Message of the Chairman

EPE 2003
Tenth EPE Conference, Toulouse (France), September 2 - 4, 2003.

"Power Electronics, an attractive field for the young people"

EPE conference has grown during twenty years to become the largest in the field. It draws regularly the foremost technical contributors from industry and academia world wide. Every two years, EPE is held in different location in Europe. In 2003, EPE will be at Toulouse.
In the field of Power Electronics, Europe is the world leader with well known companies and several large academic laboratories of all the main European countries . This conference will offer you more in a number of innovations above the successful previous conferences in Brussels, Grenoble, Aachen, Florence, Brighton, Sevilla, Trondheim, Lausanne and Graz. The number of participants was growing and in 2003 we are waiting about 1000 people.
The first purpose of this Conference is to provide some exchanges, presentations and discussions in the fields of Power Electronics, with the attendees coming from all the world. A number of issues are, non exhaustively, related to the problem of power devices and circuits, power supplies, modulation strategies, electrical drives, automotive industry, transmission and distribution of electrical energy, EMC and power conditioning. A topic is also devoted to Education Technology and tools.

A second purpose is to provide a knowledge movement between industrial people and the young scientists. As there is a dramatic abandon of Power Electronics by the young peoples, it is very important to attract them and EPE Conference is a good mean for this aim. About 20% of the participants being some young engineers and researchers, we have to encourage a growing presence of them.
In this aim, this conference is a show-window where up-to-date products and research activities are presented, through the industrial exhibition, the lecture and poster sessions. It allows:
- many meetings of the young scientists with industrial peoples and the most famous world specialists,
- improvement of the learning content and tools, useful for the young teachers
- development of innovation and new axes of research in relation with industry and interesting for the young researchers
For this tenth edition a peculiar effort will be realised in view of the best welcome and active participation of our young colleagues

An other purpose is concerning some exchanges between scientists of EC and of East European countries, associated to EC. Since five years, a strong link between the two communities, by the two conferences EPE and EPE-PEMC, common meetings, Seminars,…, has been established along with having several committee members jointly, to improve the scientific exchanges between the two communities.

The fields concerned by this Conference cover almost all the domains of our life: household, medical, transport, environment and quality of life, industrial systems, robotics and production engineering, power systems…
In all these fields, huge improvements are necessary to solve the main challenges :
- pollution reduction,
- electrical energy quality,
- development and use of alternative energies,
- development and improvement of density and quality of transports,
- improvement of the European companies' competitiveness.…

A peculiarity of this Conference is the large participation of industrial people (about 30%), as well as the organisation of an exhibition of industrial stands presenting products, softwares… and allowing exchanges between academic researchers and industrial people.

Due to the new rules published by EC (deregulation) on the electrical energy production, transport and distribution, this energy necessitates a very good control. The Power Electronics systems allow an optimisation of the quality, the reliability, the economy of this energy. Also, we have to optimise and develop the renewable energy sources (wind and photovoltaic energy) which necessitate a static treatment and control by static converters.

An other important field of this Conference is on the improvement of the electrical traction transports by use of a large number of power electronics systems. These systems are contributing to a large flexibility of the transports and a reduction of the atmospheric pollution.

Toulouse is the fourth largest city in France, the regional capital of Midi-Pyrénées, the second University city in France with over 110,000 students and more than 10,000 researchers. The main laboratories in Power Electronics are LEEI (Laboratoire d'Electrotechnique et d'Electronique Industrielle) and LAAS (Laboratoire d'Analyse et d'Architecture des Systèmes).
It's also the aeronautical and space capital in France (construction of Airbus in EADS, of Ariane and satellites in CNES and ASTRIUM), with some large electronic industries (Motorola, Alcatel…) In the area, there are also several industries in direct connection with Power Electronics, such as Alstom in Tarbes, or Siemens in Toulouse. The main industries in Toulouse and its region have an important connection with Power Electronics.
Several institutional partners (Regional Council, Departmental council, Town Hall…) are interested by this event and will support it.
Transportation to and from Toulouse is very easy through Paris (about 50 flights per day) or directly from all European main cities. Railways are also a very good option with the TGV train to Paris and many other connections to Europe.
The Pierre Baudis Congress Centre has opened in october 1997 and has been since a successful location for more 300 events national and international. It is well located downtown Toulouse, a few minutes of walking distance from the old Toulouse town and from a large number of hotels.

It is my great pleasure to welcome you to EPE 2003 in Toulouse. With your conference attendance, you have to combine some extra days for sight-seeing and recreation in a very nice region near Pyrénées, Mediterranée Sea and Atlantic Ocean. The "Massif Central" is also a good location for pleasant holydays.

B. de FORNEL,
Conference Chaiman
ENSEEIHT Institut National Polytechnique de Toulouse