Keynotes

Vice President, Head of Research and Development, Drives and Controls Business Unit, ABB Group Matti Kauhanen

Matti Kauhanen works currently as Head of Research & Development in Drives and Controls Business Unit at ABB. The Business Unit is responsible for Electric Drives (Frequency Converters, DC-converters) and PLC:s within ABB Group. ABB is the global market leader in Variable Speed Drives business.

Kauhanen joined Strömberg in year 1984, and he has since then held various positions within the company in the areas of Research and Development: as a Design Engineer, AC-Drives Specialist, Design Manager, Technical Manager, Project Manager, R&D Manager (System AC) as well as Technology Manager (LBU and BU).

Kauhanen has 30 years’ experience in Electric Drives, and he has been involved in the development of various products: Sami Star, Sami Flowstar, ACV700, ACS600 MultiDrive, APC1&2 (Application controller), AC80, ACS800, ACS880 etc.

Since the year 2000 Kauhanen has been responsible for technology and platform development for various products.
Building strong co-operation and common research projects with ABB Corporate Research and Universities enables competence development and high qualified experts for Drives’ units in different locations.

Kauhanen holds a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering (Power Electronics, Control and Computer Technology) from Tampere University of Technology.

CTO of Visedo Oy, Dr. Kimmo Rauma

Kimmo Rauma was born in 1978. Kimmo received his M.Sc. and D.Sc. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Lappeenranta University of Technology in 2002 and 2006, respectively. Kimmo has worked with power electronics and product development in different companies over the last 14 years.

Today, Kimmo Rauma is the CTO and co-founder of Visedo Oy in Finland. Visedo Oy, founded in 2009, is a company designing and manufacturing inverters, DC/DC converters, motors, generators and energy storages for electric and hybrid electric mobile work machines, buses and marine vessels. Kimmo has been responsible for the technology and running the company for four years, and he is reporting to the board of directors. Kimmo is a member of the Electric Vehicle Systems Program steering group of the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation.
Kimmo holds several patents and patent applications for power electronic control principles and solutions.

“Crushing fuel consumption”

We are sorry to announce that Kimmo Rauma will not be able to attend the Tuesday sessions. The keynote Power Electronics for hybrid work machines, a real-world case with under two-year payback time will be presented by Kimmo’s colleague Dr. Risto Tiainen.

Dr. Risto Tiainen

Risto Tiainen currently works as a development engineer at Visedo Oy, a young Finnish company (founded in 2009) designing and manufacturing inverters, DC/DC converters, motors, generators and energy storage devices for electric and hybrid electric mobile work machines, buses, and marine vessels. He joined the company in 2010, and has been heavily involved in the development of the Company’s power electronic products, mainly concentrating on the software development. Additionally, he has played an active role in designing and building complete working electric systems out of the individual components offered by Visedo for the customers’ applications.

Dr. Tiainen has his background in electrical engineering. He received his M.Sc. and D.Sc. degrees from Lappeenranta University of Technology in 2004 and 2010, respectively. While working at the University, he participated in projects related to various fields of electrical engineering, including electric machine condition monitoring, distributed generation, and wind power.

Vice President, Research and Development, Vacon Plc Timo Heikkilä

Timo Heikkilä works currently as Vice President, Research and Development in Vacon Plc – which is the world’s largest company, in terms of revenues and product selection, that concentrates entirely on AC drives.

Timo Heikkilä was born in 1961. He received his M.Sc. degree from Lappeenranta University of Technology, department of Energy Engineering in 1987, specializing on thermal and fluid dynamics and energy economics. First nine years since graduation (1987-1996), Timo Heikkilä worked in consulting companies/engineering agencies mainly in the field of Building automation and industrial HVAC systems as a design engineer and project manager.

In 1996 Timo joined Nokia Networks, working in the beginning as a specialist in cooling technology for Base stations, then in various Technology management/R&D management positions within Electromechanics and overall HW development disciplines. In 2010 Timo joined Vacon, working the first 2 years as R&D Director for Vacon Drives Finland and since 2012 as Vice President, Research and Development for Vacon Plc.