6,684 research outputs found

    Solar Splash Senior Design Project

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    Indiana University Purdue University IndianapolisThe Solar Splash senior project is the first attempt at creating an entirely solar propelled watercraft. The initial project intent was to design and create a supplement meets the specifications and compete in the competition. With this in mind, a budget approach was taken in order to be able to fund the task at hand. As the project progressed toward the end of the low-level design phase it was evident that the competition would not occur. At the midpoint of the project, the goals and objectives had changed entirely. The new focus was targeted at proving the operation of the systems involved in the watercraft. Having been faced with a new series of objectives and an entirely new scope, the project began to appear doable. The primary focus of the project at this point entirely relied on simulation data and data analysis. The idea was not reinventing the wheel but rather verifying that the wheel rolled. Using the designed propulsion, solar and sensors systems, with the help of a combination of software programs, the idea of a budget solution can be seen. The software used tell the story of the boat that would have been created had the project continued down the original proposed path. As systems were tested and analyzed, they were also adjusted and improved upon. The analysis process consumed a lot of time but acted as a highlighter for all the flaws that the system suffered from. This document introduces the design concepts and schematics of the Solar Splash senior design project. Within are detailed drawings and diagrams for the electrical systems devised for the construction operation of the watercraft. This report is a means of displaying the layout of the final product and how all systems tie together. The report will contain detailed information on not only hardware aspects but also software and how those will bridge together. The report is meant to be in layman’s terms and should be easily interpreted at all levels. The bulk of the information found in the report will be found in the testing sections where analysis of a theoretical boat is done. The motor design, solar design, and fluid dynamic analysis of the boat hull and propeller can be found in their respective section. The innerworkings, testing processes and thoughts behind each decision can also be found in these sections. The document begins with a table of contents identifying each main and subcategory of information. The next page is the document identification, revision history, and lesser known definitions. Following that is the introduction and scope. Specification requirements for the ‘general requirements’, ‘electrical requirements’ and ‘mechanical requirements’ are found on the following page. A system flowchart can be found in the high-level Design along with the design decision matrices for each system. The design portion then begins starting with the System-wide design changes and decisions. The hardware and software designs and schematics follow and cover the proposed schematics and drawings for the system. Cost breakdowns for each individual system are also found in the low-level section. Testing methodologies, results and an explanation of the testing software can be found after the low-level design. A summation of all these testing results is found near the tail of the document. Conclusions, recommendations, and appendixes can be found as the last three sections, respectively.Electrical Engineering Technolog

    A Review of the Enviro-Net Project

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    Ecosystems monitoring is essential to properly understand their development and the effects of events, both climatological and anthropological in nature. The amount of data used in these assessments is increasing at very high rates. This is due to increasing availability of sensing systems and the development of new techniques to analyze sensor data. The Enviro-Net Project encompasses several of such sensor system deployments across five countries in the Americas. These deployments use a few different ground-based sensor systems, installed at different heights monitoring the conditions in tropical dry forests over long periods of time. This paper presents our experience in deploying and maintaining these systems, retrieving and pre-processing the data, and describes the Web portal developed to help with data management, visualization and analysis.Comment: v2: 29 pages, 5 figures, reflects changes addressing reviewers' comments v1: 38 pages, 8 figure

    A review of daylighting design and implementation in buildings

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    Characterization of Solar Roadways Via Computational and Experimental Investigations

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    Efficiency of traditional solar panels is known to be very low and hence necessitates the use of extensive open spaces for producing solar-based electric power. In solar roadways concept, open spaces such as roads, parking lots, bicycle lanes, footpaths are proposed to be utilized. An in-depth quantitative feasibility study for implementing solar roadways in Canada is carried out considering the total available surfaces, solar panel efficiency and effects of fast moving shades. The load carrying capability of commercially available materials for the solar panel top cover is studied in an effort to examine the current as well as near-future implementation of this proposed concept. In addition, a piezo-based auxiliary energy harvesting system is proposed for harnessing the vehicle-induced strain on the solar panel top cover. The positions of the piezoelectric elements are optimized by studying the vibration characteristics of the top cover via numerical as well as experimental methods

    Feasibility study of a long duration balloon flight with NASA/GSFC and Soviet Space Agency Gamma Ray Spectrometers

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    A feasibility study of conducting a joint NASA/GSFC and Soviet Space Agency long duration balloon flight at the Antarctic in Jan. 1993 is reported. The objective of the mission is the verification and calibration of gamma ray and neutron remote sensing instruments which can be used to obtain geochemical maps of the surface of planetary bodies. The gamma ray instruments in question are the GRAD and the Soviet Phobos prototype. The neutron detectors are supplied by Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Soviet Phobos prototype. These are to be carried aboard a gondola that supplies the data and supplies the power for the period of up to two weeks

    Small-scale hybrid alternative energy maximizer for wind turbines and photovoltaic panels

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    This thesis describes the creation of a small-scale Hybrid Power System (HPS) that maximizes energy from a wind turbine and photovoltaic array. Small-scale HPS are becoming an increasingly viable energy solution as fossil fuel prices rise and more electricity is needed in remote areas. Modern HPS typically employ wind speed sensors and three power stages to extract maximum power. Modern systems also use passive rectifiers to convert AC from the wind turbine to DC that is usable by power electronics. This passive system inefficiently wastes power and introduces damaging harmonic noise to the wind turbine. The HPS described in this thesis does not require external wind speed sensors, and has independent wind and solar Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT). It converts AC from the wind turbine to DC with a Vienna rectifier that can be controlled to improve efficiency, allow MPPT, and allow Power Factor Correction (PFC). PFC all but eliminates the harmonic noise that can damage the wind turbine. A prototype HPS was built and evaluated that combines the two renewable sources in such a way that only two power stages are necessary, the Vienna rectifier and a step-down converter. This thesis describes the prototype and reports the results obtained

    Solar Panel with Embedded Electronics

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    Currently, inverters are needed to utilize solar panels for applications that require AC power. Unfortunately, these inverters are very costly and decrease power efficiency. In this work, two alternatives to using inverters are explored. The first method combines a buck converter with a buck-boost converter to create a sine output. The second method uses switches to change the connections of the solar cells, producing a stepped AC output. Both methods involve embedding the solar cells along with the additional electronics into a solar panel, thus eliminating the need for a separate inverter. Simulations were performed using SIMPLIS, and both methods were compared with a focus on feasibility and cost. Results of the simulation demonstrated that the DC-DC converter method performs better than the multiple switch method. More specifically, the quality of the sinusoidal output voltage from the DC-DC converter method is better than the stepped sine wave produced by the multiple switches. Furthermore, the use of many switches to produce a sine wave like output makes the multiple switch method not practical due to the complexity of circuit as well as cost. Therefore, through these comparisons, we recommend that future projects should focus on implementing prototypes for the DC-DC converter method using buck buck-boost converter

    Manual for Automation of Dc-microgrid Component Using Matlab/Simulink and FPGA\u27s

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    Solar Energy is one of the abundantly available renewable energy source. Solar panels are semiconductor materials which capture the solar energy from every band in the visible light spectrum, infrared spectrum and ultra violet spectrum and converts it into electrical energy. The DC community microgrid is used to supplement utility electrical power supplied to the neighbored with renewable sources such as solar panels, emergency back-up power through batteries or generators. Smart Cloud Interconnected environment increases the standard of living and facilitates ease to rectify faults, debug components and reinstate or replace obsolete components with newer ones. Automation of the DC microgrid components provides a simple yet efficient way to connect to the grid and to every component in the grid remotely. It is essential to find the node of failure in the grid for technicians and engineers to work on and to debug the issue to facilitate smooth running of the grid without shutdown. FPGAs are used as target devices for end synthesis of the model that is created on Simulink. These FPGAs are links between cloud and power electronics components. To utilize the energy resource efficiently we need to monitor the input and output of every component at every node in the grid. Simulating models on Simulink will let us connect the component and test engineer to the grid to detect any flaws or failures on time. FPGAs are easily reprogrammable and have long life with excellent capability to withstand stress. This thesis report provides a set of procedures to create and simulate a real time component model and to generate HDL files to build a clean code which can be redeployed on target FPGAs
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