An Aerodynamic Design and Analysis of Motor Cycle Helmet with Anti-Glare Visor

Motor cycle accidents have been increased for the past two decades. Helmet can protect the vehicle riders from severe injuries during road accident to certain extent. To design a functional helmet, it is important to analyze the shape of the helmet and visor portion. Hence, an attempt has been made for design and analysis of new helmet by considering the drag pressure and anti-glare visor. The drag pressure resistance presses the helmet against the neck portion of the rider. The shape of an aerodynamic helmet can be able to reduce the drag pressure. The spherical shape and a new aerodynamic shape helmets are designed with help of Pro-E software and the drag pressures were calculated and comparison has been made on the basis of drag pressure.

Motion Planning and Posture Control of the General 3-Trailer System

This paper presents a set of artificial potential field functions that improves upon, in general, the motion planning and posture control, with theoretically guaranteed point and posture stabilities, convergence and collision avoidance properties of the general3-trailer system in a priori known environment. We basically design and inject two new concepts; ghost walls and the distance optimization technique (DOT) to strengthen point and posture stabilities, in the sense of Lyapunov, of our dynamical model. This new combination of techniques emerges as a convenient mechanism for obtaining feasible orientations at the target positions with an overall reduction in the complexity of the navigation laws. Simulations are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the controls laws.

Potential Field Functions for Motion Planning and Posture of the Standard 3-Trailer System

This paper presents a set of artificial potential field functions that improves upon, in general, the motion planning and posture control, with theoretically guaranteed point and posture stabilities, convergence and collision avoidance properties of 3-trailer systems in a priori known environment. We basically design and inject two new concepts; ghost walls and the distance optimization technique (DOT) to strengthen point and posture stabilities, in the sense of Lyapunov, of our dynamical model. This new combination of techniques emerges as a convenient mechanism for obtaining feasible orientations at the target positions with an overall reduction in the complexity of the navigation laws. The effectiveness of the proposed control laws were demonstrated via simulations of two traffic scenarios.

A Model-Reference Sliding Mode for Dual-Stage Actuator Servo Control in HDD

This paper presents a method of sliding mode control (SMC) designing and developing for the servo system in a dual-stage actuator (DSA) hard disk drive. Mathematical modeling of hard disk drive actuators is obtained, extracted from measuring frequency response of the voice-coil motor (VCM) and PZT micro-actuator separately. Matlab software tools are used for mathematical model estimation and also for controller design and simulation. A model-reference approach for tracking requirement is selected as a proposed technique. The simulation results show that performance of a model-reference SMC controller design in DSA servo control can be satisfied in the tracking error, as well as keeping the positioning of the head within the boundary of +/-5% of track width under the presence of internal and external disturbance. The overall results of model-reference SMC design in DSA are met per requirement specifications and significant reduction in %off track is found when compared to the single-state actuator (SSA).

Target and Equalizer Design for Perpendicular Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording

Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) is one of the leading technologies identified to enable areal density beyond 1 Tb/in2 of magnetic recording systems. A key challenge to HAMR designing is accuracy of positioning, timing of the firing laser, power of the laser, thermo-magnetic head, head-disk interface and cooling system. We study the effect of HAMR parameters on transition center and transition width. The HAMR is model using Thermal Williams-Comstock (TWC) and microtrack model. The target and equalizer are designed by the minimum mean square error (MMSE). The result shows that the unit energy constraint outperforms other constraints.

Design and Realization of an Electronic Load for a PEM Fuel Cell

In order to further understand the behavior of PEM fuel cell and optimize their performance, it is necessary to perform measurements in real time. The internal impedance measurement by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) is of great importance. In this work, we present the impedance measurement method of a PEM fuel cell by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy method and the realization steps of electronic load for this measuring technique implementation. The theoretical results are obtained from the simulation of software PSPICE® and experimental tests are carried out using the Ballard Nexa™ PEM fuel cell system.

A Review on Stormwater Harvesting and Reuse

Australia is a country of some 7,700 million square kilometers with a population of about 22.6 million. At present water security is a major challenge for Australia. In some areas the use of water resources is approaching and in some parts it is exceeding the limits of sustainability. A focal point of proposed national water conservation programs is the recycling of both urban stormwater and treated wastewater. But till now it is not widely practiced in Australia, and particularly stormwater is neglected. In Australia, only 4% of stormwater and rainwater is recycled, whereas less than 1% of reclaimed wastewater is reused within urban areas. Therefore, accurately monitoring, assessing and predicting the availability, quality and use of this precious resource are required for better management. As stormwater is usually of better quality than untreated sewage or industrial discharge, it has better public acceptance for recycling and reuse, particularly for non-potable use such as irrigation, watering lawns, gardens, etc. Existing stormwater recycling practice is far behind of research and no robust technologies developed for this purpose. Therefore, there is a clear need for using modern technologies for assessing feasibility of stormwater harvesting and reuse. Numerical modeling has, in recent times, become a popular tool for doing this job. It includes complex hydrological and hydraulic processes of the study area. The hydrologic model computes stormwater quantity to design the system components, and the hydraulic model helps to route the flow through stormwater infrastructures. Nowadays water quality module is incorporated with these models. Integration of Geographic Information System (GIS) with these models provides extra advantage of managing spatial information. However for the overall management of a stormwater harvesting project, Decision Support System (DSS) plays an important role incorporating database with model and GIS for the proper management of temporal information. Additionally DSS includes evaluation tools and Graphical user interface. This research aims to critically review and discuss all the aspects of stormwater harvesting and reuse such as available guidelines of stormwater harvesting and reuse, public acceptance of water reuse, the scopes and recommendation for future studies. In addition to these, this paper identifies, understand and address the importance of modern technologies capable of proper management of stormwater harvesting and reuse.

Project and Module Based Teaching and Learning

This paper proposes a new teaching and learning approach-project and module based teaching and learning (PMBTL). The PMBTL approach incorporates the merits of project/problem based and module based learning methods, and overcomes the limitations of these methods. The correlation between teaching, learning, practice and assessment is emphasized in this approach, and new methods have been proposed accordingly. The distinct features of these new methods differentiate the PMBTL approach from conventional teaching approaches. Evaluation of this approach on practical teaching and learning activities demonstrates the effectiveness and stability of the approach in improving the performance and quality of teaching and learning. The approach proposed in this paper is also intuitive to the design of other teaching units. 

Comparative Analysis of DTC Based Switched Reluctance Motor Drive Using Torque Equation and FEA Models

Since torque ripple is the main cause of noise and vibrations, the performance of Switched Reluctance Motor (SRM) can be improved by minimizing its torque ripple using a novel control technique called Direct Torque Control (DTC). In DTC technique, torque is controlled directly through control of magnitude of the flux and change in speed of the stator flux vector. The flux and torque are maintained within set hysteresis bands. The DTC of SRM is analyzed by two methods. In one method, the actual torque is computed by conducting Finite Element Analysis (FEA) on the design specifications of the motor. In the other method, the torque is computed by Simplified Torque Equation. The variation of peak current, average current, torque ripple and speed settling time with Simplified Torque Equation model is compared with FEA based model.

Model-Based Control for Piezoelectric-Actuated Systems Using Inverse Prandtl-Ishlinskii Model and Particle Swarm Optimization

In this paper feedforward controller is designed to eliminate nonlinear hysteresis behaviors of a piezoelectric stack actuator (PSA) driven system. The control design is based on inverse Prandtl-Ishlinskii (P-I) hysteresis model identified using particle swarm optimization (PSO) technique. Based on the identified P-I model, both the inverse P-I hysteresis model and feedforward controller can be determined. Experimental results obtained using the inverse P-I feedforward control are compared with their counterparts using hysteresis estimates obtained from the identified Bouc-Wen model. Effectiveness of the proposed feedforward control scheme is demonstrated. To improve control performance feedback compensation using traditional PID scheme is adopted to integrate with the feedforward controller. 

Design and Study of a DC/DC Converter for High Power, 14.4 V and 300 A for Automotive Applications

The shortage of the automotive market in relation to options for sources of high power car audio systems, led to development of this work. Thus, we developed a source with stabilized voltage with 4320 W effective power. Designed to the voltage of 14.4 V and a choice of two currents: 30 A load option in battery banks and 300 A at full load. This source can also be considered as a source of general use dedicated commercial with a simple control circuit in analog form based on discrete components. The assembly of power circuit uses a methodology for higher power than the initially stipulated.

Rapid Prototyping Applications in Various Field of Engineering and Technology

In the product design and development process, the prototyping or model making is one of the important step to finalize a product which helps in conceptualization of a design. Rapid Prototyping (RP) is layer-by-layer material deposition started during early 1980s with the enormous growth in Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing (CAD/CAM) technologies. The edges and surfaces of a complex solid model and their information are used for defining a product which is further manufactured as a finished product by CNC machining. This paper provides a better platform for researchers, new learners and product manufacturers for various applications of RP models. Subsequently it creates awareness among the peoples of recently developing RP method of manufacturing in product design, developments and its applications.

Computer Software for Calculating Electron Mobility of Semiconductors Compounds; Case Study for N-Gan

Computer software to calculate electron mobility with respect to different scattering mechanism has been developed. This software is adopted completely Graphical User Interface (GUI) technique and its interface has been designed by Microsoft Visual basic 6.0. As a case study the electron mobility of n-GaN was performed using this software. The behavior of the mobility for n-GaN due to elastic scattering processes and its relation to temperature and doping concentration were discussed. The results agree with other available theoretical and experimental data.

A Novel Solution Methodology for Transit Route Network Design Problem

Transit route Network Design Problem (TrNDP) is the most important component in Transit planning, in which the overall cost of the public transportation system highly depends on it. The main purpose of this study is to develop a novel solution methodology for the TrNDP, which goes beyond pervious traditional sophisticated approaches. The novelty of the solution methodology, adopted in this paper, stands on the deterministic operators which are tackled to construct bus routes. The deterministic manner of the TrNDP solution relies on using linear and integer mathematical formulations that can be solved exactly with their standard solvers. The solution methodology has been tested through Mandl’s benchmark network problem. The test results showed that the methodology developed in this research is able to improve the given network solution in terms of number of constructed routes, direct transit service coverage, transfer directness and solution reliability. Although the set of routes resulted from the methodology would stand alone as a final efficient solution for TrNDP, it could be used as an initial solution for meta-heuristic procedures to approach global optimal. Based on the presented methodology, a more robust network optimization tool would be produced for public transportation planning purposes.

Design, Development and Evaluation of a Portable Recording System to Capture Dynamic Presentations Using the Teacher´s Tablet PC

Computers and multimedia equipment have improved a lot in the last years. They have reduced their cost and size while at the same time increased their capabilities. These improvements allowed us to design and implement a portable recording system that also integrates the teacher´s tablet PC to capture what he/she writes on the slides and all that happens in it. This paper explains this system in detail and the validation of the recordings that we did after using it to record all the lectures the “Communications Software” course in our university. The results show that pupils used the recordings for different purposes and consider them useful for a variety of things, especially after missing a lecture.

Improvement of Model for SIMMER Code for SFR Corium Relocation Studies

The in-depth understanding of severe accident propagation in Generation IV of nuclear reactors is important so that appropriate risk management can be undertaken early in their design process. This paper is focused on model improvements in the SIMMER code in order to perform studies of severe accident mitigation of Sodium Fast Reactor. During the design process of the mitigation devices dedicated to extraction of molten fuel from the core region, the molten fuel propagation from the core up to the core catcher has to be studied. In this aim, analytical as well as the complex thermohydraulic simulations with SIMMER-III code are performed. The studies presented in this paper focus on physical phenomena and associated physical models that influence the corium relocation. Firstly, the molten pool heat exchange with surrounding structures is analyzed since it influences directly the instant of rupture of the dedicated tubes favoring the corium relocation for mitigation purpose. After the corium penetration into mitigation tubes, the fuel-coolant interactions result in formation of debris bed. Analyses of debris bed fluidization as well as sinking into a fluid are presented in this paper.

Plant Layout Analysis by Computer Simulation for Electronic Manufacturing Service Plant

In this research, computer simulation is used for Electronic Manufacturing Service (EMS) plant layout analysis. The current layout of this manufacturing plant is a process layout, which is not suitable due to the nature of an EMS that has high-volume and high-variety environment. Moreover, quick response and high flexibility are also needed. Then, cellular manufacturing layout design was determined for the selected group of products. Systematic layout planning (SLP) was used to analyze and design the possible cellular layouts for the factory. The cellular layout was selected based on the main criteria of the plant. Computer simulation was used to analyze and compare the performance of the proposed cellular layout and the current layout. It found that the proposed cellular layout can generate better performances than the current layout. In this research, computer simulation is used for Electronic Manufacturing Service (EMS) plant layout analysis. The current layout of this manufacturing plant is a process layout, which is not suitable due to the nature of an EMS that has high-volume and high-variety environment. Moreover, quick response and high flexibility are also needed. Then, cellular manufacturing layout design was determined for the selected group of products. Systematic layout planning (SLP) was used to analyze and design the possible cellular layouts for the factory. The cellular layout was selected based on the main criteria of the plant. Computer simulation was used to analyze and compare the performance of the proposed cellular layout and the current layout. It found that the proposed cellular layout can generate better performances than the current layout. 

1G2A IMU\GPS Integration Algorithm for Land Vehicle Navigation

A general decline in the cost, size, and power requirements of electronics is accelerating the adoption of integrated GPS/INS technologies in consumer applications such Land Vehicle Navigation. Researchers have looking for ways to eliminate additional components from product designs. One possibility is to drop one or more of the relatively expensive gyroscopes from microelectromechanical system (MEMS) versions of inertial measurement units (IMUs). For land vehicular use, the most important gyroscope is the vertical gyro that senses the heading of the vehicle and two horizontal accelerometers for determining the velocity of the vehicle. This paper presents a simplified integration algorithm for strap down (ParIMU)\GPS combination, with data post processing for the determination of 2-D components of position (trajectory), velocity and heading. In the present approach we have neglected earth rotation and gravity variations, because of the poor gyroscope sensitivities of the low-cost IMU and because of the relatively small area of the trajectory.

The Use of Ontology Framework for Automation Digital Forensics Investigation

One of the main goals of a computer forensic analyst is to determine the cause and effect of the acquisition of a digital evidence in order to obtain relevant information on the case is being handled. In order to get fast and accurate results, this paper will discuss the approach known as Ontology Framework. This model uses a structured hierarchy of layers that create connectivity between the variant and searching investigation of activity that a computer forensic analysis activities can be carried out automatically. There are two main layers are used, namely Analysis Tools and Operating System. By using the concept of Ontology, the second layer is automatically designed to help investigator to perform the acquisition of digital evidence. The methodology of automation approach of this research is by utilizing Forward Chaining where the system will perform a search against investigative steps and atomically structured in accordance with the rules of the Ontology.

A Novel Gene Encoding Ankyrin-Repeat Protein, SHG1, is Indispensable for Seed Germination under Moderate Salt Stress

Salt stress adversely affects plant growth at various stages of development including seed germination, seedling establishment, vegetative growth and finally reproduction. Because of their immobile nature, plants have evolved mechanisms to sense and respond to salt stress. Seed dormancy is an adaptive trait that enables seed germination to coincide with favorable environmental conditions. We identified a novel locus of Arabidopsis, designated SHG1 (salt hypersensitive germination 1), whose disruption leads to reduced germination rate under moderate salt stress conditions. SHG1 encodes a transmembrane protein with an ankyrin-repeat motif that has been implicated in diverse cellular processes such as signal transduction. The shg1-disrupted Arabidopsis mutant died at the cotyledon stage when sown on salt-containing medium, although wild-type plants could form true leaves under the same conditions. On the other hand, this mutant showed similar phenotypes to wild-type plants when sown on medium without salt and transferred to salt-containing medium at the vegetative stage. These results suggested that SHG1 played indispensable role in the seed germination and seedling establishment under moderate salt stress conditions. SHG1 may be involved in the release of seed dormancy.