDC motor driven compressor.

In my undergrad final year thesis, I learned to model an off-grid, independent hybrid power system configuration, which includes distributed generation stations , estimated loads and built a test bed of smart distribution grid containing smart energy meters, automated power switches , ZigBee wireless network and a complete graphical real-time representation of grid parameters to emulate priority based load management operation. I published and presented a part of my findings related to this hybrid power optimization work in IFOST'14, a conference co-sponsored by IEEE and was enthralled by the amount of curiosity and appreciation received from audience, which includes top renewable and power system academics and professionals. My paper was among the top five presented paper on that conference.

In addition to this, while developing testing procedures for sensorless permanent magnet synchronous motor(PMSM) control, I gained a comprehensive knowledge about Park and Clarke transformation and their applications in 3 phase circuits, space vector modulation technique, PMSM construction and use of IGBT. Later, during designing a fully functional SMPS on push-pull topology, I was able to reinforce my understanding of power electronics converter operation and magnetic components designing criteria.

Wide line voltage fluctuation and unavailability of location specific voltage data at different time period prevent us to analysis root causes of electronic product failure rate. I have developed an embedded system using true R.M.S voltage measuring technique written in a Python script and implemented on a Raspberry Pi, which continuously measured and logged line voltage value of a specific location to a web page, enabling access to anyone with proper credentials to monitor the real-time data. My intention was to acquire a voltage variation pattern of that location. Using neural network model I was able to extract some features from previous date voltage data. Although the approach was in basic level I realized how efficient and encouraging it can be in analyzing problematic voltage variation patterns. This experience initiates my interest to use machine learning in solving the discrepancies between intermittent renewable energy sources and changing nature of electric load of an energy system. In my opinion, this area of research can be led towards a spontaneous system, which can forecast the future energy source availability and demand condition to make an efficient, robust energy plan.

Besides taking academic courses on Digital Electronics & VLSI, I was involved in programming VHDL languages to implement some rudimentary projects with FPGA's and got myself admitted into an intensive training program on digital circuit design by using Verilog, conducted by a VLSI engineer from Silicon Valley. I was enthusiastic to learn about the computer hardware architecture and application of HDL. I designed and verified 16:4 priority encoder, a state machine to count No of 1s in a 16-bits word and a 32 bit ALU. I was announced as the top performer in that program. Furthermore, at the time of working in Electronics R&D, I was involved in the whole lifecycle of refrigerator electronic control board design which allowed me to implement round-robin task scheduling algorithm in the control firmware and have a substantial idea about how operating system of computer works.

My works in the professional area allow me to reach a better insight of the unfathomable potential of technology to consolidate innovative ideas. Nevertheless, this pavement will not be enough to usher me to the endless strings of new knowledge. For me, this is unacceptable as my endeavor is bringing significance on the voyage of discovery. To do so, I will need to learn appropriate problem-solving approach and an environment where I can evaluate myself regularly. To fulfill my cherished dream, I was searching for a suitable LAB in a renowned institution. After meticulous observation, I found 'PEARL' is an emerging lab in the field of power electronics specializing itself in reliability analysis of power electronic converters. Recent publications of 'PEARL' created a unique pattern which undoubtedly made itself a torchbearer in the relevant sector.

"To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield": these are the words from Alfred Lord Tennyson, which defines my life philosophy. I am confident that I have the required motivation, perseverance, intellectual ability to excel in a demanding graduate program and make significant contributions to the ongoing works at your university.

Thank you very much for your time and I look forward to joining as a graduate student in your department.