Md Sen Bin Mustafiz is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at NJIT. His research focuses on power systems, especially contactless current sensing for electrical transmission lines. Outside of research, he enjoys reading books and traveling.
What would you say that could be the next big thing in your area of research?
I think the next big thing in power systems will be advanced contactless real-time monitoring and intelligent sensing for the electric grid. As the grid becomes more complex with renewable energy, electric vehicles, data centers, and high-voltage transmission, contactless current sensing can play a major role in improving grid reliability, fault detection, and maintenance without requiring a direct electrical connection.
Electric cars are reshaping the auto industry. A particular pursuit is fast charging, which requires high-voltage. Some electric cars today are equipped with 800V batteries. Your research is related to high-voltage power transmission. What's your opinion regarding high-voltage for batteries and charging stations?
From a power transmission and sensing perspective, I see high-voltage batteries and charging stations as a natural and necessary direction for electric vehicles. Higher voltage allows fast charging with lower current, which reduces power loss, heat generation, and cable size. However, it also increases the need for proper insulation, protection, and reliable monitoring. I believe my work on contactless current sensing is directly relevant here, as these techniques could eventually extend from transmission lines to charging infrastructure, helping monitor high-voltage charging cables and stations safely and reliably as adoption scales up.
With the ongoing AI hype, data centers are becoming bigger and consuming more power. Many of them require special power supply, even their own dedicated power plants. As a researcher in the area of power and energy systems, where do you envision this is going?
I believe the rapid growth of AI will make power and energy systems even more important in the future. Data centers will require highly reliable, efficient, and sustainable power supplies, along with energy storage and advanced grid monitoring. In my opinion, future data centers may not only consume power but also become active parts of the power system through smart energy management, demand response, and integration with renewable energy sources and I expect contactless sensing technology to become a key tool for keeping that infrastructure observable, safe, and efficient.
