Electrical and Electronics Commons^™

Power Amplifier Based On Composite Injection-Voltaic Transistors, Nodira Batirdjanovna Alimova

Chemical Technology, Control and Management

The problem of high-current radio engineering devices is related to the fact that the use of high-power transistors and other semiconductor devices is limited by such a phenomenon as a secondary breakdown, in which there is a sharp decrease in the voltage on the device with simultaneous internal current lacing, and the device fails. To solve the problem of secondary breakdown, schemes have been proposed that operate stably at reverse voltage values 4-5 times higher than usual and at power dissipation 2-3 times higher than the maximum allowable power for an individual device. The problem is proposed to be solved …

Design And Development Of A Solar Module Health Monitoring Device, Elijah Madaris, Christopher Baden, Sandip Das

Symposium of Student Scholars

Solar power has emerged as a promising renewable clean energy source and installations of solar panels are increasing sharply year after year. Monitoring the power output and health of solar panels is critically important to ensure safe and reliable operation of a solar power plant throughout its operational lifetime. In this project, we have designed and built a low-cost electronic device that is capable of measuring the electrical parameters of a solar cell or module. The device consists of a microprocessor with integrated analog-to-digital converter, a supercapacitor bank, current sense amplifier, and electromechanical relays. The microprocessor performs data acquisition through …

Creating A Power System For A Robot, Nolan Hays

Scholars Week

I will be describing the process of creating the power system for the robot that will be competing in the 2023 IEEE Hardware Competition.

Development Of Solar Pv Systems For Mini-Grid Applications In Tanzania, Seleman Mayanjo

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

Access to electricity offers great benefits to development through the provision of reliable and efficient energy sources in the country. Majority of the population living in the remote and rural areas of developing countries mostly sub-Saharan Africa are not supplied with electricity. Although the governments through their electricity companies put their effort to extends the grid distribution networks to remote and rural areas still the coverage were not sufficiently enough due to growing demands for safe and reliable electricity. However, solar as a source of energy remains the least utilized energy source in many countries including Tanzania. Solar Photovoltaic (PV) …

Optimal Energy Management For Off-Grid Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems, Owdean M. Suwi

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

A photovoltaic (PV)/wind/battery/Generator-Set hybrid power system's energy dispatch is discussed in this research, along with the ideal solution. The optimization model enables the hybrid power system's generating devices to share power appropriately. The main goals are to minimize fuel consumption and costs and maximize the usage of Renewable Energy Sources (RES). The proposed simulation plan succeeds in lowering fuel costs because the diesel generator only kicks on at night and in the early morning when the energy from RES is insufficient to supply the load. The load is supplied with power, and the battery is charged throughout the day, when …

Optimising Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure In Dublin Using Geecharge, Alexander Mutua Mutiso, Ruairí De Fréin, Ali Malik, Eliel Kibanza, Marco Sahbane, Maxime Pantel

Conference papers

Range anxiety poses a hurdle to the adoption of Electric Vehicles (EVs), as drivers worry about running out of charge without timely access to a Charging Point (CP). We present novel methods for optimising the distribution of CPs, namely, EV portacharge and GEECharge. These solutions distribute CPs in Dublin, in this paper, by considering the population density and Points Of Interest (POIs) or road traffic. The object of this paper is to (1) develop and evaluate methods to distribute CPs in Dublin city; (2) optimise CP allocation; (3) visualise paths in the graph network to show the most used roads …

A Review Of Piezoelectric Footwear Energy Harvesters: Principles, Methods, And Applications, Bingqi Zhao, Feng Qian, Alexander Hatfield, Lei Zuo, Tian-Bing Xu

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

Over the last couple of decades, numerous piezoelectric footwear energy harvesters (PFEHs) have been reported in the literature. This paper reviews the principles, methods, and applications of PFEH technologies. First, the popular piezoelectric materials used and their properties for PEEHs are summarized. Then, the force interaction with the ground and dynamic energy distribution on the footprint as well as accelerations are analyzed and summarized to provide the baseline, constraints, potential, and limitations for PFEH design. Furthermore, the energy flow from human walking to the usable energy by the PFEHs and the methods to improve the energy conversion efficiency are presented. …

Running Shoe Pedometer, Benjamin Kasper

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Running shoe pedometer aims to solve the issue of worn out running shoes. It can be difficult to know just how many miles you have run in your shoes and when a new pair is needed. Running in old shoes and worn out shoes is heavily linked to injury. My proposed project is a device that is powered by the compressive forces on the shoes soles that counts the number of steps the wearer takes using a microcontroller. Then, when the shoe reaches milestone that indicate it has been used 75% 90% and 100% of its expected life, it will …

Ai-Driven Security Constrained Unit Commitment Using Predictive Modeling And Eigen Decomposition, Talha Iqbal

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Security Constrained Unit Commitment (SC-UC) is a complex large scale mix integer constrained optimization problem solved by Independent System Operators (ISOs) in the daily planning of the electricity markets. After receiving offers and bids, ISOs have only few hours to clear the day-ahead electricity market. It requires a lot of computational effort and a reasonable time to solve a large-scale SC-UC problem. However, exploiting the fact that a UC problem is solved several times a day with only minor changes in the system data, the computational effort can be reduced by learning from the historical data and identifying the patterns …

Whiteboard Drawing Device, Stefan Ilic, Andrew Adams, Vaughn Richards, James Medved

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Whiteboards have become a staple in many classrooms, especially in the context of STEM courses. However, when it comes to teaching complex topics, it can be difficult or impractical to provide accurate drawings and visualizations by hand, and in extreme cases may lead to misinterpretation of a particular topic. To fix this issue, the Whiteboard Drawing Device allows users to draw preset shapes to a whiteboard automatically, both quickly and accurately. Using either a smartphone application or a set of onboard controls, the device allows users to automatically draw straight lines, rectangles, triangles, sinusoidal waves, and circles on the whiteboard. …

Wireless Environmental Weather Monitor, Joel Christie-Millett, Nathan Schroeder, Sylvester Wilson, Matthew Szijarto

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The goal of this senior design/honors project is to create a device that monitors environmental conditions in order to detect a wildfire. This device should notify a user of the status of the environment. The device should also last for 6 months without any human interaction. My role on the team is to design the power supply system that maximizes efficiency and uses renewable energy.

Enhancing Traffic Safety In Unpredicted Environments With Integration Of Adas Features With Sensor Fusion In Intelligent Electric Vehicle Platform With Implementation Of Environmental Mapping Technology, David S. Obando Ortegon

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

A major objective on society is to reduce the number of accidents and fatalities on the road for drivers, and pedestrians. Therefore, the automotive engineering field is working on this problem through the development and integration of safety technologies such as advanced driving assistance systems. For this reason, this work was intended to develop and evaluate the performance of different ADAS features and IV technologies under unexpected scenarios. This by the development of safety algorithms applied to the intelligent electric vehicle designed and built in this work, through the use of ADAS sensors based on sensor fusion. Evaluation of AEB, …

Probing Signal-Based Data-Driven Modeling Of Power Electronics Smart Converter Dynamics Using Power Hardware-In-The-Loop, Nischal Guruwacharya

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The main objective of this dissertation is to develop a generalized simulation and modeling framework for extracting dynamics of power electronic converters (PECs) with grid support functions (GSFs) and validate model accuracy through experimental comparison with physical measurements. The dynamic models obtained from this modeling framework aim to facilitate accurate dynamic analysis of a highly integrated power system comprising inverter-based resources (IBRs), specifically for stability assessment. These dynamic models helped in reducing simulation time and computational complexity, thereby enhancing efficiency. Moreover, it provides valuable insights for utilities and grid operators involved in effective system planning, operation, and dispatch. The dynamics …

Battery Energy Storage Systems Applications And Deployment In Dense Urban Areas, Mohamed K. Kamaludeen

Dissertations and Theses

Energy Storage has emerged as an important focus of the U.S. federal government, which has established the goal of developing global leadership in energy storage and has a near-term focus on strengthening the supply chain, manufacturing, and funding streams available to achieve the overarching objectives. At the state level, similar efforts are underway in which policy objectives have set aggressive targets around energy storage deployment. New York State, through its landmark climate act “CLCPA” and subsequent Energy Storage roadmap 2.0, has set one of the most aggressive goals in the Country targeting 6,000MW of energy storage by 2030. While much …

Multi-Criteria Performance Evaluation And Control In Power And Energy Systems, Payam Ramezani Badr

All Dissertations

The role of intuition and human preferences are often overlooked in autonomous control of power and energy systems. However, the growing operational diversity of many systems such as microgrids, electric/hybrid-electric vehicles and maritime vessels has created a need for more flexible control and optimization methods. In order to develop such flexible control methods, the role of human decision makers and their desired performance metrics must be studied in power and energy systems. This dissertation investigates the concept of multi-criteria decision making as a gateway to integrate human decision makers and their opinions into complex mathematical control laws. There are two …

Electrical Modeling For Dynamic Performance Prediction And Optimization Of Mcpms Layout, Quang Minh Le

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, the fast development of Multichip Power Modules (MCPM) packaging and Wide Bandgap (WBG) technology has enabled higher voltage and current ratings, better thermal performance, lower parasitic parameters, and higher mechanical reliability. However, the design of the MCPM layout is a multidisciplinary problem leading to many time-consuming analyses and tedious design processes. Because of these challenges, the design automation tool for MCPM layout has become an emerging research area and gained much attention from the power electronics community. The two critical objectives of a design automation tool for MCPM layout are fast and accurate models for design insights …

Material Characterization And Comparison Of Sol-Gel Deposited And Rf Magnetron Deposited Lead Zirconate Titanate Thin Films, Katherine Lynne Miles

Mechanical Engineering ETDs

Lead zirconate titanate (PZT) has been a material of interest for sensor, actuator, and transducer applications in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). This is due to their favorable piezoelectric, pyroelectric and ferroelectric properties. While various methods are available to deposit PZT thin films, radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering was selected to provide high quality PZT films with the added capability of batch processing. These sputter deposited PZT films were characterized to determine their internal film stress, Young’s modulus, composition, and structure. After characterization, the sputtered PZT samples were poled using corona poling and direct poling methods. As a means of comparison, commercially …

Study Of Stochastic Market Clearing Problems In Power Systems With High Renewable Integration, Saumya Sakitha Sashrika Ariyarathne

Operations Research and Engineering Management Theses and Dissertations

Integrating large-scale renewable energy resources into the power grid poses several operational and economic problems due to their inherently stochastic nature. The lack of predictability of renewable outputs deteriorates the power grid’s reliability. The power system operators have recognized this need to account for uncertainty in making operational decisions and forming electricity pricing. In this regard, this dissertation studies three aspects that aid large-scale renewable integration into power systems. 1. We develop a nonparametric change point-based statistical model to generate scenarios that accurately capture the renewable generation stochastic processes; 2. We design new pricing mechanisms derived from alternative stochastic programming …

Developing Positive Thermal Coefficient (Ptc) Heaters For Solar Electric Cooking, Katarina Ivana Brekalo, Andrew Shepherd

Physics

Positive Thermal Coefficients, PTCs, are materials that abruptly change in resistance in response to changes in temperature. The purpose of this experiment is to explore the viability of using the switching type ceramic PTC thermistor as a replacement for current resistive heaters. These types of PTCs have a nonlinear change in resistance with increases in temperature. This device will be used as a temperature-controlling heating element intended to power an Insulated Solar Electric Cooker (ISEC). The ISEC is designed to cook meals throughout the day for impacted communities as an alternative cooking method that doesn’t require biofuel as an energy …

Hybrid Smart Transformer For Enhanced Power System Protection Against Dc With Advanced Grid Support, Moazzam Nazir

All Dissertations

The traditional grid is rapidly transforming into smart substations and grid assets incorporating advanced control equipment with enhanced functionalities and rapid self-healing features. The most important and strategic equipment in the substation is the transformer and is expected to perform a variety of functions beyond mere voltage conversion and isolation. While the concept of smart solid-state transformers (SSTs) is being widely recognized, their respective lifetime and reliability raise concerns, thus hampering the complete replacement of traditional transformers with SSTs. Under this scenario, introducing smart features in conventional transformers utilizing simple, cost-effective, and easy to install modules is a highly desired …

Evaluation Of Single Phase Smart Pv Inverter Functions In Unbalanced Residential Distribution Systems, Darren Symonette

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the United States, smart PV inverters integrated with residential distribution systems are becoming a more common occurrence. With integration of smart PV inverters, power utilities are experiencing an increase of number of operations with regards to switched capacitor banks, voltage regulators and on load tap changers. These increases can lead to excess wear and tear on the devices causing power utilities to perform unwanted replacement and maintenance. However, smart PV inverters when controlled under specific functions can enable these inverters to provide reactive power and voltage control which in turn lowers the number of operations for switched capacitor banks, …

Controller Platform Design And Demonstration For An Electric Aircraft Propulsion Driv, Rosten Sweeting

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With the growth in the aerospace industry there has been a trend to optimize the performance of an aircraft by reducing fuel consumption and operational cost. Recent advancements in the field of power electronics have pushed towards the concepts of hybrid electric aircraft also known as more electrical aircrafts. In this work, a custom controller board for an electric aircraft propulsion drive was designed to drive a permanent magnet synchronous motor. Design of the controller board required knowledge of the topology selection and power module selections. Simulations of the system were performed using MATLAB/Simulink to analyze the overall performance of …

An Experimental Approach Towards Pv-Based Solar System Sizing For An Engineering Laboratory, Muyideen O. Lawal

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

This study aims at providing an experimental sizing procedure for a rooftop PV-based solar power system for an engineering laboratory. This was achieved by monitoring the peak power and energy delivered by an installed 20W solar panel into an 18 Ah battery. Knowledge of the average daily peak power and energy was used to determine the percentage rated capacity available for use and the sun hour. A load consumption comparison was also carried out with and without the connection of a load to inverter. In addition to this, the monitoring of the no-load consumption of the inverter was carried out. …

Renewable Energy Microgrids To Improve Electrification Rate In Democratic Republic Of Congo: Case Of Hydro, Municipal Waste And Solar, Ngondo Otshwe Josue, Aviti Thadei Mushi

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

Worldwide, it is imperative for citizens to have access to electricity. This applies to Congolese--rural and urban dwellers, and if possible, it should be guaranteed by government’s laws and policies. Howev er, the rural and urban areas of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) suffer majorly from lack of access to electricity. The major reasons are the high costs associated with connection to the national central grid and production insufficiency. Therefore, one feasible approach to electrify these areas is to use microgrids. This technolo gy is decent and viable option for energy revolution since it incorpo rates energy storage systems, distributed …

Viability Analysis Of Ubungo Ii Gas Power Plant Efficiency Improvement Using Co-Generation System, Aviti Thadei Mushi

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

The power utility, Tanzania Electric Supply Company Limited (TANESCO) is faced with challenges of supplying adequate power to the ever-increasing demand. To this end, this paper explores the installed Ubungo Gas Power Plant (UGP II) located in Dar es Salaam to find means of utilizing it in co-generation method. The study embarked on detailed modelling of the system and run simulations which indicated that the co-generation can result to power generation efficiency increase between 10.42 to 50.92%. It is recommended to change the UGP II to exploit this co-generation method. Further, the study could be improved by including more parameters …

Modified Q-Learning Method For Automatic Voltage Regulation In Wide-Area Multigeneration Systems, Brook Abegaz, Sina Zarrabian

Engineering Science Faculty Publications

The state-estimation and optimal control of multigeneration systems are challenging for wide-area systems having numerous distributed automatic voltage regulators (AVR). This paper proposes a modified Q-learning method and algorithm that aim to improve the convergence of the approach and enhance the dynamic response and stability of the terminal voltage of multiple generators in the experimental Western System Coordinating Council (WSCC) and large-scale IEEE 39-bus test systems. The large-scale experimental testbed consists of a six-area, 39-bus system having ten generators that are connected to ten AVRs. The implementation shows promising results in providing stable terminal voltage profiles and other system parameters …

Sunsation’S Solar Powered Picnic Table, Michelle M. Barnett, Christopher Barber, Casey Durham, David Mason

Mechanical Engineering

Team SunSation is an interdisciplinary senior design project group that was tasked with developing a semi-permanent seating area for Cal Poly's electrical engineering courtyard. The EE courtyard is populated with plastic folding tables and chairs that are slowly falling apart. Dale Dolan, the head of the EE department, requested that a table design be developed that incorporates the use of solar panels. The addition of the solar panels to the table would help promote clean renewable energy as well as provide shade to those sitting in the courtyard.

The solution that SunSation arrived at is broken up into mechanical/structural, electrical, …

Current-Source Dc-Dc Converter For Fiber-Optic Communication Systems, Jissell C. Jose

Master's Theses

In this thesis, a proof of concept for a current-source DC-DC converter for powering sensors used in an underwater communications system is presented. The proposed converter steps down an input current of 0.9 A to 0.625 A, while maintaining an output voltage of 24 V and output power of 15 W. The complete steady-state analysis and design of the proposed converter in its single-stage form is also explained in detail. Performance evaluation of the proposed converter was carried out using LTspice. Results of the simulation demonstrate that the design was able to produce average output current of 0.639 A at …

Smart Usb-C Wall Plug For The Dc House Project, Ridge Lahti, Dino Maslic

Electrical Engineering

DC operated devices and appliances powered by AC systems suffer inefficiencies resulting from the losses of converting AC energy into DC energy. At Cal Poly, the DC House Project aims to minimize the need for AC electricity in homes and encourage the use of renewable energy systems. The DC House uses a 48V DC bus that must be stepped down for use with increasing number of DC loads in a typical home. In this project, a Smart USB-C Wall Plug is designed to work with USB Power Delivery to provide a variable voltage output for use with these DC loads …

Multifamily Complex Smart Locks For Property Management And Tenant Security, April Mills, Allen Chen, Dana Kumamoto, Michael Cook

Mechanical Engineering

Maintaining and managing hundreds of locks and physical keys for an apartment complex can be time consuming and costly, especially when the apartments turn over to new tenants. Our goal was to develop a smart door lock that is compatible with Obodo’s management app for apartment complexes to make accessing apartments secure and simpler for tenants and easier to manage for owners.

We designed and manufactured one smart door lock that is powered with four AA batteries and utilizes a dynamic NFC device and Bluetooth technology. The board can enter a sleep mode which reduces power consumption. The dynamic NFC …