First Design and Testing of an Unmanned Three-mode Vehicle

This paper investigates the first design and testing for an unmanned three-mode vehicle. The vehicle feature’s built in four main components, whereby a coaxial rotor set, propeller, wheels, and pontoon mechanism allow work independently of one another when fly on the air, move on the land and capable of traversing across the water surface. Moreover, that the vehicle performed vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) on the ground and from the surface of water. The design procedure includes vehicle structural design by three-dimensional solid modelling using SolidWorks TM and CosmosWorks TM, proposed design  considerations and performance calculation. In testing, vehicle had considered by demonstration on the air, land and water. The variety of mechanism’s transformation set to support manoeuvre on three-mode operation has been constructed to verify the feasibility and reliability of this vehicle. The gross weight of the vehicle is 557 grams and the (desired) endurance is about 10 minutes. A control algorithm has also been proposed to allow the unmanned vehicle to travel from its current location to another location specified with changeable channel on Tx Modulator. Flight and surface tests were performed following fabrication. The study shows that the design can be followed and used for build an unmanned three-mode vehicle for research and development purposes

A Framework for Systematic Design and Construction of an Unmanned Small-scale Air-Land-Water Vehicle

In this paper, we present a framework for systematic design and construction of an unmanned small-scale air-land-water vehicle. The systematic design procedure includes design and integration, hardware component selection, as well as experimental evaluation are used to construct a fully functional unmanned small-scale air-land-water vehicle, namely Unmanned Small-scale Air-Land-Water Vehicle (USALWaV). Various component to support maneuver on the ground, flight, and cruising on surface of water feature has been constructed to verify the feasibility and reliability of USALWaV. Double blade axial rotor, propeller set, and pontoon propel the vehicle while fly on-air, move on-land, and float on-water. A control algorithm has also been proposed to allow the USALWaV to travel from its current location to another location specified with changeable channel on Tx Modulator. The results can be followed and used for build a small-scale air-land-water vehicle for research and development purposes

Methodology to develop hybrid simulation/emulation model.

Trends towards reduced life-time of products and globalised competition has increased pressure on manufacturing industries to be more responsive to changing needs of product markets. Consequently, the use of simulation to describe short term future performance of manufacturing system has become more significant than ever. An application of simulation that has attracted attention is for testing of control logic before commissioning on site by using a detailed simulation model called emulation model. However, though the success of using emulation particularly in improving cost-effectiveness of automated material handling system delivery has been acknowledged by industries and simulation model developers, the uptake for this technology is still low. The major inhibitors are the high costs of its model building as well as simulation and emulation models are perceived to be non convertible.The main objective, of this research is to establish a methodology to develop simulation model that can be converted into emulation model with ease, thus making emulation technology more affordable. The product of this research called the methodology to build Hybrid Simulation Emulation Model (HSEM) is a new approach of building emulation model comprising of three phases namely (1) development of base simulation model, (2) development of detail emulation model, and (3) integration of controller with the emulation model. Important requirements for HSEM are flexibility of adding details to the simulation model and inter process communication between model and real control system. To facilitate implementation of the methodology, it is essential that the simulation software package provide functionalities for modular model development, access and adding of codes, integration with other application and real time (RT) modelling.The methodology developed offers a more affordable emulation modelling and an opening for further research into the comprehensive support for the implementation of real time control system testing using emulation

ESDA2004-58130 HYBRID SIMULATION-EMULATION MODEL: AGVS EXAMPLE

ABSTRACT Simulation and emulation have several salient contrasting functions and features. They include different aims, levels of details, execution time and integration of models. In many cases, a project will require both a simulation model for initial analysis and development, as well as an emulation model for testing a control system. If this is the case, a copy of the simulation model can be used as a starting point for developing the emulation model. Hybrid simulation-emulation model, one that is used for both purposes should have a facility to switch off/on certain elements from the model as necessary. There is much published work in simulation and a dearth of work in emulation. To date there has been no work published in converting a simulation into emulation model. This paper describes a novel approach, which combines both attributes, and is illustrated using a case study based on an Automated Guided Vehicle System (AGVS)

Numerical investigations of heat transfer enhancement in a house shapedcorrugated channel: combination of nanofluid and geometrical parameters

Improving the heat transfer rate is one of the main issues at the design stage of different thermal devices for various industries. In this research, a numerical simulation is performed to investigate the combined influences of nanofluid and various parameters designs of a house-shaped corrugated channel on the thermal and hydraulic performance under uniform heat flux of 10 kW/m2 and Reynolds number range of 10,000–30,000. In respect to the fluid medium, SiO2 nanoparticles are used and investigated with volume fraction up to 0.08. The impacts of geometrical parameters including height-to-width ratio (h/W), pitch-to-length ratio (p/L), and house ratio (e/r) on thermal and hydraulic characteristics are evaluated. The findings show that the (h/W) ratio has more influence on heat transfer promotion than the (p/L) ratio. At Reynolds number 30,000, there is a 16.63% increment in average Nusselt number due to a decrease of the (p/L) ratio from 0.175 to 0.075, while the increment 92.28% is achieved by an increase of the (h/W) ratio from 0.0 to 0.05. Heat transfer increases with roof height (r) and decreases with the vertical height of the house-shaped corrugation (e). The findings detect that a h/W of 0.05 with a p/L of 0.075 and e/r=0.6667 are optimum parameters that showed significant improvement in thermal performance. Moreover, new correlations for the Nusselt number and friction factor were developed and reported. Using nanofluid with the current channel is a useful source of reference to enhance thermal performance and produce more compact heat exchangers

Optimization of RFID Network Planning Using MDB-FA Method

Topology network design in RFID Network Planning (RNP) is the most important factor in hard optimization problems of network planning. Reader distribution is highly impacted by topological tags distribution. The integration of RFID multi-objective network planning with the network topology design results in better capability of reader distribution. Thus, this paper evaluates the impact of topological network design to support the RFID reader’s distribution system. Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) is used to generate tag distribution based on network topology design modules as a method to evaluate the deterministic indicators in NP-hard problems. The generated data are utilized as an input representation to apply into firefly algorithm based on Density- Based Algorithm (DBSCAN) to find the optimal network solution. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the method in L-Shape RNP, and show that the proposed algorithm is capable of achieving high coverage and use of fewer readers in actual conditions of warehouse design

Influences of geometrical parameters on the heat transfer characteristics through symmetry trapezoidal-corrugated channel using SiO2-water nanofluid

Enhancing the geometrical parameters design of thermal devices leads to promote the thermal performance and boost design plan of these devices and make it more compact. In the current study, heat transfer and flow characteristics of the symmetry trapezoidal-corrugated channel with silicon dioxide (SiO2) - water as nanofluid was performed numerically over Reynolds number ranges of 10,000–30,000. The influence of geometrical parameters including height-to-width ratio (h/W) and pitch-to-length ratio (p/L) on the thermal and hydraulic characteristics are evaluated. A numerical simulation covers nanofluid with SiO2 volume fractions 8% and carried out by employing the finite volume method (FVM) and SIMPLE algorithm for discretization of the governing equations and coupling of the pressure-velocity system while the k−ε turbulence model was employed to compute the turbulent flow. The outcomes revealed that the (h/W) ratio has a more influence on the promotion of heat transfer compared with the (p/L) ratio. At Reynolds number 30000, there is 16.63% increment in Nuav due to a decrease of the (p/L) ratio from 0.175 to 0.075, while the increment about 99.45% due to an increase of the (h/W) ratio from 0.0 to 0.05. The numerical results indicate that the h/W of 0.05 with a p/L of 0.075 are the optimum parameters and have shown significant improvement in thermal performance factor. Furthermore, new correlations for Nusselt number and friction factor are developed and reported

Reaction kinetic model for the two-step transesterification in the biodiesel production plant

Crude palm oil (CPO), which is available in abundant in Malaysia, is used as the feedstock in this research work. The work starts with the analysis of the physical and chemical properties of the feedstock and the associated product to obtain the major fatty acid compositions of triglyceride applicable in the crude palm oil. The kinetic models describing the change in the concentrations of the triglycerides, intermediates, alcohol, and the products during the reaction course are formulated through the corresponding kinetic mechanism. By looking at the kinetic mechanisms of the reaction, the chemical reaction is better understood. The ultimately proposed kinetic models of the biodiesel production from crude palm oil and methanol under presence of a base catalyst follow the second order differential equations without a shunt reaction. The emphasis of this research work is on the study of the alcoholysis of the crude palm oil under a base catalyst (transesterification) to produce biodiesel at a high quality and a maximum yield. The concentration profiles of thc rcactants arid the products employed in the transesterification are obtained by solving numerically the associated differential equations with introducing the published reaction rate constants applied in a laboratory scale. The effect of t,he reversible transesterification reaction shows, that each concentration profile of the reactants and the products tends to achieve an equilibrium after a certain reaction time. The simulation results of the kinetics models are implemented in conducting experiments in the pilot plant to produce biodiesel from CPO. Due to impurities such as unwanted gums and pigment, the feedstock must first undergo a physical treatment including degumming and bleaching processes. The high content of water and free fatty acid containing in CPO requires an esterification process. The main objective of this process is to lower that value at a minimum level to avoid the undesired effects such as saponification and inefficiency of the catalyst. Gas chromatography (GC) analysis method was used to determine the methyl ester contents during the reaction progress. Based on these accurate experiment data along with the simulation results, a validation was done. Technical improvements in the plant operation can therefore be deduced towards the best plant performance and a high quality of biodiesel product

Modelling Rail Accident and Incident Causes by Using Zero-Inflated Poisson Approach

The development of Railway industry has been growing rapidly until today, which make it as one of the popular choice of transportation mode to travel from one place to another and it becoming more complex. Thus, the complexity of rail network required high level of safety features to prevent any unwanted incident. Therefore, this study proposed a proper procedure on modelling accident which is conducted by using Poisson model. The most contributory factor that influenced the accident can be identified by using root cause analysis. “Ishikawa diagram†is a popular tool to identify problem occurring from the root where it begins. The data were taken from several sources which is secondary data where the data period was starting from 1999 to 2014. Analysis from Ishikawa shows there are ten main factors involved to influences an accident. Those factors are “train driver mistakeâ€, “other’s human mistakeâ€, “weather influenceâ€, “track problemâ€, “train problemâ€, “signaling errorâ€, “maintenance errorâ€, “communication errorâ€, “procedure errorâ€, and “othersâ€. Then, the model was tested to know which model among regression model is suitable and give a better prediction result by carrying out Dispersion test and Vuong test. The results show that Zero-inflated model considered as a sophisticated model to predict accidents and incident cases by Vuong test with p-value of 0.19695481, 0.1301056 and 0.0689108. The most factors contribute to the cases are “collisionsâ€, “derailment†and “SPADâ€

Integrating cleaning studies with industrial practice: case study of an effective cleaning program for a frozen meat patties SME factory

Cleaning of process equipment is a necessity in the food industry. There is no standard cleaning program formulated for all food industries. Thus, in order to achieve economic objectives and to comply with food hygiene regulations, specific cleaning problems need to be solved to achieve an optimal solution. In this work, a cleaning program was proposed for a local frozen meat patties Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) factory, X. Several cleaning tools such as a portable cleaning unit and industrial cleaning brushes with different functionality were used to ensure the effectiveness of the cleaning program. The portable cleaning unit was used to evaluate the impact of water jet with different nozzle distances (10 cm and 20 cm), cleaning times (30 s and 120 s), and temperatures (35 °C and 65 °C) in reducing different foodborne pathogens (Escherichia coli, Listeria monocytogenes, and Salmonella enteritidis). Two places of food processing equipment with two different stainless steel surfaces were tested. First, a former of meat patties (mesh wire surface), and second, a mixer (smooth surface). The results were then compared with factory X's current cleaning program and have shown that this new cleaning program can achieve physical clean level and helped to reduce microorganism to non-detectable level (less than 2.0 CFU/cm2). For the evening cleaning, the suggested cleaning program is using the portable cleaning unit at 65 °C, 120 s, 10 cm nozzle distance, and 5.2 bar. For the morning cleaning before production, the same parameters are suggested except for the temperature which is slightly higher at 75 °C