| Capstone Design Projects for Term 192 |
| Section | Instructor | Project Title | Project Description | Prerequisites (if any) |
| 1 | Dr. Mohammad Abido | PV-Based DC Microgrids with Energy Storage Systems
| The revolutionary changes in the electric power grid, including the penetration of renewable energy sources (RES), aim to establish a more efficient and sustainable energy system, while facing challenges on control and management aspects. Active and independent distribution systems, also named microgrids (MGs), are thus the key to achieve those goals, realizing the autonomous operation of each regional power system.
Recently, DC microgrids become more attractive than AC microgrids due to several advantages such as zero reactive loss, less harmonic contents, and native support for DC loads like PCs, TVs etc. However, the voltage regulation of DC microgrid is a challenging task. Another crucial issue is to manage active power among the distributed sources and loads. Energy storage systems can help to combat these challenges.
In this work, a small scale DC microgrid is considered which is comprised of photovoltaic energy source, local loads and energy storage system. A control strategy based on DC bus voltage regulation will be investigated for energy management. | Micro-controller programming |
| 2 | Dr. MUHAMMAD ABUELMAATTI | | | |
| 3 | Dr. Ibrahim ElAMIN | Floating photovoltaic System | Design and test a Floating solar system (100 W) and compare with ground-mounted PV system. The floating PV refers to a solar power production installation mounted on a structure that floats on a body of water, typically an artificial basin or a lake. | |
| 4 | Dr. Salim Ibrir | Control of AC drives using V-Hertz technique | The students are asked to implement different kinds of control feedback to control the speed of an asynchronous AC machine. Variable-frequency method will be tested in real time. Good knowledge of control theory and mechatronics are required. | Control theory, mechatronics, basic of electronics, AC machines |
| 5 | Dr. Munir Al-Absi | | | |
| 6 | Dr. Feras AL Dirini | | | |
| 8 | Dr. Ahmad Masoud | The Unicopter | The objective of this project is to build an aerial platform that contains only one vertical lift propeller (the unicopter). The project also aims at controlling basic movements of the copter (up-down, forward-backward, right-left) in a manner that enables an operator to wirelessly command the platform.
The system consists of the following components:
1- The vertical lift propeller system
2- The tilter system to move the unicopter sideways
3- The control system
4- The wireless link between the operator the copter
5- The casing that provides mechanical support and house the above components.
Project tasks include:
1- Survey of existing and previous attempts to build such system
2- prototyping the mobile platform and controlling it
3- Experimentation and testing
4- Clear, thorough documentation of all the phases of the project using photos, videos and text
5- Report writing
6- Presentation preparation
Assessment scheme:
The work will be divided into weekly tasks which the member of the group will individually carryout. Each week, the member of the group will provide a progress report and a presentation about the task that was assigned to them. The marks of the report will be used to determine the 60% individual mark of each member. | Ability to proto-type, ability to program micro-controller, ability to build electronic interface circuits, ability to manage and budget time, ability to read technical documentation |
| 9 | Dr. Saad Al-Ahmadi | The bus driver-bus stop monitoring system | The aim of this project is to build a communication system that would allow the driver to have knowledge about the scheduled bus stops. This should increase the transportation efficiency and reduce the unnecessary delays. | the pre-requisites are EE 370 and EE 390. It is preferred that one of the students in the group has taken EE 419. |
| 10 | Dr. Ibrahim Omar Habiballah | Design of Friendly-Interface Learning Media for Single- & 3-Phase Power Transformers | This project is meant to design User Friendly Interface (UFI) tools that can help understanding the analysis of single-phase and three-phase power transformers. This will include the equivalent circuits, phasor-diagrams and the performance (voltage regulation and efficiency) of transformers under different loading conditions. | EE360 |
| 11 | Dr. A Awami | | | |
| 12 | Dr. Mohammad AlMuhaini | Smart Office Health Management System | The project aims to design an adaptive and smart office health management system that can monitor and control different factors effecting the health of office workers. | Senior level Standing |
| 14 | Dr. Alaa El-Din Hussein | Wind-Based DC Microgrids with Energy Storage Systems | The revolutionary changes in the electric power grid, including the penetration of renewable energy sources (RES), aim to establish a more efficient and sustainable energy system, while facing challenges on control and management aspects. Active and independent distribution systems, also named microgrids (MGs), are thus the key to achieve those goals, realizing the autonomous operation of each regional power system.
Recently, DC microgrids become more attractive than AC microgrids due to several advantages such as zero reactive loss, less harmonic contents, and native support for DC loads like PCs, TVs etc. However, the voltage regulation of DC microgrid is a challenging task. Another crucial issue is to manage active power among the distributed sources and loads. Energy storage systems can help to combat these challenges.
In this work, a small scale DC microgrid will be designed which is comprised of photovoltaic and wind energy sources, local loads and energy storage system. A control strategy based on DC bus voltage regulation will be investigated for energy management.
For Wind-based DC Microgrid:
1. Design and implement a Wind system.
2. Design and implement DC/DC converter.
3. Design and implement a voltage controller.
4. Design an energy storage system.
5. Build the complete setup by integrating the system components.
6. Test and evaluate the performance of the designed system
Note:
This project is a step to build a multisource DC microgrid. Full coordination and integration with the concurrently offered project, "PV-Based DC Microgrids with Energy Storage Systems" is expected. | |
| 15 | Dr. Jhonathan Prieto Rojas | Optical-based Sensing for Health Monitoring System | Extended exposure to heat can lead to dehydration or even heat stroke. Continuous monitoring of critical vital signs can be used for their early detection and prevention. In this project, a wearable health monitor system will be designed to measure the core body temperature and heart rate, in a compact and comfortable way. The system will consist of 3 main modules: Sensing, Processing and Communication. The sensing will be done through infrared (IR) detector/thermopile and/or others optical/based sensors. Processing module refers to the design of conditioning circuits and interface with the ADC and microcontroller. The Communication module will be in charge of data transmission via Bluetooth to a smartphone, where the data will be displayed, stored and analyzed by a customized app. Finally, use of flexible PCB materials will be used to achieve adequate wearability. | EE203 & EE303, Preferred skills: App development, PCB design and fabrication. |
| 16 | Dr. Sheikh Sharif IQbal | Detecting of sulfur deposition on Gas pipelines | A microwave technique is used to monitor the deposition of elemental sulfur in gas transportation pipelines. This project work will design, optimize and implement a microstrip antenna to monitor the deposited sulfur powder within the pipeline. The antenna resonant will be linked to the superstrate to accurately identify the deposition rate and location. | Electromagnetic (EE340), Preferred Antenna (EE422) or Microwave (EE 405/407) course |
| 17 | Dr. Fahad Alismail | Solid-State Transformer | The solid-state transformer (SST) is conceived as a replacement for the conventional power transformer, with both lower volume and weight, in particular for smart grids and DC transmission systems. Besides, the use of distributed renewable energy sources requires utilizing SST in distribution systems as well. Generally speaking, SST is a combination of power electronics converters and a high frequency transformer, which is used to connect isolated voltage zones. | |
| 18 | Dr. Yaqub Mahnashi | A Battery-less (Application*) Monitoring System. * the team will decide on the application. | The aim of this project is to design and prototype a battery-less monitoring system, the system will be powered from selected ambient sources (solar, RF, vibration ..etc) using conventional/new energy harvesting circuits. First, the team will choose a useful application considering the low power that can be harvested. Then, the team will proceed with the design and prototyping phase. The system will be built on a standard PCB. | EE203. Preferred skills: good circuit design, PCB design and prototyping. |
| 19 | Dr. Mudassir Masood | Image and Video Processing Approaches to Track Fast Flow of Fluids through Transparent Tubes of Varying Shapes | In this project, we aim to build an object-specific tracker by online selecting the most influential features of that particular object. We aim to test the performance of this object tracker on a challenging industrial problem of multiphase flow of oil, gas, and solids commonly observed in the oil and gas industry. We will focus on lab scale problem of flow of air and water through transparent tubes/bodies of arbitrary cross sectional shapes and paths. The image/video database of fluid flow shall be created using high-speed cameras for this purpose. The problem becomes challenging as the formation of air bubbles could be multi-level and therefore requires collaborative processing of different camera feeds. Moreover, as the fluid is moving at a very high speed, a successful real-world solution requires that any approach is efficient in terms of both speed and accuracy. Therefore, some part of the implementation might require good knowledge of C/C++ programming languages. | (a) Knowledge of image/video processing, (b) programming skills (C/C++)
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