This paper provides a design, a charging control, and energy management of a movable Photo Voltaic (PV) charging station with an Automatic Battery Replacement (ABR) system to enable drones for ongoing missions. The paper represents the first stage of a three-staged project titled Fall Armyworm (FAW) insect killer. The other two stages involve the flight control of drones and detecting and killing FAW insects. Without chemical methods, the project aims to eliminate harmful FAW insects that are rapidly spreading in Africa and Asia. The power source is a hybrid PV system with energy storage devices (batteries and supercapacitors). The maximum power from PV panels is tracked using three different online methods (PSO, IC, and P&O), and the best method with the highest accuracy is selected. The experimental and simulation results approved that PSO is the recommended method used in this project among the studied methods because of its high target reach (about 97%) and low steady-state oscillation (maximum 2.15%). An intelligent energy management system is investigated and designed to efficiently utilize solar power with a constant-current constantvoltage charger for LiPo batteries. A new Battery Selection System (BSS) is designed and verified to efficiently utilize the harvested energy and increase the mission time. The BSS targets to manage the selection of the appropriate battery to charge and control its charging rate. The system performance is tested using MATLAB software. Then, an experimental setup for the system is built to validate simulation results. The results of simulations and experiments proved the reliability of BSS

Finding the optimum path for mobile robots is now an essential task as lots of autonomous mobile robots are widely used in factories, hospitals, farms, etc. Many path planning algorithms have been developed to finding the optimum path with the minimum processing time. The vertical cell decomposition algorithm (VCD) is one of the popular path planning algorithms. It is able to find a path in a very short time. In this paper, we present a new algorithm, called the Radial cell decomposition (RCD) algorithm, which can generate shorter paths and a slightly faster than VCD algorithm. Furthermore, the VCD algorithm cannot be applied directly to obstacles in special cases, like two vertices have the same x-coordinate; on the other hand, the RCD algorithm can be applied to these special cases directly. In addition to that, the RCD algorithm is very suitable for corridor environments, unlike the VCD algorithm. In this paper …

Structure health monitoring is a general term used to describe the process of assessing the civil structure status and detecting and/or identifying any damage that occurs in the structure under monitoring. This work presents the design and operation of a synchronized structure health monitoring system that utilizes the internet of things technology. The proposed system consists of leaf nodes, a central node, and a monitoring server. The system utilizes two different wireless technologies to efficiently transfer the data and eliminate the need of fixed network infrastructure. The leaf nodes collect the acceleration signals from specific points in the structure using synchronized accelerometer sensors and send these signals to the central node using short range wireless communication protocol. The sampling process is synchronized among different sensors using an accurate timing signal from the global positioning system and an accurate external clock. The central node gathers the signals and relays them to a remote server using long range cellular internet connectivity. At the server, different damage detection and identification techniques are applied on the received data to assess the status of the structure. We provide details about the proposed system design and operation including the hardware and software parts. The different damage detection and identification techniques were considered and compared for predicting structural damage. Moreover, practical experiments were carried out, in which a five-story building model and real plane truss bridge were used to test the system. The results show the feasibility of the proposed synchronized system in automating the change in stiffness and mass by monitoring the dynamic behaviour.

Photovoltaic (PV) power systems are integrated with high penetration levels into the grid. This in turn encourages several modifications for grid codes to sustain grid stability and resilience. Recently, constant power management and regulation is a very common approach, which is used to limit the PV power production. Thus, this article proposes dual-mode power generation algorithm for grid-connected PV systems. The developed system considers the two-stage PV configuration for implementation, where the dual-mode power generation technique is executed within the DC–DC conversion (boost) stage. Most of the techniques adopted for dual-mode power operation employ the conventional perturb and observe method, which is known with unsatisfactory performance at fast-changing atmospheric conditions. Considering this issue, this study suggests a modified maximum power point tracker for power extraction. Furthermore, a new adaptive DC-link controller is developed to improve the DC-link voltage profile at different operating conditions. The adaptive DC-link controller is compared with the
traditional PI controller for voltage regulation. The inverter control is accomplished using finite-set model predictive control with two control objectives, namely reference current tracking and switching frequency minimization. The overall control methodology is evaluated at different atmospheric and operating conditions using MATLAB/Simulink software.

Sensorless strategies become very popular in modern control techniques because they increase the system reliability. Besides, they can be used as back-up control in case of sensor failure. In this paper, a DC-link sensorless control approach is developed, which is suited for grid-connected PV systems. The studied system is a two-stage PV scheme, where the DC–DC stage (boost converter) is controlled using an adaptive step-size perturb and observe (P&O) method. Further, the inverter control is accomplished by voltage oriented control (VOC). Generally, the VOC is implemented with two cascaded control loops, namely an outer voltage loop and an inner current loop. However, in this work, the outer loop is avoided and the reference current is generated using a losses model for the system. The losses model accounts for the most significant losses in the PV system. Moreover, particle swarm optimization (PSO) is utilized to compensate for the unmodeled losses. The PSO is
executed offline for the purpose of calculation burden reduction. The proposed approach simplifies the cascaded VOC strategy and eliminates the DC-link voltage sensor, which in turn decreases the cost of the system. Finally, the proposed technique is compared with the conventional one at different atmospheric conditions and validated using MATLAB simulation results.

Frictional stir welding (FSW) technology is increasingly used to weld various alloys, especially aluminum alloys, which are used in the manufacture of aircraft, ships, trains, etc. One of the most common techniques used to improve the mechanical properties of welded joints made of different alloy aluminum is the Vertical Compensation Friction Stir Welding (VCFSW) technique. Moreover, the use of different conditions of post-weld heat treatment of VCFSWed joints has a major impact on the mechanical properties of welded joints . Therefore, in the present work, different conditions of post-weld heat treatments were carried out on the VCFSW joints in order to improve the mechanical properties. Specifically, this paper focused on the effect of aging conditions (artificial aging at 120°C, 140°C, and 160°C) and 3 mm wide VCFSW static tape on mechanical properties such as fine hardness and tensile stress . Overall, the results indicated improvement in mechanical properties after using post-weld heat treatment. Specifically, the highest values of exact hardness and tensile strength were obtained at 140 °C, which is due to the change of the microstructure of the welded area by post-weld heat treatment conditions

he Brix value is an important factor in the sugar industry's extraction processes. Brix refers to the amount of sucrose in the raw sugar solution. The concentration of dissolved solids in a solution is measured by the degree Brix (symbol °Bx). One gram of sucrose in 100 grams of solution equals one-degree Brix. a New Suggested method for measuring brix was designed to be low-cost and accurate Brix measuring in raw sugar solutions. it was depended on Electronic sensors can directly measure the mass, and temperature of the solution to express the brix and give the result on the screen. Digital suggested brixmeter was made based on this method. It can be used manually on the production line and in various food industries. The aim of this paper was to evaluate the digital brixmeter performance for measuring brix in raw sugar solutions. Brix measurements were tested for a group of samples at different sizes to find the optimal measurement sizes can verify accurate brix degree value. The factors affecting the accuracy of the measurement were also studied. The results were compared with the brix read from accurate optical refractometer to check and a prove the accuracy of the proposed digital brixmeter.

This article is focused main problem during and after FSW especially when joining blanks AA2024 embedded with interlayer strip widths AA7075, in microstructure of the welded zone, that will in turn affect its mechanical properties of the welded joints. So, a number of interlock strip widths of AA7075 as 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5 and 3 mm were added between two substrates of base metal AA2024 during FSW technique then followed heating and cooling procedures to incorporate into the heat treatment process, which is conducted to create changes in a material's microstructure that will in turn affect its mechanical properties. The analyses by optical microscope and scanning electron microscope were used to clarify microstructural characterization of FSWed with interlock strip widths after PWHTed. On the other hand, the microhardness and tensile tests were performed to determine mechanical properties of FSWed with interlock strip widths after PWHTed. The observations of microstructural elucidated that the good bonding connection between interlayer strip widths AA7075 and base metal AA2024 was due to use the procedures of PWHT. The mechanical properties such as microhardness and tensile of produced joints with PWHTed were showed higher than without PWHTed. Specifically, the ultimate tensile strength, and hardness values of the post-heat joint when using 3mm interlayer strip were obtained the highest values 299MPa, 186 HV respectively. This presents improvement by 11.2% in tensile strength, and 84% in hardness, compared to as weld joint.

Water management, distribution, and consumption are not visualized in real time in conventional systems; this delays the leakage detection process. Nowadays, an increase in the development of smart water- meter trials and demand management requires higher spatial and temporal decisions. This paper proposes a solution for the water management and distribution problem. The solution is based on the IoT technology. First, a prototype abstracting the water distribution network (WDN) is developed. Second, sensors are installed on the network to capture the targeted physical quantities such as water pH level, turbidity, and flow rates. Third, sensor network is established to send the readings to Firebase platform. Fourth, an IoT testbed architecture is proposed to comprehensively interface all the IoT modules. Leakage detection scenarios are conducted to sense and warn admins and users to fix it. Application of the proposed system to smart homes would enable monitoring of water quality, measurement of consumption, and detection of leakage. Moreover, it provides an awareness highlight to users about consumption, and a monitoring platform for both users and admins for leakage detection.

Abstract—Implementation of robotic systems has significantly improved the flexibility and accuracy of prostate brachytherapy. In our previous study, an ultrasound (US) guided dual-arm robotic brachytherapy system was developed. This system was integrated with an end-effector for needle insertion and an end-effector for US probe. The calibration accuracy of the system determines the effectiveness of the whole system. However, existing calibration methods are mechanism-based calibration methods or image-based calibration methods. With these methods, external tracker and complex phantom are needed, which may result in accumulative errors. Therefore, this article presents a mechanism-image fusion approach to the calibration of a US-guided dual-arm robotic brachytherapy system. With this approach, no tracker or complex phantom is needed as the dual-arm robotic system can use one arm as a substitute for the tracker and phantom to calibrate the other arm. The needle-tip positions localized by the mechanism and image are utilized while the needle is also the controlled object of needle insertion. Experiments using three registration algorithms were performed, and results were evaluated utilizing the leave-one-out cross-validation method. The results showed that the calibration accuracy of the whole system is 0.65±0.31 mm. Additional experimental and parametrical comparisons of the proposed