Increasing Energy Efficiency Using Photovoltaic Panels

The paper analyses the way of design of photovoltaic systems. The objective of this paper is to study the production capacity of electrical energy and the way it is influenced by real time conditions. In order to realize some energetic models that could be implemented on a large scale and used as a model of good practice we used photovoltaic systems of 3 dimensions: 60 PV panels, 100 PV panels and 160 PV panels respectively. The present study considered the climate conditions of the city of Cluj-Napoca for 12 months. It considered the consumption profile (hourly consumption) and the period of the year (summer, winter, etc.) for 3 typical buildings. We used Matlab/Simulink software for simulations. The result is an estimation of the production of electrical energy for renewable sources and the reduction of GreenHouse Gases (GHG). The aim is to reduce both GHG and the energy consumption from conventional sources.

Designing a Low-Code CRUD framework

Nowadays programmers write source code for inserting, editing and deleting records of a relational table. The majority of commercial relational databases include a specific management tool that offers such possibilities and most database programmers take this ability as granted. When it comes to real life applications, programmers use Object Oriented (OO) paradigm to build user friendly windows/screens/forms for database operations. The current work shows a different approach using a Low-code CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) framework. Views and guidelines of how to design a Low-code CRUD framework will be detailed. “Low-code” motivation is due to the fact that the new framework will provide the ability to use less code in order to build fast and efficient complex applications. It will be up to the reader to envision a specific framework.

Security System Aided by Voice Fingerprint

The goal of this paper is to create a security system to identify a specific person who wants to access private information or enter a building using their voice. To perform this system, we identified a database containing the audio files of the users who will be able to authenticate with this system. Several steps were sequentially performed in order to extract the characteristics of the Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients from the audio files. Based on the k-Nearest Neighbor algorithm with an Euclidean distance and 4 neighbors, a training model was created. Through experimental results we prove in two ways, using confusion matrix and scatter plot, that the overall voice fingerprint recognition is 100%, for this particular configuration.

Audio Database for TIAGo Service Robot

In this paper we present an updated version of the audio database acquired by the TIAGo service robot and by the simulated TIAGo service robot. To the initial database which consists in 1380 audio signals we have added 1920 more acoustic signals. The audio database consists now in 3300 isolated audio events corresponding to 110 classes. All the recorded sound events correspond to the indoor environment, and they are spread into five different scenarios: kitchen, room, appliances, voice and non-verbal. The audio database is intended to be used in order to identify indoor events based on audio signature, especially when elderly or chronically ill people live alone.

Hardware accelerated image processing on FPGA based PYNQ-Z2 board

In this paper we present the partial results of a research in progress made in order to develop a prototype of a self-driving car’s controller and processing unit. The framework that we used consisted of a camera for input of visual imagery information (Logitech 720p), a laser range finder for depth and object sensing (Parallax; PulsedLight LIDAR-Lite v2), and the main processing board, an FPGA based accelerator board PYNQ Z2.

Increasing fault tolerance in service-level agreement constrained context-aware data networks

Attribute study and analysis of fault tolerant data networks. This work is aimed at introducing SLA constrain into fault tolerance and thus increasing overall network availability. Proposed model will evaluate given constraints and select best path that fits requirements. Fault tolerance is increased by adding multiple constraints and thus reducing available paths to best fitting ones.

Theoretical and experimental aspects of the controlled movement of solenoid actuators by means of the voltage static converter with logic gates

The purpose of the scientific research in this paper is to control the movement of electromechanical actuators, through a new voltage convertor. The optimization of the system consists in finding new solutions to control the movement of electromechanical actuators in the gas valve, used in thermal power plants, which can be operated by static converters - with logic gates.

Pragmatic Implementation of the Front-End of an N-bit/V ADC based on FPGA and FPAA

Reconfigurability has made it possible, among other benefits, to replace traditional discrete components with chips, whose internal components can be programmed in this case FPAAs (Field Programmable Analog Arrays). This paper presents a design and implementation of FPAA of the analog front end dedicated to a new ADC architecture called “N-bit/V”. After validation of the algorithm in simulation, the experimentation results show that the obtained reconfigurable circuit can replace the traditional discrete components-based circuits.

A Survey about Intelligent Solutions for Autonomous Vehicles based on FPGA

Safe driving and reducing the number of accidents victims have been the main motivations for researchers and automotive companies for decades. Today, humanity is very close to make the old dream of fully autonomous vehicles a reality, thanks to the rapid spread of AI (artificial intelligence) and the evolution of semiconductor technologies. But the real problem here is the increasing demand for computational power and that of course will increase power requirements, hence it will not be suitable for autonomous driving applications. GPU is not suitable for solving this problem due to its power consumption as well as heat generation. On the other hand, CPU also does not satisfy the performance requirements. For the above condition, FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) has drawn attention as a hardware accelerator since it features high performance with low power consumption. This paper reviews the common solutions involving artificial intelligence implemented on FPGA for autonomous vehicle applications. Research, development, and current trends related to the topic are emphasized.

Using Pathological Elements in Analog Circuit Analysis and Simulation

This paper is focused on some kind of mystery circuit nullator, nullor, current mirror, and voltage mirror, all of them known as pathological elements. These pathological elements can be used to perform circuit modelling, symbolic circuit analysis, circuit synthesis, circuit design and to develop applications that involve modern active devices. It is described a new modeling of nullor-based active devices from the circuit abstraction level. In this paper it is presented the way all types of equations which describe the circuit containing nullors can be directly formulated from the diagrams of these circuits if we took into account that a nullator is an over-determined two-port circuit element (zero voltage, zero current) and the norator is an undetermined two-port circuit element (any voltage and any current). To simulate the nullors with ideal voltage controlled voltage sources, ec = Ac_c uc, with the control gate an ideal independent current source, jC = 0.0 A and with the amplification (transfer) factor Ac_C very big (theoretically ∞), the analog circuits with nullors can be analyzed by using any of the existing simulation software. By this way, it was possible the elaboration of efficient algorithms for an automatic formulation of Kirchhoff’s equations, of loop equations, of modified nodal equations and of state equations for circuits with pathological elements. These procedures can be easily implemented in dedicated programs for the simulations of the complex analog circuits with pathological elements. The example presented in this paper validates the presented models for nullors.