Jakub Kučera, who is in his third year of doctoral studies in Electrical Engineering, Energy and Management, received an award for his article on "Efficient Modulation Strategies to Minimize Switching Losses in Dual-Inverter Systems," published in IEEE Transactions on Transportation Electrification, a journal ranked in the top decile according to impact factor (IF).
"With the boom in electromobility, demands on its reliability are naturally growing, which can be ensured by using a converter in the so-called Dual-Inverter topology. In my work, I present an innovative way of controlling this converter, which allows for a 0.4 percentage point increase in converter efficiency. Although this seems like a negligible improvement, if we were to use this control strategy in an electric car, for example, we would save approximately 1.2 kWh for a single trip to Croatia and back. And that would allow us to charge the latest iPhone up to 74 times," explains Jakub Kučera.
As part of his work, Ing. Kučera increased the efficiency of the converter from 98.4% to 98.8%. From the perspective of the efficiency of semiconductor power converters, which is usually around 95%, the improvement presented is quite significant. "If we look at the result from the perspective of converter losses (heat that must be dissipated into the environment), they have been reduced from 1.6% to 1.2%. This represents a relative decrease in losses of 25%," Kučera described.
Award with a prize of up to CZK 100,000
The Vice-Dean's Award for Doctoral Studies and Research at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, CTU, for the publication of articles in leading scientific journals is intended for doctoral students in those fields or departments in which the faculty sees development potential: Electrical Machines, Apparatus, and Drives; Electrical Power Engineering and Economics of Energy and Electrical Engineering, Computer Graphics and Interaction. The condition is to be the main author of an article with significant scientific contribution in the above-mentioned fields and to publish it in a leading scientific journal that is ranked in the first decile or quartile according to the impact factor (IF) of the WoS database. In addition, the doctoral student must present the paper at a pre-announced seminar at their department. Doctoral students may apply for the award repeatedly. The award is granted on an ongoing basis and is accompanied by a financial reward of up to CZK 100,000.
The award is presented by the Vice-Dean for Doctoral Studies and Research at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the Czech Technical University in Prague, Doc. Milan Polívka. The first recipient of the award was Ing. Filip Baum, who is studying for his doctorate at the Department of Electric Drives and Traction. He received the award for his article "Hybrid Overmodulation Strategy of Dual Two-Level Inverter Topology Enabling 12-Step Operation," which was published in the May 2024 issue of IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics.
In November 2025, Ing. Adam Kubín, a doctoral student at the Department of Economics, Management, and Humanities, also received the Vice-Dean's Award for Doctoral Studies at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague. He received the award for his article "A long-term energy transition planning model for a district heating and cooling sector incorporating sector coupling approach: A case study of the Czech district heating and cooling sector," which was published in the journal Energy Conversion and Management.
Photo by Petr Zakopal, FEE CTU
