More about Kamal

Kamal is a Ph.D. student at UNC Charlotte.

• He has made original contributions in his research on arc fault protection using artificial intelligence (AI) for AC and DC Applications. His developed AI algorithm is extremely lightweight and has low latency and fast detection speed. He has published a total of 12 peer-reviewed high-quality papers in highly recognized international journals and conferences. His paper entitled “ArcNet: Series Ac Arc Fault Detection Based On Raw Current and Convolutional Neural Network” was published in 2021 in IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, which is a high-quality journal in the field of Power Electronics having an impact factor of 12.3.

• For his research, he was awarded the Outstanding Graduate Research Assistant Award at the ECE department, UNCC in 2023. This award recognizes the valuable contribution of  ECE graduate students to research excellence. 

• He won the 2nd prize of the EPIC Innovator Award, UNCC in 2023 for his research contribution on “Artificial intelligence-based arc fault detection for Photovoltaic (PV) systems”. This award is highly competitive and is judged by the EPIC-affiliated industry partners.

• He participated and presented his research on “AI-based arc fault detection” in the UNCC 3MT competition 2022 and was selected as a finalist.

• He is an active reviewer for several IEEE sponsored Journals and conferences ( IEEE Access, IEEE  TIE, IEEE TIM, ECCE, APEC, etc.).

• He has worked as a student volunteer for the ECCE conference in 2021. For his research entitled “Efficient-Arcnet: Series Ac Arc Fault Detection Using Lightweight Convolutional Neural Network”, he has received the prestigious ECCE 2021 student attendance grant. He has been awarded the “ECCE 2021 Excellent Student Volunteer Award” for his outstanding volunteer activities at the ECCE conference.  He has also served as a virtual platform coordinator (organizing committee) at the IEEE ECCE 2022 conference.

• He has also been a great mentor for undergraduate students for developing an android app in the “Intelligent Wireless Power Transfer (IWPT) for Safe Electric Power Charging of Rolling Stock” project sponsored by the US Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Federal Railroad Administration. He also served as a Teaching Assistant in several courses with a highly-rated performance by students.

• He is also serving as the Social Media and Online Content Manager for the Renewable Energy and Power Electronics Advanced Research Lab (RE-PEARL), with duties of promoting research and publications on LinkedIn and managing online content.

BIOGRAPHY

KAMAL CHANDRA PAUL (Graduate Student Member’21, IEEE) received a bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE) from the Khulna University of Engineering and Technology (KUET), Khulna, Bangladesh, in 2009, and an M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Ingram School of Engineering, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX, USA, in 2018. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. degree with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNCC), Charlotte, NC, USA. He worked as a faculty with the Department of EEE, International University of Business Agriculture and Technology (IUBAT), Dhaka, Bangladesh, and as a lecturer with the Department of EEE, World University of Bangladesh, Dhaka, Bangladesh. His research interests include AC and DC arc fault protection, artificial intelligence (AI), data science, application of machine learning (ML) in power electronics, and renewable energy.

SCHOLARLY ACTIVITIES

• Technical Peer Reviewer for International Power Electronics Journals and Conferences

·         IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition (ECCE), 2023

·         IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition (ECCE), 2022

·         IEEE Access, 2022

·         IEEE Transaction on Industrial Electronics, 2022

·         IEEE Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposition (APEC), 2021

·         IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement, 2021

·         IEEE Transaction on Industrial Electronics, 2021

·         Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI (GLSVLSI), 2019 

• Oral & poster presentations

·         IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition (ECCE), 2022

·         IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition (ECCE), 2021

•  Active IEEE Member (since 2021)

·         IEEE Graduate Student Member

·         IEEE Power Electronics Society (IEEE-PELS)

·         IEEE Young Professionals

•  Student Volunteer/organizer

·         Participated as a student volunteer at IEEE ECCE 2021 & ECCE 2022 conferences

·         Virtual Platform Coordinator (organizing committee) at IEEE ECCE 2022 conference

RESEARCH ACHIEVEMENTS

• He has developed extremely lightweight artificial intelligence-based algorithm for AC arc fault detection with a detection accuracy of more than 99%. He has demonstrated that artificial intelligence based algorithms can be used for AC arc fault detection using raw current that saves preprocessing time and makes the algorithm faster than traditional machine learning algorithms. The algorithm can not only detect arc faults but also can identify the type of load where the arc fault occurred. The algorithm has been verified using a resource-limited commercial microcontroller unit (Raspberry PI 3B) and achieved state-of-the-art inference time of only 1.17 ms per sample.

• In order to enhance electrical safety and reliability of photovoltaic(PV) systems, he has proposed lightweight AI algorithm that uses frequency spectrum of current signal and detect arc faults at more than 99% accuracy. The algorithm can work for a wider range of operating voltage (up to 1000V) and current of loads. The algorithm is verified using an edge computing commercial microcontroller (STM32) and demonstrated runtime of only 8ms for DC arc fault detection. His research contribution on PV arc fault detection has been recognized by the industry partners and achieved 2nd prize of the EPIC Innovator Award 2023. This research is funded by the center for advanced power engineering research (CAPER), USA. He also has been working on DC arc fault detection for “Intelligent Wireless Power Transfer (IWPT) for Safe Electric Power Charging of Rolling Stock” project funded by Federal Railroad Administration.

• In his research entitled “Pandemic vulnerability index of US cities: A hybrid knowledge-based and data driven approach”, 41 variables related to COVID19 pandemic are analyzed and used multi-method approaches to come up with pandemic vulnerability index (PVI-CI) of 3069 cities of US. This research has drawn media attention of “6Park News”, NC (https://tinyurl.com/2rdetemb) as well as “News Medical Life Sciences” (https://tinyurl.com/4m7jfmsu). It is also highlighted and featured in the website of Rutgers University (https://tinyurl.com/3ks5ffb9).

• Authored 12 published articles in journals and conferences.

RESEARCH AND PROFESSIONAL SERVICE

• Served as the student project leader in the project “Artificial Intelligence (AI) based Arc Fault Detection for PV Systems” supported by the Center for Advanced Power Engineering Research (CAPER), USA, with duties of designing the project scope, conducting the project research, and summarizing the project in reports and presentations. Involved in the DC arc fault detection in the “Intelligent Wireless Power Transfer (IWPT) for Safe Electric Power Charging of Rolling Stock” project funded by Federal Railroad Administration.

• Served as a Teaching Assistant for multiple undergraduate courses, including Power Electronics II (Fall '19), Network Theory I (Spring '20), Solid State Microelectronics I (Fall '20), and Basic Electrical Engineering (Spring '21) with duties of giving student tutorials on engineering tools, explaining electrical engineering-related questions, and assisting students in debugging circuits and systems during laboratory experiments.

• Reviewer of IEEE sponsored conferences (IEEE TIA, TIM, IEEE Access, ECCE, APEC, etc.).

• Presenter and outreach on

-  IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition (ECCE), 2022

-  IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition (ECCE), 2021

LEADERSHIP

• Virtual platform coordinator (organizing committee) at IEEE ECCE 2022 conference.

• Social Media and Online Content Manager in the Renewable Energy and Power Electronics Advanced Research Lab (RE-PEARL), with duties of promoting research and publications in LinkedIn, and managing website contents.

• Project leader in the project “Artificial Intelligence (AI) based Arc Fault Detection for PV Systems” supported by the Center for Advanced Power Engineering Research (CAPER), USA, consisting of 3 Ph.D. students.

• Director, co-founder, and volunteer of Education Foundation Inc., USA (a community voluntary organization which is promoting education and helping underprivileged students in the rural areas of Bangladesh). Responsibilities include organizing and managing the operations of the organization, fundraising, recruiting volunteers, and overseeing projects.

(Updated on: 05.02.2023)