Innovative robot design for cleaning solar panels

The accumulation of dust particles on the solar panels decrease the total amount of solar energy received by the Photovoltaic panel (PV) and, it has also been proven that the increase of temperature reduces the overall efficiency. These effects have been studied by different researchers based on collected data comparison. As both of these parameters have a negative effect on the efficiency of the solar panel, it is essential to keep them clean and at low temperatures. The use of technologies, such as robots, is an effective way of carrying out repetitive tasks at low cost and in a short time. This work consists of developing a robot capable of cleaning and cooling the solar panels, based on images acquired through a camera positioned directly towards the panels, thus maintaining periodic cleaning in order to increase its efficiency. The preliminary results demonstrate the possibility of using this approach for the accomplishment of this task.This work is financed by National Funds through the Portuguese funding agency, FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia within project UIDB/50014/2020.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Sensory Computing and Object Processing Entity: Assistive Robotics for Healthcare

Team SCOPE has created an assistive robot for healthcare delivery. The robot is mobile, responds to spoken commands, and possesses Artificial Intelligence (AI). It extracts meanings about the patient’s health from conversations and visual interactions. It summarizes these observations into reports that could be merged with the patient’s Electronic Health Records (EHRs). This process aids healthcare professionals in delivering better care by augmenting attendance, increasing accuracy of patient information collection, aiding in diagnosis, streamlining data collection, and automating the process of ingesting and incorporating this information into EHR systems. SCOPE’s solution uses cloud-based AI services along with local processing. Using VEX Robotics parts and an Arduino microcontroller, SCOPE created a mobile platform for the robot. The robotic platform implements basic motions and obstacle avoidance. These separate systems are integrated using a Java master program, Node-Red, and IBM Watson cloud services. The resulting AI can be expanded for different applications within healthcare delivery

Condition Monitoring System for Solar Power Plants with Radiometric and Thermographic Sensors Embedded in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

The photovoltaic solar energy industry is expanding, and there is therefore a need to increase and improve its maintainability, operating costs, availability, reliability, safety, life cycle, etc. The aim of this article is to design, develop and check a new condition monitoring system to detect dust in solar photovoltaic panels. The condition monitoring system uses a radiometric sensor connected to an Arduino platform. This novel approach is based on emissivity analysis produced over a surface and characterized with a low emissivity value when dust appears. A thermographic camera is also employed to validate the results provided by the radiometric sensor. The system is designed to be embedded in an unmanned aerial vehicle. Radiometric data is sent and analysed, Internet of Things is employed, and thermograms are stored for further processing. Several scenarios with a real solar panel are used in the experiments, in which the angles and distances of the sensors and surface conditions are studied. An analysis of the radiometric sensor provides accuracy results, and the presence of dust is identified in all scenarios

Survey of maintenance management for photovoltaic power systems

The sustainability of the global energy production systems involves new renewable energies and the improvement of the existing ones. Photovoltaic industry is growing thanks to the development of new technologies that increase the performance of photovoltaic systems. These systems are commonly subject to harsh environmental conditions that decrease their energy production and efficiency. In addition, current photovoltaic technologies are more sophisticated, and the size of photovoltaics solar plants is growing. Under this framework, research on failures and degradation mechanisms, together with the improvement of maintenance management, becomes essential to increase the performance, efficiency, reliability, availability, safety, and profitability of these systems. To assess maintenance needs, this paper presents a double contribution: an exhaustive literature review and updated survey on maintenance of photovoltaic plants, and a novel analysis of the current state and a discussion of the future trends and challenges in this field. An analysis of the main faults and degradation mechanisms is done, including the causes, effects, and the main techniques to detect, prevent and mitigate them

ReSCon '12, Research Student Conference: Book of Abstracts

The fifth SED Research Student Conference (ReSCon2012) was hosted over three days, 18-20 June 2012, in the Hamilton Centre at Brunel University. The conference consisted of 130 oral and 70 poster presentations, based on the high quality and diverse research being conducted within the School of Engineering and Design by postgraduate research students. The conference is held annually, and ReSCon plays a key role in contributing to research and innovations within the School

INTER-ENG 2020

These proceedings contain research papers that were accepted for presentation at the 14th International Conference Inter-Eng 2020 ,Interdisciplinarity in Engineering, which was held on 8–9 October 2020, in Târgu Mureș, Romania. It is a leading international professional and scientific forum for engineers and scientists to present research works, contributions, and recent developments, as well as current practices in engineering, which is falling into a tradition of important scientific events occurring at Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology in the George Emil Palade University of Medicine, Pharmacy Science, and Technology of Târgu Mures, Romania. The Inter-Eng conference started from the observation that in the 21st century, the era of high technology, without new approaches in research, we cannot speak of a harmonious society. The theme of the conference, proposing a new approach related to Industry 4.0, was the development of a new generation of smart factories based on the manufacturing and assembly process digitalization, related to advanced manufacturing technology, lean manufacturing, sustainable manufacturing, additive manufacturing, and manufacturing tools and equipment. The conference slogan was “Europe’s future is digital: a broad vision of the Industry 4.0 concept beyond direct manufacturing in the company”

Políticas de Copyright de Publicações Científicas em Repositórios Institucionais: O Caso do INESC TEC

A progressiva transformação das práticas científicas, impulsionada pelo desenvolvimento das novas Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação (TIC), têm possibilitado aumentar o acesso à informação, caminhando gradualmente para uma abertura do ciclo de pesquisa. Isto permitirá resolver a longo prazo uma adversidade que se tem colocado aos investigadores, que passa pela existência de barreiras que limitam as condições de acesso, sejam estas geográficas ou financeiras. Apesar da produção científica ser dominada, maioritariamente, por grandes editoras comerciais, estando sujeita às regras por estas impostas, o Movimento do Acesso Aberto cuja primeira declaração pública, a Declaração de Budapeste (BOAI), é de 2002, vem propor alterações significativas que beneficiam os autores e os leitores. Este Movimento vem a ganhar importância em Portugal desde 2003, com a constituição do primeiro repositório institucional a nível nacional. Os repositórios institucionais surgiram como uma ferramenta de divulgação da produção científica de uma instituição, com o intuito de permitir abrir aos resultados da investigação, quer antes da publicação e do próprio processo de arbitragem (preprint), quer depois (postprint), e, consequentemente, aumentar a visibilidade do trabalho desenvolvido por um investigador e a respetiva instituição. O estudo apresentado, que passou por uma análise das políticas de copyright das publicações científicas mais relevantes do INESC TEC, permitiu não só perceber que as editoras adotam cada vez mais políticas que possibilitam o auto-arquivo das publicações em repositórios institucionais, como também que existe todo um trabalho de sensibilização a percorrer, não só para os investigadores, como para a instituição e toda a sociedade. A produção de um conjunto de recomendações, que passam pela implementação de uma política institucional que incentive o auto-arquivo das publicações desenvolvidas no âmbito institucional no repositório, serve como mote para uma maior valorização da produção científica do INESC TEC.The progressive transformation of scientific practices, driven by the development of new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), which made it possible to increase access to information, gradually moving towards an opening of the research cycle. This opening makes it possible to resolve, in the long term, the adversity that has been placed on researchers, which involves the existence of barriers that limit access conditions, whether geographical or financial. Although large commercial publishers predominantly dominate scientific production and subject it to the rules imposed by them, the Open Access movement whose first public declaration, the Budapest Declaration (BOAI), was in 2002, proposes significant changes that benefit the authors and the readers. This Movement has gained importance in Portugal since 2003, with the constitution of the first institutional repository at the national level. Institutional repositories have emerged as a tool for disseminating the scientific production of an institution to open the results of the research, both before publication and the preprint process and postprint, increase the visibility of work done by an investigator and his or her institution. The present study, which underwent an analysis of the copyright policies of INESC TEC most relevant scientific publications, allowed not only to realize that publishers are increasingly adopting policies that make it possible to self-archive publications in institutional repositories, all the work of raising awareness, not only for researchers but also for the institution and the whole society. The production of a set of recommendations, which go through the implementation of an institutional policy that encourages the self-archiving of the publications developed in the institutional scope in the repository, serves as a motto for a greater appreciation of the scientific production of INESC TEC