A SCADA System for Energy Management in Intelligent Buildings

This paper develops an energy management platform for intelligent buildings using a SCADA system (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition). This SCADA system integrates different types of information coming from the several technologies present in modern buildings (control of ventilation, temperature, illumination, etc.). The developed control strategy implements an hierarchical cascade controller where inner loops are performed by local PLCs (Programmable Logic Controller), and the outer loop is managed by a centralized SCADA system, which interacts with the entire local PLC network. In this paper a Predictive Controller is implemented above the centralized SCADA platform. Tests applied to the control of temperature and luminosity in huge-area rooms are presented. The developed Predictive Controller optimizes the satisfaction of user explicit preferences coming from several distributed user-interfaces, subjected to the overall constraints of energy waste minimization. In order to run the Predictive Controller with the SCADA platform a communication channel was developed to allow communication between the SCADA system and the MATLAB application where the Predictive Controller runs

Design of an Efficient Hybrid System for Electricity Production with Supervisory Control

This chapter aims to develop a new method for the economical evaluation of Hybrid Systems for electricity production. The different types of renewable sources are specifically evaluated in the economical performance of the overall equipment. The presented methodology was applied to evaluate the design of a photovoltaic-wind-diesel hybrid system to produce electricity for a community in the neighbourhood of Luanda, Angola. Once the hybrid generator is selected, it is proposed to provide the system with a supervisory control strategy to maximize its operating efficiency

Automatic Sun-Tracker Systems for Photo-Voltaic Plants

According to market economy, the increasing worldwide demand for energy, forces a continuous rise on the price of fossil combustibles. In fact, it is expected in the near future, that the demand for energy will grow faster than the finding out of new available fossil resources (Khan et al., 2007). This market behaviour brings a positive challenge to the scientific community as more funds are allocated for the research and development of new alternatives to the usual main energetic sources (fossil combustibles). In this context we have seen, in the last decades, to a concentrated focus on renewable energy research. Among these renewable energetic sources, the international scientific community has devoted intense efforts to wind, solar photovoltaic and biomass. Some investigations and hardware developments on wave energy have been led by Great Britain and Portugal (Wave-Energy-Centre). In this paper an intelligent sun-tracking system for efficiency maximization referring photovoltaic energy production is developed. Nowadays photovoltaic energy has a low efficiency ratio concerning the complete distribution chain from production to consumption (ca. 12%). In optimized environments (materials, electric inverters, tracking systems, etc) an input of 1000W of solar incident energy can bring ca. 190W in electricity (efficiency of 19%). This low performance ratio implies big Earth surface consumption when it is intended to install industrial photovoltaic units with significant production impact (50MW – 100MW). Today it is being built in south Portugal a photovoltaic plant with 64MW production capacity which occupies an huge area of ca. 400 ha (4 Km2). The more relevant side effect of the low efficiency of photovoltaic systems is its poor competition related to traditional combustibles in both economical and financial aspects. Owing to changes in the solar radiation energy and in the cell operating temperature, the output power of a solar array is not constant at all times. Consequently, a maximum solar power tracking controller is always needed in any scheme with solar cell arrays to ensure maximum utilization. Therefore, works to solve the problems on maximum power point (MPP) tracking have always been a hot topic for photovoltaic array utilization systems. A logical MPP tracking search algorithm using normalized current, voltage and power at the work points, that corresponds to the maximum power point values for different operating conditions was early tested (Atlas, 1992), (Atlas, 1996). A on-line controller to track the MPPs under changing illumination was described in (Hua & Lin, 2003). An optimization approach using fuzzy was given in (Benlarbi et al., 2004) for PV water pumping systems. Other MPP tracking controllers can be found in (Hua & Lin, 2004) and (Chen et al., 2004). This paper focuses on the optimization of the electric energy production by photovoltaic cells through the development of an intelligent sun-tracking system. The developed tracking system is innovative in relation to the usual sun tracking systems available in the market. The usual available solutions for tracking systems rely on the knowledge of the geographical position of the solar panel on the earth surface. With this knowledge it is possible to know the relative position of the sun, on a time basis, according to the well known solar tables (Solardat). Modern solutions incorporate a GPS system to calculate the position of the solar panel on the Earth surface. The orientations to be followed by the photovoltaic panel, on a regular time-base, are then pre-programmed, on an open loop approach. There are significant efforts on the optimization of sun tracking systems as it is documented by several registered international patents. These solutions are based either on the above described principle either on the quantification of the received solar energy, either on the maximization of the solar incident radiation through the use of light concentration lens or mirrors (Biee & Chace, 2009), (Rubio et al., 2007). The solution developed in this paper is innovative related to the above referred approaches as this system is autonomous regarding the information needed to process the optimal orientation and it is intelligent in a way that it monitors, on a real-time base, the photovoltaic energy production and it avoids systematic failures coming from changes on the assumed blind values (position, initial infrastructure orientation, cleanness of the photovoltaic cells, etc.)

AUTOMATIC MEASURING SYSTEM FOR RAILROAD WHEELS

This paper presents a vision system to measure the wear of the railroad wheels, developed for the Portuguese railway company, CP - Comboios Portugal. The developed system is based on image processing techniques to measure automatically the railroad wheels. The wheel’s profile is acquired by the illumination of the wheel through a secant horizontal light plane. The profile’s image is processed by identifying the line of the greatest light gradient. The gradient’s profile is then converted to the wheel’s radial profile by means of a coordinate transformation model, which transforms the image plane into the wheel’s radial plane A 1:1 scale static prototype is built and the calibration and testing procedures are shown. Experimental results are presented and discussed. Future improvements on the developed prototype will allow dynamic measurements at slow speeds (5km/h), as the present developed image system was designed to eliminate distortions due to the wheel’s movement

PLC based Structure for Management and Control of Distributed Energy Production Units

Today, the improvements in system communications have stimulated the implementation of distributed systems. These distributed systems are then usually managed by a centralized supervisory platform, commonly known as a SCADA system (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition). This strategy reaches different fields, from agriculture, to industry, building automation, etc (Figueiredo & Botto, 2005), (Figueiredo & Sá Costa, 2007). An optimal-performance supervisory system has the objective to allocate the minimal needed power generation to the traditional power plant in order to produce the electricity at a minimal economic cost. This paper presents a supervisory system to monitor and control energy production and consumption, in an optimized way. The developed system consists of a network of Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC), controlling locally the electricity production in each source, and measuring, in a real time base, the power consumption and production. The PLC network is parameterized according to the traditional Master-Slave requirements, using the PROFIBUS communication (Siemens, 2001). A SCADA system is implemented in order to supervise the entire PLC network. This monitoring and control strategy is simulated based on the requirements of the renewable energy park that is being assembled in Évora University. This experimental park is founded by an European project (PETER) with Évora University – Portugal and Extremadura University – Spain. The PETER park is a renewable energy park that plans to include a photovoltaic unit (10 KW), a wind generator (1KW) and a biomass unit (75KW)

Adaptive Method for Improvement of Human Skin Detection in Colour

In this paper a new approach to detect human skin in colour images is proposed. The method uses the classification of the three colour components of the RGB system (Red, Green and Blue), with a new approach to skin classifiers and face detection. The developed approach uses an adaptive methodology embedded in the skin classifier algorithm and a new face detection method to determine the location of the face in the image, improving the detection of the skin pixels and therefore reducing simultaneously the computational burden. The developed adaptive method varies the parameters of the base detection algorithm, for each one of the RGB colour components, in order to reduce the influence of external disturbances, namely the different illumination conditions. Experimental tests validate the proposed methodology showing very good results, in terms of skin detection with very different characteristics in face morphology, different backgrounds and illumination conditions

A New RFID‐Identification Strategy Applied to the Marble Extraction Industry

This paper aims to improve the marble industry production chain by proposing new technological approaches using the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) systems. The dynamic capabilities of the RFID read‐write tags allow the storage of physical characteristics of stone blocks, according to electrical, ultrasound and three‐dimensional image characterization tests. These characterization non‐destructive tests allow the evaluation of important parameters of the original stone blocks, by analyzing the internal structure of the rocks. Then, these parameters can be stored in databases through RFID‐tags, in order to optimize their subsequent cutting and transformation processes. RFID identification technology when integrated into an ethernet communication network enables automatic communication with cutting and processing equipment, building an intelligent industrial platform, integrating PCs (Personal Computers) and PLCs (Programmable Logic Controllers) within an Industry 4.0 environment. Another huge advantage of RFID technology is that it allows full product traceability, namely by enabling the end consumer to reverse the production path. A laboratory prototype was implemented and a detailed analysis and discussion of the obtained functionalities is shown at the end of this paper.This research was funded by ALT20‐03‐0247‐FEDER‐017659 / Portugal 2020, Portugal 202

Consumer Energy Management System with Integration of Smart Meters

This paper develops an energy management system with integration of smart meters for electricity consumers in a smart grid context. The integration of two types of smart meters (SM) are developed: i) consumer owned SM and ii) distributor owned SM. The consumer owned SM runs over a wireless platform - ZigBee protocol and the distributor owned SM uses the wired environment - ModBus protocol. The SM are connected to a SCADA system (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) that supervises a network of Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC). The SCADA system/ PLC network integrates different types of information coming from the several technologies present in modern buildings. The developed control strategy implements an hierarchical cascade controller where inner loops are performed by local PLCs, and the outer loop is managed by a centralized SCADA system, which interacts with the entire local PLC network. In order to implement advanced controllers, a communication channel was developed to allow the communication between the SCADA system and the MATLAB software