Reliable Industry 4.0 Based on Machine Learning and IoT for Analyzing, Monitoring, and Securing Smart Meters

A Privacy-Preserving Framework Using Homomorphic Encryption for Smart Metering Systems

Smart metering systems (SMSs) have been widely used by industrial users and residential customers for purposes such as real-time tracking, outage notification, quality monitoring, load forecasting, etc. However, the consumption data it generates can violate customers' privacy through absence detection or behavior recognition. Homomorphic encryption (HE) has emerged as one of the most promising methods to protect data privacy based on its security guarantees and computability over encrypted data. However, SMSs have various application scenarios in practice. Consequently, we used the concept of trust boundaries to help design HE solutions for privacy protection under these different scenarios of SMSs. This paper proposes a privacy-preserving framework as a systematic privacy protection solution for SMSs by implementing HE with trust boundaries for various SMS scenarios. To show the feasibility of the proposed HE framework, we evaluated its performance on two computation metrics, summation and variance, which are often used for billing, usage predictions, and other related tasks. The security parameter set was chosen to provide a security level of 128 bits. In terms of performance, the aforementioned metrics could be computed in 58,235 ms for summation and 127,423 ms for variance, given a sample size of 100 households. These results indicate that the proposed HE framework can protect customer privacy under varying trust boundary scenarios in SMS. The computational overhead is acceptable from a cost-benefit perspective while ensuring data privacy.

Control and Optimisation of Power Grids Using Smart Meter Data: A Review

This paper provides a comprehensive review of the applications of smart meters in the control and optimisation of power grids to support a smooth energy transition towards the renewable energy future. The smart grids become more complicated due to the presence of small-scale low inertia generators and the implementation of electric vehicles (EVs), which are mainly based on intermittent and variable renewable energy resources. Optimal and reliable operation of this environment using conventional model-based approaches is very difficult. Advancements in measurement and communication technologies have brought the opportunity of collecting temporal or real-time data from prosumers through Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI). Smart metering brings the potential of applying data-driven algorithms for different power system operations and planning services, such as infrastructure sizing and upgrade and generation forecasting. It can also be used for demand-side management, especially in the presence of new technologies such as EVs, 5G/6G networks and cloud computing. These algorithms face privacy-preserving and cybersecurity challenges that need to be well addressed. This article surveys the state-of-the-art of each of these topics, reviewing applications, challenges and opportunities of using smart meters to address them. It also stipulates the challenges that smart grids present to smart meters and the benefits that smart meters can bring to smart grids. Furthermore, the paper is concluded with some expected future directions and potential research questions for smart meters, smart grids and their interplay.

Low-Power Transit Time-Based Gas Flow Sensor with Accuracy Optimization

In this paper, a fully designed ultrasonic transit time-based gas flow sensor is presented. The proposed sensor has been optimized in terms of accuracy, sensitivity, and power consumption at different design stages: mechanical design of the sensor pipe, piezoelectric transducer configuration and validation over temperature, time of flight detection algorithm, and electronics design. From the optimization and integration of each design part, the final designed gas flow sensor is based on the employment of 200 kHz-piezoelectric transducers mounted in a V-configuration and on the implementation of a cross-correlation algorithm based on the Hilbert Transform for time-of-flight detection purposes. The proposed sensor has been experimentally validated at different flow rates and temperatures, and it fully complies with the accuracy specifications required by the European standard EN14236, placing the proposed design into the state of the art of ultrasonic gas flow sensors regarding cost, accuracy, and power consumption, the latter of which is crucial for implementing smart gas meters that are able to autonomously operate as IoT devices by extending their battery life.

Evolution of Sensor Research for Clarifying the Dynamics and Properties of Future Directions

The principal goal of this study is to analyze the evolution of sensor research and technologies from 1990 to 2020 to clarify outlook and future directions. This paper applies network analysis to a large dataset of publications concerning sensor research covering a 30-year period. Results show that the evolution of sensors is based on growing scientific interactions within networks, between different research fields that generate co-evolutionary pathways directed to develop general-purpose and/or specialized technologies, such as wireless sensors, biosensors, fiber-optic, and optical sensors, having manifold applications in industries. These results show new directions of sensor research that can drive R&D investments toward promising technological trajectories of sensors, exhibiting a high potential of growth to support scientific, technological, industrial, and socioeconomic development.

Edge-Computing and Machine-Learning-Based Framework for Software Sensor Development

The present research presents a framework that supports the development and operation of machine-learning (ML) algorithms to develop, maintain and manage the whole lifecycle of modeling software sensors related to complex chemical processes. Our motivation is to take advantage of ML and edge computing and offer innovative solutions to the chemical industry for difficult-to-measure laboratory variables. The purpose of software sensor models is to continuously forecast the quality of products to achieve effective quality control, maintain the stable production condition of plants, and support efficient, environmentally friendly, and harmless laboratory work. As a result of the literature review, quite a few ML models have been developed in recent years that support the quality assurance of different types of materials. However, the problems of continuous operation, maintenance and version control of these models have not yet been solved. The method uses ML algorithms and takes advantage of cloud services in an enterprise environment. Industrial 4.0 devices such as the Internet of Things (IoT), edge computing, cloud computing, ML, and artificial intelligence (AI) are core techniques. The article outlines an information system structure and the related methodology based on data from a quality-assurance laboratory. During the development, we encountered several challenges resulting from the continuous development of ML models and the tuning of their parameters. The article discusses the development, version control, validation, lifecycle, and maintenance of ML models and a case study. The developed framework can continuously monitor the performance of the models and increase the amount of data that make up the models. As a result, the most accurate, data-driven and up-to-date models are always available to quality-assurance engineers with this solution.

A Digital Twin Approach for Improving Estimation Accuracy in Dynamic Thermal Rating of Transmission Lines

The limitation of transmission lines thermal capacity plays a crucial role in the safety and reliability of power systems. Dynamic thermal line rating approaches aim to estimate the transmission line’s temperature and assess its compliance with the limitations above. Existing physics-based standards estimate the temperature based on environment and line conditions measured by several sensors. This manuscript shows that estimation accuracy can be improved by adopting a data-driven Digital Twin approach. The proposed method exploits machine learning by learning the input–output relation between the physical sensors data and the actual conductor temperature, serving as a digital equivalent to physics-based standards. An experimental assessment on real data, comparing the proposed approach with the IEEE 738 standard, shows a reduction of 60% of the Root Mean Squared Error and a decrease in the maximum estimation error from above 10 °C to below 7 °C. These preliminary results suggest that the Digital Twin provides more accurate and robust estimations, serving as a complement, or a potential alternative, to traditional methods.

Advanced Applications of Industrial Robotics: New Trends and Possibilities

This review is dedicated to the advanced applications of robotic technologies in the industrial field. Robotic solutions in areas with non-intensive applications are presented, and their implementations are analysed. We also provide an overview of survey publications and technical reports, classified by application criteria, and the development of the structure of existing solutions, and identify recent research gaps. The analysis results reveal the background to the existing obstacles and problems. These issues relate to the areas of psychology, human nature, special artificial intelligence (AI) implementation, and the robot-oriented object design paradigm. Analysis of robot applications shows that the existing emerging applications in robotics face technical and psychological obstacles. The results of this review revealed four directions of required advancement in robotics: development of intelligent companions; improved implementation of AI-based solutions; robot-oriented design of objects; and psychological solutions for robot–human collaboration.

Development of an IoT Architecture Based on a Deep Neural Network against Cyber Attacks for Automated Guided Vehicles

This paper introduces an integrated IoT architecture to handle the problem of cyber attacks based on a developed deep neural network (DNN) with a rectified linear unit in order to provide reliable and secure online monitoring for automated guided vehicles (AGVs). The developed IoT architecture based on a DNN introduces a new approach for the online monitoring of AGVs against cyber attacks with a cheap and easy implementation instead of the traditional cyber attack detection schemes in the literature. The proposed DNN is trained based on experimental AGV data that represent the real state of the AGV and different types of cyber attacks including a random attack, ramp attack, pulse attack, and sinusoidal attack that is injected by the attacker into the internet network. The proposed DNN is compared with different deep learning and machine learning algorithms such as a one dimension convolutional neural network (1D-CNN), a supported vector machine model (SVM), random forest, extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost), and a decision tree for greater validation. Furthermore, the proposed IoT architecture based on a DNN can provide an effective detection for the AGV status with an excellent accuracy of 96.77% that is significantly greater than the accuracy based on the traditional schemes. The AGV status based on the proposed IoT architecture with a DNN is visualized by an advanced IoT platform named CONTACT Elements for IoT. Different test scenarios with a practical setup of an AGV with IoT are carried out to emphasize the performance of the suggested IoT architecture based on a DNN. The results approve the usefulness of the proposed IoT to provide effective cybersecurity for data visualization and tracking of the AGV status that enhances decision-making and improves industrial productivity.

Impact of Image Compression on the Performance of Steel Surface Defect Classification with a CNN

Machine vision is increasingly replacing manual steel surface inspection. The automatic inspection of steel surface defects makes it possible to ensure the quality of products in the steel industry with high accuracy. However, the optimization of inspection time presents a great challenge for the integration of machine vision in high-speed production lines. In this context, compressing the collected images before transmission is essential to save bandwidth and energy, and improve the latency of vision applications. The aim of this paper was to study the impact of quality degradation resulting from image compression on the classification performance of steel surface defects with a CNN. Image compression was applied to the Northeastern University (NEU) surface-defect database with various compression ratios. Three different models were trained and tested with these images to classify surface defects using three different approaches. The obtained results showed that trained and tested models on the same compression qualities maintained approximately the same classification performance for all used compression grades. In addition, the findings clearly indicated that the classification efficiency was affected when the training and test datasets were compressed using different parameters. This impact was more obvious when there was a large difference between these compression parameters, and for models that achieved very high accuracy. Finally, it was found that compression-based data augmentation significantly increased the classification precision to perfect scores (98–100%), and thus improved the generalization of models when tested on different compression qualities. The importance of this work lies in exploiting the obtained results to successfully integrate image compression into machine vision systems, and as appropriately as possible.

Scientific Developments and New Technological Trajectories in Sensor Research

Scientific developments and new technological trajectories in sensors play an important role in understanding technological and social change. The goal of this study is to develop a scientometric analysis (using scientific documents and patents) to explain the evolution of sensor research and new sensor technologies that are critical to science and society. Results suggest that new directions in sensor research are driving technological trajectories of wireless sensor networks, biosensors and wearable sensors. These findings can help scholars to clarify new paths of technological change in sensors and policymakers to allocate research funds towards research fields and sensor technologies that have a high potential of growth for generating a positive societal impact.

Digital Twins of the Water Cooling System in a Power Plant Based on Fuzzy Logic

In the search for increased productivity and efficiency in the industrial sector, a new industrial revolution, called Industry 4.0, was promoted. In the electric sector, power plants seek to adapt these new concepts to optimize electric power generation processes, as well as to reduce operating costs and unscheduled downtime intervals. In these plants, PID control strategies are commonly used in water cooling systems, which use fans to perform the thermal exchange between water and the ambient air. However, as the nonlinearities of these systems affect the performance of the drivers, sometimes a greater number of fans than necessary are activated to ensure water temperature control which, consequently, increases energy expenditure. In this work, our objective is to develop digital twins for a water cooling system with auxiliary equipment, in terms of the decision making of the operator, to determine the correct number of fans. This model was developed based on the algorithm of automatic extraction of fuzzy rules, derived from the SCADA of a power plant located in the capital of Paraíba, Brazil. The digital twins can update the fuzzy rules in the case of new events, such as steady-state operation, starting and stopping ramps, and instability. The results from experimental tests using data from 11 h of plant operations demonstrate the robustness of the proposed digital twin model. Furthermore, in all scenarios, the average percentage error was less than 5% and the average absolute temperature error was below 3 °C.

An Ensembled Anomaly Detector for Wafer Fault Detection

The production process of a wafer in the semiconductor industry consists of several phases such as a diffusion and associated defectivity test, parametric test, electrical wafer sort test, assembly and associated defectivity tests, final test, and burn-in. Among these, the fault detection phase is critical to maintain the low number and the impact of anomalies that eventually result in a yield loss. The understanding and discovery of the causes of yield detractors is a complex procedure of root-cause analysis. Many parameters are tracked for fault detection, including pressure, voltage, power, or valve status. In the majority of the cases, a fault is due to a combination of two or more parameters, whose values apparently stay within the designed and checked control limits. In this work, we propose an ensembled anomaly detector which combines together univariate and multivariate analyses of the fault detection tracked parameters. The ensemble is based on three proposed and compared balancing strategies. The experimental phase is conducted on two real datasets that have been gathered in the semiconductor industry and made publicly available. The experimental validation, also conducted to compare our proposal with other traditional anomaly detection techniques, is promising in detecting anomalies retaining high recall with a low number of false alarms.

Experimental Evaluation of Deep Learning Methods for an Intelligent Pathological Voice Detection System Using the Saarbruecken Voice Database

This work is focused on deep learning methods, such as feedforward neural network (FNN) and convolutional neural network (CNN), for pathological voice detection using mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs), linear prediction cepstrum coefficients (LPCCs), and higher-order statistics (HOSs) parameters. In total, 518 voice data samples were obtained from the publicly available Saarbruecken voice database (SVD), comprising recordings of 259 healthy and 259 pathological women and men, respectively, and using /a/, /i/, and /u/ vowels at normal pitch. Significant differences were observed between the normal and the pathological voice signals for normalized skewness (p = 0.000) and kurtosis (p = 0.000), except for normalized kurtosis (p = 0.051) that was estimated in the /u/ samples in women. These parameters are useful and meaningful for classifying pathological voice signals. The highest accuracy, 82.69%, was achieved by the CNN classifier with the LPCCs parameter in the /u/ vowel in men. The second-best performance, 80.77%, was obtained with a combination of the FNN classifier, MFCCs, and HOSs for the /i/ vowel samples in women. There was merit in combining the acoustic measures with HOS parameters for better characterization in terms of accuracy. The combination of various parameters and deep learning methods was also useful for distinguishing normal from pathological voices.

An Efficient Convolutional Neural Network Model Combined with Attention Mechanism for Inverse Halftoning

Inverse halftoning acting as a special image restoration problem is an ill-posed problem. Although it has been studied in the last several decades, the existing solutions can’t restore fine details and texture accurately from halftone images. Recently, the attention mechanism has shown its powerful effects in many fields, such as image processing, pattern recognition and computer vision. However, it has not yet been used in inverse halftoning. To better solve the problem of detail restoration of inverse halftoning, this paper proposes a simple yet effective deep learning model combined with the attention mechanism, which can better guide the network to remove noise dot-patterns and restore image details, and improve the network adaptation ability. The whole model is designed in an end-to-end manner, including feature extraction stage and reconstruction stage. In the feature extraction stage, halftone image features are extracted and halftone noises are removed. The reconstruction stage is employed to restore continuous-tone images by fusing the feature information extracted in the first stage and the output of the residual channel attention block. In this stage, the attention block is firstly introduced to the field of inverse halftoning, which can make the network focus on informative features and further enhance the discriminative ability of the network. In addition, a multi-stage loss function is proposed to accelerate the network optimization, which is conducive to better reconstruction of the global image. To demonstrate the generalization performance of the network for different types of halftone images, the experiment results confirm that the network can restore six different types of halftone image well. Furthermore, experimental results show that our method outperforms the state-of-the-art methods, especially in the restoration of details and textures.

A Comprehensive Risk Assessment Framework for Synchrophasor Communication Networks in a Smart Grid Cyber Physical System with a Case Study

The smart grid (SG), which has revolutionized the power grid, is being further improved by using the burgeoning cyber physical system (CPS) technology. The conceptualization of SG using CPS, which is referred to as the smart grid cyber physical system (SGCPS), has gained a momentum with the synchrophasor measurements. The edifice of the synchrophasor system is its communication network referred to as a synchrophasor communication network (SCN), which is used to communicate the synchrophasor data from the sensors known as phasor measurement units (PMUs) to the control center known as the phasor data concentrator (PDC). However, the SCN is vulnerable to hardware and software failures that introduce risk. Thus, an appropriate risk assessment framework for the SCN is needed to alleviate the risk in the protection and control of the SGCPS. In this direction, a comprehensive risk assessment framework has been proposed in this article for three types of SCNs, namely: dedicated SCN, shared SCN and hybrid SCN in an SGCPS. The proposed framework uses hardware reliability as well as data reliability to evaluate the associated risk. A simplified hardware reliability model has been proposed for each of these networks, based on failure probability to assess risk associated with hardware failures. Furthermore, the packet delivery ratio (PDR) metric is considered for measuring risk associated with data reliability. To mimic practical shared and hybrid SCNs, the risk associated with data reliability is evaluated for different background traffics of 70%, 80% and 95% using 64 Kbps and 300 Kbps PMU data rates. The analytical results are meticulously validated by considering a case study of West Bengal’s (a state in India) power grid. With respect to the case study, different SCNs are designed and simulated using the QualNet network simulator. The simulations are performed for dedicated SCN, shared SCN and hybrid SCN with 64 Kbps and 300 Kbps PMU data rates. The simulation results are comprehensively analyzed for risk hedging of the proposed SCNs with data reliability and hardware reliability. To summarize, the mean risk with data reliability (RwDR) as compared to the mean risk with hardware reliability (RwHR) increases in shared SCN and hybrid SCN by a factor of 17.108 and 23.278, respectively. However, minimum RwDR increases in shared and hybrid SCN by a factor of 16.005 and 17.717, respectively, as compared to the corresponding minimum RwHR. The overall analysis reveals that the RwDR is minimum for dedicated SCN, moderate for shared SCN, and highest for hybrid SCN.

Novel Control Strategy for Enhancing Microgrid Operation Connected to Photovoltaic Generation and Energy Storage Systems

Recently, the penetration of energy storage systems and photovoltaics has been significantly expanded worldwide. In this regard, this paper presents the enhanced operation and control of DC microgrid systems, which are based on photovoltaic modules, battery storage systems, and DC load. DC–DC and DC–AC converters are coordinated and controlled to achieve DC voltage stability in the microgrid. To achieve such an ambitious target, the system is widely operated in two different modes: stand-alone and grid-connected modes. The novel control strategy enables maximum power generation from the photovoltaic system across different techniques for operating the microgrid. Six different cases are simulated and analyzed using the MATLAB/Simulink platform while varying irradiance levels and consequently varying photovoltaic generation. The proposed system achieves voltage and power stability at different load demands. It is illustrated that the grid-tied mode of operation regulated by voltage source converter control offers more stability than the islanded mode. In general, the proposed battery converter control introduces a stable operation and regulated DC voltage but with few voltage spikes. The merit of the integrated DC microgrid with batteries is to attain further flexibility and reliability through balancing power demand and generation. The simulation results also show the system can operate properly in normal or abnormal cases, thanks to the proposed control strategy, which can regulate the voltage stability of the DC bus in the microgrid with energy storage systems and photovoltaics.

A Review of Explainable Deep Learning Cancer Detection Models in Medical Imaging

Deep learning has demonstrated remarkable accuracy analyzing images for cancer detection tasks in recent years. The accuracy that has been achieved rivals radiologists and is suitable for implementation as a clinical tool. However, a significant problem is that these models are black-box algorithms therefore they are intrinsically unexplainable. This creates a barrier for clinical implementation due to lack of trust and transparency that is a characteristic of black box algorithms. Additionally, recent regulations prevent the implementation of unexplainable models in clinical settings which further demonstrates a need for explainability. To mitigate these concerns, there have been recent studies that attempt to overcome these issues by modifying deep learning architectures or providing after-the-fact explanations. A review of the deep learning explanation literature focused on cancer detection using MR images is presented here. The gap between what clinicians deem explainable and what current methods provide is discussed and future suggestions to close this gap are provided.

Reliable and Robust Observer for Simultaneously Estimating State-of-Charge and State-of-Health of LiFePO4 Batteries

Batteries are everywhere, in all forms of transportation, electronics, and constitute a method to store clean energy. Among the diverse types available, the lithium-iron-phosphate (LiFePO4) battery stands out for its common usage in many applications. For the battery’s safe operation, the state of charge (SOC) and state of health (SOH) estimations are essential. Therefore, a reliable and robust observer is proposed in this paper which could estimate the SOC and SOH of LiFePO4 batteries simultaneously with high accuracy rates. For this purpose, a battery model was developed by establishing an equivalent-circuit model with the ambient temperature and the current as inputs, while the measured output was adopted to be the voltage where current and terminal voltage sensors are utilized. Another vital contribution is formulating a comprehensive model that combines three parts: a thermal model, an electrical model, and an aging model. To ensure high accuracy rates of the proposed observer, we adopt the use of the dual extend Kalman filter (DEKF) for the SOC and SOH estimation of LiFePO4 batteries. To test the effectiveness of the proposed observer, various simulations and test cases were performed where the construction of the battery system and the simulation were done using MATLAB. The findings confirm that the best observer was a voltage-temperature (VT) observer, which could observe SOC accurately with great robustness, while an open-loop observer was used to observe the SOH. Furthermore, the robustness of the designed observer was proved by simulating ill-conditions that involve wrong initial estimates and wrong model parameters. The results demonstrate the reliability and robustness of the proposed observer for simultaneously estimating the SOC and SOH of LiFePO4 batteries.

Accurate Insulating Oil Breakdown Voltage Model Associated with Different Barrier Effects

In modern power systems, power transformers are considered vital components that can ensure the grid’s continuous operation. In this regard, studying the breakdown in the transformer becomes necessary, especially its insulating system. Hence, in this study, Box–Behnken design (BBD) was used to introduce a prediction model of the breakdown voltage (VBD) for the transformer insulating oil in the presence of different barrier effects for point/plane gap arrangement with alternating current (AC) voltage. Interestingly, the BBD reduces the required number of experiments and their costs to examine the barrier parameter effect on the existing insulating oil VBD. The investigated variables were the barrier location in the gap space (a/d)%, the relative permittivity of the barrier materials (εr), the hole radius in the barrier (hr), the barrier thickness (th), and the barrier inclined angle (θ). Then, only 46 experiment runs are required to build the BBD model for the five barrier variables. The BBD prediction model was verified based on the statistical study and some other experiment runs. Results explained the influence of the inclined angle of the barrier and its thickness on the VBD. The obtained results indicated that the designed BBD model provides less than a 5% residual percentage between the measured and predicted VBD. The findings illustrated the high accuracy and robustness of the proposed insulating oil breakdown voltage predictive model linked with diverse barrier effects.

Estimating Parameters of Photovoltaic Models Using Accurate Turbulent Flow of Water Optimizer

Recently, the use of diverse renewable energy resources has been intensively expanding due to their technical and environmental benefits. One of the important issues in the modeling and simulation of renewable energy resources is the extraction of the unknown parameters in photovoltaic models. In this regard, the parameters of three models of photovoltaic (PV) cells are extracted in this paper with a new optimization method called turbulent flow of water-based optimization (TFWO). The applications of the proposed TFWO algorithm for extracting the optimal values of the parameters for various PV models are implemented on the real data of a 55 mm diameter commercial R.T.C. France solar cell and experimental data of a KC200GT module. Further, an assessment study is employed to show the capability of the proposed TFWO algorithm compared with several recent optimization techniques such as the marine predators algorithm (MPA), equilibrium optimization (EO), and manta ray foraging optimization (MRFO). For a fair performance evaluation, the comparative study is carried out with the same dataset and the same computation burden for the different optimization algorithms. Statistical analysis is also used to analyze the performance of the proposed TFWO against the other optimization algorithms. The findings show a high closeness between the estimated power–voltage (P–V) and current–voltage (I–V) curves achieved by the proposed TFWO compared with the experimental data as well as the competitive optimization algorithms, thanks to the effectiveness of the developed TFWO solution mechanism.

Controlling an Industrial Robot Using a Graphic Tablet in Offline and Online Mode

The article presents the possibility of using a graphics tablet to control an industrial robot. The paper presents elements of software development for offline and online control of a robot. The program for the graphic tablet and the operator interface was developed in C# language in Visual Studio environment, while the program controlling the industrial robot was developed in RAPID language in the RobotStudio environment. Thanks to the development of a digital twin of the real robotic workstation, tests were carried out on the correct functioning of the application in offline mode (without using the real robot). The obtained results were verified in online mode (on a real production station). The developed computer programmes have a modular structure, which makes it possible to easily adapt them to one’s needs. The application allows for changing the parameters of the robot and the parameters of the path drawing. Tests were carried out on the influence of the sampling frequency and the tool diameter on the quality of the reconstructed trajectory of the industrial robot. The results confirmed the correctness of the application. Thanks to the new method of robot programming, it is possible to quickly modify the path by the operator, without the knowledge of robot programming languages. Further research will focus on analyzing the influence of screen resolution and layout scale on the accuracy of trajectory generation.

Proposed ANFIS Based Approach for Fault Tracking, Detection, Clearing and Rearrangement for Photovoltaic System

In the last few decades, photovoltaics have contributed deeply to electric power networks due to their economic and technical benefits. Typically, photovoltaic systems are widely used and implemented in many fields like electric vehicles, homes, and satellites. One of the biggest problems that face the relatability and stability of the electrical power system is the loss of one of the photovoltaic modules. In other words, fault detection methods designed for photovoltaic systems are required to not only diagnose but also clear such undesirable faults to improve the reliability and efficiency of solar farms. Accordingly, the loss of any module leads to a decrease in the efficiency of the overall system. To avoid this issue, this paper proposes an optimum solution for fault finding, tracking, and clearing in an effective manner. Specifically, this proposed approach is done by developing one of the most promising techniques of artificial intelligence called the adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system. The proposed fault detection approach is based on associating the actual measured values of current and voltage with respect to the trained historical values for this parameter while considering the ambient changes in conditions including irradiation and temperature. Two adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system-based controllers are proposed: (1) the first one is utilized to detect the faulted string and (2) the other one is utilized for detecting the exact faulted group in the photovoltaic array. The utilized model was installed using a configuration of 4 × 4 photovoltaic arrays that are connected through several switches, besides four ammeters and four voltmeters. This study is implemented using MATLAB/Simulink and the simulation results are presented to show the validity of the proposed technique. The simulation results demonstrate the innovation of this study while proving the effective and high performance of the proposed adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system-based approach in fault tracking, detection, clearing, and rearrangement for practical photovoltaic systems.

A Smart and Secure Logistics System Based on IoT and Cloud Technologies

Recently, one of the hottest topics in the logistics sector has been the traceability of goods and the monitoring of their condition during transportation. Perishable goods, such as fresh goods, have specifically attracted attention of the researchers that have already proposed different solutions to guarantee quality and freshness of food through the whole cold chain. In this regard, the use of Internet of Things (IoT)-enabling technologies and its specific branch called edge computing is bringing different enhancements thereby achieving easy remote and real-time monitoring of transported goods. Due to the fast changes of the requirements and the difficulties that researchers can encounter in proposing new solutions, the fast prototype approach could contribute to rapidly enhance both the research and the commercial sector. In order to make easy the fast prototyping of solutions, different platforms and tools have been proposed in the last years, however it is difficult to guarantee end-to-end security at all the levels through such platforms. For this reason, based on the experiments reported in literature and aiming at providing support for fast-prototyping, end-to-end security in the logistics sector, the current work presents a solution that demonstrates how the advantages offered by the Azure Sphere platform, a dedicated hardware (i.e., microcontroller unit, the MT3620) device and Azure Sphere Security Service can be used to realize a fast prototype to trace fresh food conditions through its transportation. The proposed solution guarantees end-to-end security and can be exploited by future similar works also in other sectors.

Towards Precise Interpretation of Oil Transformers via Novel Combined Techniques Based on DGA and Partial Discharge Sensors

Power transformers are considered important and expensive items in electrical power networks. In this regard, the early discovery of potential faults in transformers considering datasets collected from diverse sensors can guarantee the continuous operation of electrical systems. Indeed, the discontinuity of these transformers is expensive and can lead to excessive economic losses for the power utilities. Dissolved gas analysis (DGA), as well as partial discharge (PD) tests considering different intelligent sensors for the measurement process, are used as diagnostic techniques for detecting the oil insulation level. This paper includes two parts; the first part is about the integration among the diagnosis results of recognized dissolved gas analysis techniques, in this part, the proposed techniques are classified into four techniques. The integration between the different DGA techniques not only improves the oil fault condition monitoring but also overcomes the individual weakness, and this positive feature is proved by using 532 samples from the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company (EETC). The second part overview the experimental setup for (66/11.86 kV–40 MVA) power transformer which exists in the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company (EETC), the first section in this part analyzes the dissolved gases concentricity for many samples, and the second section illustrates the measurement of PD particularly in this case study. The results demonstrate that precise interpretation of oil transformers can be provided to system operators, thanks to the combination of the most appropriate techniques.

An Effective Bi-Stage Method for Renewable Energy Sources Integration into Unbalanced Distribution Systems Considering Uncertainty

The output generations of renewable energy sources (RES) depend basically on climatic conditions, which are the main reason for their uncertain nature. As a result, the performance and security of distribution systems can be significantly worsened with high RES penetration. To address these issues, an analytical study was carried out by considering different penetration strategies for RES in the radial distribution system. Moreover, a bi-stage procedure was proposed for optimal planning of RES penetration. The first stage was concerned with calculating the optimal RES locations and sites. This stage aimed to minimize the voltage variations in the distribution system. In turn, the second stage was concerned with obtaining the optimal setting of the voltage control devices to improve the voltage profile. The multi-objective cat swarm optimization (MO-CSO) algorithm was proposed to solve the bi-stages optimization problems for enhancing the distribution system performance. Furthermore, the impact of the RES penetration level and their uncertainty on a distribution system voltage were studied. The proposed method was tested on the IEEE 34-bus unbalanced distribution test system, which was analyzed using backward/forward sweep power flow for unbalanced radial distribution systems. The proposed method provided satisfactory results for increasing the penetration level of RES in unbalanced distribution networks.

Smart Node Networks Orchestration: A New E2E Approach for Analysis and Design for Agile 4.0 Implementation

The field of cyber-physical systems is a growing IT research area that addresses the deep integration of computing, communication and process control, possibly with humans in the loop. The goal of such area is to define modelling, controlling and programming methodologies for designing and managing complex mechatronics systems, also called industrial agents. Our research topic mainly focuses on the area of data mining and analysis by means of multi-agent orchestration of intelligent sensor nodes using internet protocols, providing also web-based HMI visualizations for data interpretability and analysis. Thanks to the rapid spreading of IoT systems, supported by modern and efficient telecommunication infrastructures and new decentralized control paradigms, the field of service-oriented programming finds new application in wireless sensor networks and microservices paradigm: we adopted such paradigm in the implementation of two different industrial use cases. Indeed, we expect a concrete and deep use of such technologies with 5G spreading. In the article, we describe the common software architectural pattern in IoT applications we used for the distributed smart sensors, providing also design and implementation details. In the use case section, the prototypes developed as proof of concept and the KPIs used for the system validation are described to provide a concrete solution overview.

Optimal Estimation of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells Parameter Based on Coyote Optimization Algorithm

In recent years, the penetration of fuel cells in distribution systems is significantly increased worldwide. The fuel cell is considered an electrochemical energy conversion component. It has the ability to convert chemical to electrical energies as well as heat. The proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell uses hydrogen and oxygen as fuel. It is a low-temperature type that uses a noble metal catalyst, such as platinum, at reaction sites. The optimal modeling of PEM fuel cells improves the cell performance in different applications of the smart microgrid. Extracting the optimal parameters of the model can be achieved using an efficient optimization technique. In this line, this paper proposes a novel swarm-based algorithm called coyote optimization algorithm (COA) for finding the optimal parameter of PEM fuel cell as well as PEM stack. The sum of square deviation between measured voltages and the optimal estimated voltages obtained from the COA algorithm is minimized. Two practical PEM fuel cells including 250 W stack and Ned Stack PS6 are modeled to validate the capability of the proposed algorithm under different operating conditions. The effectiveness of the proposed COA is demonstrated through the comparison with four optimizers considering the same conditions. The final estimated results and statistical analysis show a significant accuracy of the proposed method. These results emphasize the ability of COA to estimate the parameters of the PEM fuel cell model more precisely.

Promising MPPT Methods Combining Metaheuristic, Fuzzy-Logic and ANN Techniques for Grid-Connected Photovoltaic

This paper addresses the improvement of tracking of the maximum power point upon the variations of the environmental conditions and hence improving photovoltaic efficiency. Rather than the traditional methods of maximum power point tracking, artificial intelligence is utilized to design a high-performance maximum power point tracking control system. In this paper, two artificial intelligence-based maximum power point tracking systems are proposed for grid-connected photovoltaic units. The first design is based on an optimized fuzzy logic control using genetic algorithm and particle swarm optimization for the maximum power point tracking system. In turn, the second design depends on the genetic algorithm-based artificial neural network. Each of the two artificial intelligence-based systems has its privileged response according to the solar radiation and temperature levels. Then, a novel combination of the two designs is introduced to maximize the efficiency of the maximum power point tracking system. The novelty of this paper is to employ the metaheuristic optimization technique with the well-known artificial intelligence techniques to provide a better tracking system to be used to harvest the maximum possible power from photovoltaic (PV) arrays. To affirm the efficiency of the proposed tracking systems, their simulation results are compared with some conventional tracking methods from the literature under different conditions. The findings emphasize their superiority in terms of tracking speed and output DC power, which also improve photovoltaic system efficiency.

Deep Learning-Based Industry 4.0 and Internet of Things towards Effective Energy Management for Smart Buildings

Worldwide, energy consumption and saving represent the main challenges for all sectors, most importantly in industrial and domestic sectors. The internet of things (IoT) is a new technology that establishes the core of Industry 4.0. The IoT enables the sharing of signals between devices and machines via the internet. Besides, the IoT system enables the utilization of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to manage and control the signals between different machines based on intelligence decisions. The paper’s innovation is to introduce a deep learning and IoT based approach to control the operation of air conditioners in order to reduce energy consumption. To achieve such an ambitious target, we have proposed a deep learning-based people detection system utilizing the YOLOv3 algorithm to count the number of persons in a specific area. Accordingly, the operation of the air conditioners could be optimally managed in a smart building. Furthermore, the number of persons and the status of the air conditioners are published via the internet to the dashboard of the IoT platform. The proposed system enhances decision making about energy consumption. To affirm the efficacy and effectiveness of the proposed approach, intensive test scenarios are simulated in a specific smart building considering the existence of air conditioners. The simulation results emphasize that the proposed deep learning-based recognition algorithm can accurately detect the number of persons in the specified area, thanks to its ability to model highly non-linear relationships in data. The detection status can also be successfully published on the dashboard of the IoT platform. Another vital application of the proposed promising approach is in the remote management of diverse controllable devices.