An application of deep learning for lightning prediction in East Coast Malaysia

This paper presents the application of deep learning (DL) approach namely Feed-Forward Neural Networks (FFNN) in predicting the location of lightning occurrences within 100 km radius from Universiti Malaysia Pahang Al-Sultan Abdullah (UMPSA) Pekan, Pahang Malaysia. The recorded data were obtained from Malaysia Meteorology Department (MET Malaysia), where the inputs of the DL are the intensity of the lightning in kilo Ampere, direction in degrees, distance and major axis that measures in km, while the output is the latitude and longitude of the lightning occurrences. The data are divided into training, validation and testing to measure the performance of the developed DL model. The findings of the study demonstrated the promising results of FFNN in terms of obtaining the minimum error which significantly increasing the accuracy of the predictions. To show the effectiveness of FFNN, the comparison study has been conducted with Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks. From the simulation, it can be seen that FFNN can be used as an effective tool for predicting the location of lightning occurred better than the LSTM

Comparative study on various type of lightning arrester at solar farm

The Photovoltaic (PV) system is vulnerable to a lightning strike. This overvoltage from lightning strikes could potentially damage PV components, including inverter, cable and the panel itself. To cater this issue, a lightning protection system (LPS) had been installed throughout the solar farm area as a device to attract and assist lightning flow to the ground. Although a proper LPS system had been established, there are still incidents related to lightning strikes on the solar panel, ultimately causing severe damage to the overall PV system. This paper focuses on studying and simulating PV solar farms electrical field behavior in various lighting protection systems. Also, it analyses several types of LPS arrangement, PV panel mounting and construction toward the influence of the lightning electric field. The Finite Element Method (FEM) has been used for this research. The simulation results show that most of the lighting attachments affected the PV panel at the corner edge of each side. The sharp point at the edge creates nonuniform electric field and increases electric field intensity. This paper will suggest a design of PV and LPS systems for better prevention of lightning strike phenomena

Time Domain Analysis of Electric Field on Wind Turbine Blade Under Salty Condition

A wind turbine is a structure that converts the energy generated by the wind into electrical power by utilizing wind vans called wind blades. Thus, wind blades play an essential role in a wind turbine. Due to open and high terrain construction, wind turbines are continuously exposed to lightning strikes. Therefore, electrical field activity may vary during thunderstorms. Finite Element Method software with computational simulation and analysis was carried out to gain insight into the behavior of this electric field for wind turbine blades under different humidity conditions. Simulated module excitation and parameter based on natural occurrence will be implemented, and the findings of the results can be used in technological advancement

Vision-based Object’s Shape Determination for Robot Alignment

This study provides vision-based system solutions for a peg-in-hole problem faced by a fork lift like robot used to transport copper wire spools from a rack, in which the spools are arranged side by side to a specified place. The copper wire spool (a cylindrical object on which the copper wire is wound and have a rim at each end) is held by 3 cylindrical shafts; one of the shafts is inserted through the center hole of the spool and another two shafts is held at the bottom of the spool. The aim of the development of vision-based system is to enable the robot to pick up the spool autonomously. To enable the center cylindrical shaft to be inserted nicely through the center hole of the spool, the center point of the spool must be on the center line of the camera Field of View (FOV). The problem to be solved in this study is how to determine that the center point is overlapped with the center line of the camera FOV. Firstly, a circle with the same radius of the spool’s rim was created at the center of the camera frame on screen, and then the spool’s front rim was tracked until it is overlapped with the circle on the screen image to ensure it is on the line of the camera FOV. However, the scope of this paper is limited to copper wire spool detection, and the confirmation of the front rim overlapping conditions is based on real time video processing. The proposed system uses Circular Hough Transform (CHT), binarization, morphology and edge detection of the sampled images from real-time video recording. A Logitech Webcam C270, which has an autofocus camera and HD view with lower price is used. By integrating the Logitech webcam for windows with MATLAB R2016a, all computations, programming and processing of this project are done using the MATLAB. Several experiments had been carried out and from the result obtained, the system is able to track the spool and determine the correct position of the robot to pick up the spool

Analysis of electric field behaviour for wind turbine blades under the influence of various gas

Wind turbines are one of the most important natural sources of energy. The components of atmosphere gases in the surrounding wind turbines that are installed may significantly affect the increasing of electrical field resulting from lighting strikes. Here, we use the initiation and spread of electrical field in various gases O2, N2, Ar, Ne and SO2 to examine the behaviour of electrical field on blade. This study uses the Finite Element Method to investigate the influence of gases on the lightning strike carbon fibre wind turbine blade. We use 3D modelling geometry i n this study to get accurate results for all sides of the blade. The generation of an impulse wave uses three stages with time varying from 0 to 60 µs. It was observed that N2 and Air give the same reading because Nitrogen represents 72% of the air contents. Thus, our study elucidates that applying various gases can affect the electric field strength

Spatio-temporal characteristics of energetic lightning in southeast asia : Preliminary statistical results

The region of Southeast Asia is known as one of the lightning-prone areas in the world. However, spatial and temporal distributions of high-energy lightning discharges, which cause natural disasters e.g. significant damages to local power grid systems and forest fires, are still unknown. This paper reports initial results on the statistical characteristics of energetic lightning around Malay Peninsula. Highly accurate timing and location as well as lightning peak current (Ip ) of lightning strokes were obtained by ENTLN (Earth Networks Total Lightning Network), while the vertical charge moment change Qds as a proxy of high-energy lightning was derived by using ground-based ELF magnetic field observations in Pahang, Malaysia with a small threshold of less than 10 C•km. The characteristics of energetic lightning for both rainy and dry seasons were successfully derived for the first time in this region. The results indicate that highly energetic lightning occur frequently throughout the rainy and dry seasons, mainly over the Malacca Strait. Long-term statistical analysis with an extended data analysis period is necessary to understand further the seasonal and yearly dependences of energetic lightning and their relations with local climate conditions

Inactivation of mucose on bread by using plasma jet

This paper presents the application of cold plasma technology on bread. Plasma is a fourth state of matter apart from solid liquid and gas states. It possesses the same amount of negative and positive ions that are produced from the gas molecule that goes through the electrical breakdown process. Plasma can be produced by injecting high voltage through an electrode. This project aims to develop a plasma jet system that will be able to produce cold plasma with the help of argon as the working gas. Due to its multifunction purpose, cold plasma can be used in many different fields such as biomedical, textile manufacturing, surface modification, food packaging, and many more. In this study, plasma generated with higher voltage may reduce the occupation of mucose on the bread as compares to the control

Electrical tree inception voltage and propagation in XLPE containing silica nanofiller

This paper presents the tree inception voltage and electrical tree propagation in XLPE containing silica nanofiller. The concentration of silica nanofillers in XLPE was 0 wt%, 0.5 wt%, 1.0 wt%, 1.5 wt% and 1.75 wt%. The needle plate electrodes were used to analyzed the tree inception voltage and electrical treeing propagation. The structure and the propagation length of electrical tree growth were analyzed after 20 min of tree inception voltage. The result of tree inception voltage and the electrical tree propagation in XLPE containing silica nanofiller was compared with pure XLPE composite. The silica nanofiller with the concentration of 1.5 wt% revealed the higher TIV and slower propagation of electrical tree in the XLPE nanocomposite

Effect of silica nanofiller in cross-linked polyethylene as electrical tree growth inhibitor

One of the main phenomena that contributes to the non-success of cable insulation made of cross-linked polyethylene (XLPE) is electrical treeing. To improve the XPLE cable insulation, the use of nanofiller has been introduced. Adding the nanofiller in the based composite offers better cable lifetime and resistance to deal with the cable failure. One of the potential nanofillers that can increase the insulation performance of XLPE cable is silica nanofiller. To this extent, the studies on silica nanofiller in XLPE are focusing on the impulse breakdown strength, dielectric loss, permittivity, space charge, alternating current (AC), and partial discharge. The studies reveal that the dielectric properties of the XLPE nanocomposite have significant improvement. Therefore, this work investigates the effect of various concentrations of silica nanofiller in XLPE composite as electrical tree inhibitor. The concentrations of silica nanofiller in XLPE were 0.25 wt%, 0.5 wt%, 0.75 wt%, 1.0 wt%, 1.25 wt%, 1.5 wt%, and 1.75 wt%. The silica nanofillers have 96%-99% purity, 20-30 nm sizes and the shapes are spherical. As a result, the XLPE composite containing 1.5 wt% silica nanofiller demonstrate higher tree inception voltage and detaining the tree propagation speed, which could be considered as an inhibitor medium of electrical tree growt

Space charge behavior in polymeric insulating materials under DC stress and pre-breakdown phenomena

Space charge has been recognized as an agent of insulation degradation for power transmission cable especially under high voltage dc ap1ication. It penetrates into bulk of insulating material, namely cross-linked polyethylene (XLPE), by time during dc voltage application. The increase in space change density enhances local electric field in the insulating material. In other words, the local electric field is distorted. When the field distortion reaches a critical value, dc breakdown of the insulating material will occurs, causing a catastrophic damage to the cable. Therefore, it is important to understand space charge inside an insulating material in order to improve the reliability of next generation power cables