The potential of wind and solar energy for development of hybrid energy system

This project is motivated by an interest in promoting the use of renewable energy to perform hybrid energy system as one of the alternative to replace the used of gas and coal as the main demand in producing electricity. With depleting local gas reserves and the need to adhere to stricter environmental regulations whilst still having to meet the requirement for growing electricity demand, the consideration of new options in the future generation fuel mix are inevitable. The main purpose of this project is to study on hybrid energy system and the potential of the system to run in UMP, Pekan based on the weather data collected. Two types of energy have been chosen to perform this project which are solar and wind energy. Weather meter and solar equipment are installed to obtain the data within a week and study on the possibilities of both energies if it is installed in this area. The graph shows the data collected within a week and also the highest temperature and wind speed that are captured. Besides that, calculation on types of solar equipment need to be used and wind turbine parameters also been done. Thus, both solar and wind energy able to capture 4W each which gives out total 8W of power produce a day. This is shown that both energies are potential to perform hybrid energy system in UMP Pekan

The normal vehicle forces effects of a two in-wheel electric vehicle towards the human brain on different road profile maneuver

Noise, harshness and vibrations are a non-trivial aspect of ride or human comfort, and car manufacturers often sought to improve the aforesaid comfort level. In previous studies, human biodynamic model and vehicle model are often modelled separately. Human model is used to study human alertness level and health while vehicle model is used to study on the car vibration to specifically understand the impact of vibration towards the model independently. In this study, a twelve degrees of freedom (12 DOF) human biodynamic model is incorporated with a two in-wheel electric car model to investigate the effect of vertical vibration towards the human brain based on different types of road profile and maneuver. MATLAB simulation environment is used to carry out the investigation, and it was established from the present study that the proposed model is able to provide significant insights on the impact experienced by the human brain to the skull based on the given vertical input of different road profile. The impact on the human brain to the skull is often associated with human alertness while driving where vibration exposure towards human driver influence the sleepiness level, human reaction times and lapses of attention which may lead to road accidents

Ride Comfort Assessment of a Sitting Pregnant Women During Cornering: Autonomous Vehicle Simulation Maneuvering Analysis

Exposure of continuous vibrations toward the human body from a moving vehicle could reduce human comfort, provoke motion sickness, and affect a human’s health directly. The effect will be catastrophic for future autonomous vehicle implementation if the effect is not widely studied since the role of driver will be handled by the computer. In this study, Smart Campus Autonomous Vehicle (SCAV) simulation platform is coupled with a pregnant women biodynamic model to investigate the human body dynamic response to induced vibrations and assess comfort and motion sickness. The combined models are used to investigate the impact on the occupant’s head vertical accelerations from the accelerations induced by the vehicle movement. Real simulation platform by using Smart Campus Autonomous Vehicle (SCAV) is used to obtain vehicle acceleration data that is used as an input for pregnant human biodynamic model. From this combination, the vibrational effect on the human head can be obtained depending on the vehicle movement. Finally, the responses of head acceleration is obtained, and comfort and motion sickness incidence are assessed by using relevant models mentioned in the literature

A Simulated Kalman Filter (SKF) approach in identifying optimum speed during cornering

Safety and human comfort are of paramount importance towards vehicle performance. This study aims to recognize the optimum cornering speed of a two-in wheel vehicle by means of a metaheuristic optimization technique known as Simulated Kalman Filter (SKF). The algorithm is used to minimize the normal forces experienced by the driver based on the identified speed. The system combines a biodynamic model with a two-in-wheel car model. It was demonstrated from the study that the conservative optimum speed of 20 km/h was determined by the SKF algorithm. The outcome of the investigation is non-trivial towards ensuring human comfort as well as safety to the driver

Normal forces effects of a two in-wheel electric vehicle towards the human body

Traditionally, in order to comprehend the impact of vibration on human and vehicle ride comfort, past research often models the human biodynamic and vehicle models individually. Recent trends suggest that a better understanding of the behaviour could be achieved by fusing the models instead of analysing it separately. The present study evaluates the impact of the normal forces on specific parts of the human body. A human biodynamic model with five degrees of freedom is modelled together with a two in-wheel electric car model travelling at a speed of 10 km/h to investigate the effect of the normal forces. From the present investigation, it could be observed that the proposed model could highlight the impact of the normal forces on the body parts when the car is travelling either on a straight path or in taking corners

Investigation of maximum power point tracking (MPPT) for active cooling mono-crystalline photovoltaic panel using fuzzy logic controller

Interest promotion of solar energy to perform an efficient standalone PV system to replace the used of gas and coal as the main demand in producing electricity. Due to the nonlinearity of solar radiation and temperature, it leads to inconsistency in electricity production from the PV panel. To achieve the maximum power point (MPP) of PV panel, fuzzy logic (FL) based constant voltage (CV) algorithm is applied to the system. The aim of this project is to develop an efficient standalone PV system with cooling system. This system is develop in both simulation and experimental. A model of PV panel is designed based PV mathematical modelling by using single cell diode model. The simulation is done to analyze PV panel characteristics especially in variation of temperature and irradiations. These characteristics are used for the inputs in 'developing the Fuzzy Logic (FL) controller. As to control and maintain the temperature of PV panel on its optimum level, a cooling system is developed into the system. The cooling system helps to increase the PV voltage output as well as the power produce. From the simulation, I-V and P-V characteristics of PV panel are obtained. The implementation of cooling system results in 3.09% and 1.96% of Vpv and VOUT percentage change increasing respectively when the PV temperature drop down to 17.71 % averagely. This clearly shows the Vpv produce depends on the PV temperature. By implementing FL based CV algorithm into this method, it makes the system more robust and reliable in terms of effectiveness and efficiency. In conclusion, a standalone PV system is successfully designed and analyzed in both simulation and experimental set up to determine the PV panel characteristics and increase the system performances. By implementing the cooling system for PV panel as well as using FL controller in tracking PV MPP enhanced the performances of PV system and reduces the problems that affect the power generation from PV panel

Optimum Solar Panel Implementation Using DC-DC Boost Converter Controlled by Fuzzy Logic Controller

This paper proposes the implementation of a simple fuzzy logic controller (FLC) for a DC-DC boost converter based on a microcontroller to obtain maximum power from the solar system with the maximum power point tracking (MPPT) method. The system includes a solar panel, DC-DC boost converter, the fuzzy logic controller implemented on Arduino Uno for controlling on/off time of MOSFET of the boost converter, voltage divider and optocoupler circuit. This paper presents a fuzzy logic real time code in the Arduino language for ATmega328 microcontroller on the Arduino UNO board. The designed system increases the efficiency of the solar panel based on experimental results

Flywheel Energy Storage for Wind Energy System with SEIG-Motor Set

Intermittent wind energy in producing optimal power flow could lead to unstable generated power. Due to this, an energy storage that can release and absorb energy need to be used in order maintains the generated voltage at the permitted quality for the load. Nowadays, tons of energy storage systems are used in storing the energy. Flywheel energy storage system (FESS) becomes one of potential mechanism that can be used to smooth the voltage output of wind turbine due to its advantages. The aim of this study is to design and implement a FESS for critical load in a wind energy system that can store energy for a short time period. Then, period of the voltage generated by FESS using different capacitance is analyzed. FESS consists of a self-excited capacitance induction motor-generator set (SEIG), controller circuit and flywheel rotor. In this study, a three phase asynchronous induction machine is used as a motor-generator due to its simplicity, cheap, robust and less maintenance. The flywheel and SEIG-motor set could store the energy for a short period of time, which can be used to compensate for wind instability. Results show that FESS generates variable powers that compensate short time power to the wind system

An investigation on the effect of lateral motion on normal forces acting on each tires for nonholonomic electric vehicle: Experimental results

Stability of vehicle has been the topic of interest among researchers for decades. Research conducted on vehicle stability relies on the vehicle’s lateral and longitudinal dynamics. In order to determine the longitudinal and lateral force acting on tires, the normal force that acts on the tire is required. Furthermore, the forces generated to move the vehicle are dependent on the vehicle’s mass. Smaller force is generated if the mass is low and vice versa. Therefore, in this paper, the vehicle modelling is conducted to determine the effect of lateral motion on the normal force generated. Dugoff’s tire model and combined vehicle dynamics are used to determine the characteristic of the vehicle. The lateral and longitudinal acceleration generated is used to calculate the normal force generated on each tire. Based on the result, a significant change in normal forces can be observed on each tire when a steering input of 0.05 rad is given. This shows a significant correlation between the lateral motion and normal tire force. Results obtained shows that normal force acting on the left and right side of the tires is affected by the direction of the lateral motion of the vehicle

Integrated cooling systems and maximum power point tracking of fuzzy logic controller for improving photovoltaic performances

The nonlinearity of solar irradiation and temperature leads to unstable photovoltaic (PV) outputs and decrease in efficiency. A method based on experimental study is developed to maximize the output of the PV panels using the combination of PV cooling system and fuzzy logic, fuzzy logic (FL)-based constant voltage (CV) maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithm. The PV cooling system reduces the PV panel temperature to the optimum temperature, while the FL-based CV MPPT algorithm tracks the maximum power of the PV panel. Experimental results showed that the combination of the two methods in a PV system results in improving the photovoltaic performances. Thus, the PV panel outputs increase when the PV panel works at its optimum temperature. This integrated FL-based CV MPPT controller proves the effectiveness in improving PV performances for any weather condition