Umesh Kumar Mishra, a faculty member of University of California, who had come to attend the 35th reunion of the batch of 1979 at IIT-K, has developed a power converter which is capable of converting AC power into DC and vice versa. The converter had been developed, aiming to lower down the energy loss during the conversion of power.
Mishra said: "We have developed this power converter, realising that around 15% of the power goes for a waste when the conversion is done. The converter reduces the energy loss to just 2%. Therefore, the major property of this converter is that it efficiently converts the power either from AC to DC or DC to AC."
The converter uses a semi-conductor named gallium nitride. The demand for the power converter is on the rise in US. It is being used in Japan since 2012.
People have started using the power converters for domestic use, he added.
He had first demonstrated this product in Japan with a Japanese partner in November 2012.
"My company will start the mass production of the power converters both in US and Japan. The product will be sold in the markets of US, Japan, China and Taiwan," he said.
When questioned about the cost, Mishra mentioned that every new technology costs high in the beginning but costs less when the mass manufacturing begins. Therefore, the cost of the product will come down in the times to come.
Talking about the application at the domestic level, Mishra said that the power converters can be used with solar panels, inverters, laptops etc.
Recalling the first major research work done for NASA in US, Mishra said, "I and three other members of my team had developed an amplifier after a hard work of two-and-a-half-year which was attached with the spacecraft and launched in the space. The amplifier helped in receiving clear signals (images) of the space. This work was done in 1986."
He informed that the spacecraft later moved out of our solar system (went into deep space) but still sometimes at a very slow pace, the amplifier sends the images of the outer space.
The high-end technology used in the amplifier has gone a long way in serving several fields, including its use in the direct to home service which is popularly known as D2H.
"As the time moved ahead, the technology evolved itself and the size of the amplifier became small and its use increased manifold in different products," he said.
Mishra completed his BTech in electrical engineering from IIT-K in 1979. He pursued his PhD from Cornell University.
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