The study targeted towards drying of cantaloupe slices with various thicknesses in a microwave dryer. The experiments were carried out at three microwave powers of 180, 360, and 540 W and three thicknesses of 2, 4, and 6 mm for cantaloupe drying, and the weight variations were determined. Artificial neural networks (ANN) and adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference systems (ANFIS) were exploited to investigate energy and exergy indices of cantaloupe drying using various afore-mentioned input parameters. The results indicated that a rise in microwave power and a decline in sample thickness can significantly decrease the specific energy consumption (SEC), energy loss, exergy loss, and improvement potential (probability level of 5%). The mean SEC, energy efficiency, energy loss, thermal efficiency, dryer efficiency, exergy efficiency, exergy loss, improvement potential, and sustainability index ranged in 10.48−25.92 MJ/kg water, 16.11−47.24%, 2.65−11.24 MJ/kg water, 7.02−36.46%, 12.36−42.70%, 11.25... [more]

The 2007−2008 financial crisis, together with rises in fuel prices and stringent pollution regulation, led to the need to update the methods concerning ship propulsion system design. In this article, a set of artificial neural networks was used to update the design equations to estimate the engine power and fuel consumption of modern tankers, bulk carriers, and container ships. Deadweight or TEU capacity and ship speed were used as the inputs for the ANNs. This study shows that even a linear ANN with two neurons in the input and output layers, with purelin activation functions, offers an accurate estimation of ship propulsion parameters. The proposed linear ANNs have simple mathematical structures and are straightforward to apply. The ANNs presented in the article were developed based on the data of the most recent ships built from 2015 to present, and could have a practical application at the preliminary design stage, in transportation or air pollution studies for modern commercial ca... [more]

The integration of photovoltaic systems (PVS) in electric vehicles (EV) increases the vehicle’s autonomy by providing an additional energy source other than the battery. However, current solar cell technology generates around 200 W for a 1.4 m2 panel (to be installed on the roof of the EV) at stable irradiance conditions. This limitation in production and the sudden changes in irradiance produced by shadows of clouds, buildings, and other structures make developing a fast and efficient maximum power point tracking (MPPT) technique in this area necessary. This article proposes an artificial neural network (ANN)-based MPPT, called DS-ANN, that uses manufacturer datasheet parameters as inputs to the network to address this problem. The Bayesian backpropagation-regularization performs the training, ensuring that the MPPT technique operates satisfactorily on different PVS without retraining. We simulated the response of 20 commercial modules against actual irradiance data to validate the pr... [more]

Optimization methods are increasingly used for the design process of electrical machines. The quality of the optimization result and the necessary simulation effort depend on the optimization methods, machine models and optimization parameters used. This paper presents a multi-stage optimization environment for the design optimization of induction machines. It uses the strategies of simulated annealing, evolution strategy and pattern search. Artificial neural networks are used to reduce the solution effort of the optimization. The selection of the electromagnetic machine model is made in each optimization stage using a methodical model selection approach. The selection of the optimization parameters is realized by a methodical parameter selection approach. The optimization environment is applied on the basis of an optimization for the design of an electric traction machine using the example of an induction machine and its suitability for the design of a machine is verified by a compari... [more]

The heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system serving the test room of the SENS i-Lab of the Department of Architecture and Industrial Design of the University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli (Aversa, south of Italy) has been experimentally investigated through a series of tests performed during both summer and winter under both normal and faulty scenarios. In particular, five distinct typical faults have been artificially implemented in the HVAC system and analyzed during transient and steady-state operation. An optimal artificial neural network-based system model has been created in the MATLAB platform and verified by contrasting the experimental data with the predictions of twenty-two different neural network architectures. The selected artificial neural network architecture has been coupled with a dynamic simulation model developed by using the TRaNsient SYStems (TRNSYS) software platform with the main aims of (i) making available an experimental dataset characterized b... [more]

Advances in metering technologies and emerging energy forecast strategies provide opportunities and challenges for predicting both short and long-term building energy usage. Machine learning is an important energy prediction technique, and is significantly gaining research attention. The use of different machine learning techniques based on a rolling-horizon framework can help to reduce the prediction error over time. Due to the significant increases in error beyond short-term energy forecasts, most reported energy forecasts based on statistical and machine learning techniques are within the range of one week. The aim of this study was to investigate how facility managers can improve the accuracy of their building’s long-term energy forecasts. This paper presents an extensive study of machine learning and data processing techniques and how they can more accurately predict within different forecast ranges. The Clarendon building of Teesside University was selected as a case study to dem... [more]

Groundwater quality monitoring in the vicinity of drilling sites is crucial for the protection of water resources. Selected physicochemical parameters of waters were marked in the study. The water was collected from 19 wells located close to a shale gas extraction site. The water quality index was determined from the obtained parameters. A secondary objective of the study was to test the capacity of the artificial neural network (ANN) methods to model the water quality index in groundwater. The number of ANN input parameters was optimized and limited to seven, which was derived using a multiple regression model. Subsequently, using the stepwise regression method, models with ever fewer variables were tested. The best parameters were obtained for a network with five input neurons (electrical conductivity, pH as well as calcium, magnesium and sodium ions), in addition to five neurons in the hidden layer. The results showed that the use of the parameters is a convenient approach to modeli... [more]

In this study, a thorough and definitive evaluation of Predictive Optimal Energy Management Strategy (POEMS) applications in connected vehicles using 10 to 20 s predicted velocity is conducted for a Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV). The presented methodology includes synchronous datasets gathered in Fort Collins, Colorado using a test vehicle equipped with sensors to measure ego vehicle position and motion and that of surrounding objects as well as receive Infrastructure to Vehicle (I2V) information. These datasets are utilized to compare the effect of different signal categories on prediction fidelity for different prediction horizons within a POEMS framework. Multiple artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) algorithms use the collected data to output future vehicle velocity prediction models. The effects of different combinations of signals and different models on prediction fidelity in various prediction windows are explored. All of these combinations are ultimately addr... [more]

Forecasting photovoltaic electricity generation is one of the key components to reducing the impacts of solar power natural variability, nurturing the penetration of renewable energy sources. Machine learning is a well-known method that relies on the principle that systems can learn from previously measured data, detecting patterns which are then used to predict future values of a target variable. These algorithms have been used successfully to predict incident solar irradiation, but the results depend on the specificities of the studied location due to the natural variability of the meteorological parameters. This paper presents an extensive comparison of the three ML algorithms most used worldwide for forecasting solar radiation, Support Vector Machine (SVM), Artificial Neural Network (ANN), and Extreme Learning Machine (ELM), aiming at the best prediction of daily solar irradiance in a São Paulo context. The largest dataset in Brazil for meteorological parameters, containing measure... [more]

Plants need a specific environment to grow and reproduce in fine fettle. Nevertheless, climatic conditions are not stable and can impact their well-being and, consequently, harvest quality. Thus, greenhouse cultivation is one of the suitable agricultural techniques for creating and controlling the inside microclimate to be adequate for plant growth. The relevance of greenhouse control is widely recognized. The prediction of greenhouse variables using artificial intelligence methods is of great interest for intelligent control and the potential reduction in energetic and financial losses. However, the studies carried out in this context are still more or less limited and several machine learning methods have not been sufficiently exploited. The aim of this study is to predict the air conditioning electrical consumption and photovoltaic module electrical production at the smart Agro-Manufacturing Laboratory (SamLab) greenhouse, located in Albenga, north-western Italy. Different supervise... [more]

Currently, the existing condition-based maintenance (CBM) diagnostic test practices for ultrasound require the tester to interpret test results manually. Different testers may give different opinions or interpretations of the detected ultrasound. It leads to wrong interpretation due to depending on tester experience. Furthermore, there is no commercially available product to standardize the interpretation of the ultrasound data. Therefore, the objective is the correct interpretation of an ultrasound, which is one of the CBM methods for medium switchgears, by using an artificial neural network (ANN), to give more accurate results when assessing their condition. Information and test results from various switchgears were gathered in order to develop the classification and severity of the corona, surface discharge, and arcing inside of the switchgear. The ultrasound data were segregated based on their defects found during maintenance. In total, 314 cases of normal, 160 cases of the corona,... [more]

Statistical analysis methods have been widely used in all industries. In well logs analyses, they have been used from the very beginning to predict petrophysical parameters such as permeability and porosity or to generate synthetic curves such as density or sonic logs. Initially, logs were generated as simple functions of other measurements. Then, as a result of the popularisation of algorithms such as the k-nearest neighbours (k-NN) or artificial neural networks (ANN), logs were created based on other logs. In this study, various industry and general scientific programmes were used for statistical data analysis, treating the well logs data as individual data sets, obtaining very convergent results. The methods developed for processing well logs data, such as Multi-Resolution Graph-Based Clustering (MRGBC), as well as algorithms commonly used in statistical analysis such as Kohonen self-organising maps (SOM), k-NN, and ANN were applied. The use of the aforementioned statis-tical method... [more]

Photovoltaic (PV) systems have become one of the most promising alternative energy sources, as they transform the sun’s energy into electricity. This can frequently be achieved without causing any potential harm to the environment. Although their usage in residential places and building sectors has notably increased, PV systems are regarded as unpredictable, changeable, and irregular power sources. This is because, in line with the system’s geographic region, the power output depends to a certain extent on the atmospheric environment, which can vary drastically. Therefore, artificial intelligence (AI)-based approaches are extensively employed to examine the effects of climate change on solar power. Then, the most optimal AI algorithm is used to predict the generated power. In this study, we used machine learning (ML)-based algorithms to predict the generated power of a PV system for residential buildings. Using a PV system, Pyranometers, and weather station data amassed from a station... [more]

The achievement of a carbon-free emissions economy is one of the main goals to reduce climate change and its negative effects. Scientists and technological improvements have followed this trend, improving efficiency, and reducing carbon and other compounds that foment climate change. Since the main contributor of these emissions is transportation, detaching this sector from fossil fuels is a necessary step towards an environmentally friendly future. Therefore, an evaluation of alternative fuels will be needed to find a suitable replacement for traditional fossil-based fuels. In this scenario, hydrogen appears as a possible solution. However, the existence of the drawbacks associated with the application of H2-ICE redirects the solution to dual-fuel strategies, which consist of mixing different fuels, to reduce negative aspects of their separate use while enhancing the benefits. In this work, a new combustion modelling approach based on machine learning (ML) modeling is proposed for pre... [more]

A detailed literature analysis depicts that artificial neural networks are rarely used for the power consumption estimation in the mobile robotics field. Instead, researchers prefer to develop analytical models of investigated robots. This manuscript presents a comparison of mathematical models and non-complex artificial neural networks in energy prediction tasks for differential and skid-steer drive robots which move over various types of surfaces. The results show that both methods could be used interchangeably but AI methods are more universal, do not depend on the kinematic structure of a robot and are tolerant for designers not having a complex knowledge about the system.

The real-time application research on the Fuzzy Logic Systems (FLSs) and Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) is vast and, in this paper, a technique for a photovoltaic failure analysis using the type 2 FLS and ANN is proposed. The method is proposed to build T2 FLS with a guaranteed value equal to or lower than T2 and ANN. Several explanations are conducted to illustrate the effectiveness of the methodologies. It is found that both the type 2 Fuzzy and ANN can be configured for productive actions in applications for a PV fault analysis, and choice is typically applied. The methods discussed in this paper lay the groundwork for developing FLSs and ANNs with durable characteristics that will be extremely useful in many functional applications. The result demonstrates that specific fault categories can be detected using the fault identification method, such as damaged PV modules and partial PV unit shades. The average detection performance is similar in both ANN and fuzzy techniques. In comp... [more]

This study uses an artificial neural network (ANN) as an intelligent controller for the management and scheduling of a number of microgrids (MGs) in virtual power plants (VPP). Two ANN-based scheduling control approaches are presented: the ANN-based backtracking search algorithm (ANN-BBSA) and ANN-based binary practical swarm optimization (ANN-BPSO) algorithm. Both algorithms provide the optimal schedule for every distribution generation (DG) to limit fuel consumption, reduce CO2 emission, and increase the system efficiency towards smart and economic VPP operation as well as grid decarbonization. Different test scenarios are executed to evaluate the controllers’ robustness and performance under changing system conditions. The test cases are different load curves to evaluate the ANN’s performance on untrained data. The untrained and trained load models used are real-load parameter data recorders in northern parts of Malaysia. The test results are analyzed to investigate the performance... [more]

Recently, biodigesters have attracted much attention as an efficient alternative for energy generation and organic waste treatment. The final performance of a biodigester depends heavily on the quality of its building process and the selection of its raw material: the geomembrane. The geomembrane is the coat that covers the biodigester used to control the migration of fluids. Therefore, the selection of the proper geomembrane, in terms of thickness, resistance, flexibility, etc., is fundamental. Unfortunately, there are no studies for the selection of geomembranes, and usually, it is an empirical process performed by workers based on their own experience. Such empirical selection might be inaccurate, limited, inconvenient, and even dangerous. In order to assist workers during the building process of a biodigester, this study proposes the use of an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to classify a geomembrane as appropriate or not appropriate for the manufacture of a biodigester. The ANN is... [more]

Turbine as a key power unit is vital to the novel supercritical carbon dioxide cycle (sCO2-BC). At the same time, the turbine design and optimization process for the sCO2-BC is complicated, and its relevant investigations are still absent in the literature due to the behavior of supercritical fluid in the vicinity of the critical point. In this regard, the current study entails a multifaceted approach for designing and optimizing a radial turbine system for an 8 MW sCO2 power cycle. Initially, a base design of the turbine is calculated utilizing an in-house radial turbine design and analysis code (RTDC), where sharp variations in the properties of CO2 are implemented by coupling the code with NIST’s Refprop. Later, 600 variants of the base geometry of the turbine are constructed by changing the selected turbine design geometric parameters, i.e., shroud ratio (rs4r3), hub ratio (rs4r3), speed ratio (νs) and inlet flow angle (α3) and are investigated numerically through 3D-RANS simulatio... [more]

The modernization and optimization of current power systems are the objectives of research and development in the energy sector, which is motivated by the ever-increasing electricity demands. The goal of such research and development is to render power electronic equipment more controllable, to ensure maximal use of current circuits, system flexibility and efficiency, as well as the relatively easy integration of renewable energy resources at all voltage levels. The current revolution in communication technologies and the Internet of Things (IoT) offers us an opportunity to supervise and regulate the power grid, in order to achieve more reliable, efficient, and cost-effective services. One of the most critical aspects of efficient power system operation is the ability to predict energy load requirements, i.e., load forecasting. Load forecasting is essential for balancing demand and supply and for determining electricity prices. Typically, load forecasting has been supported through the... [more]

This paper analyzes the mathematical model of electrohydrodynamic (EHD) fluid flow in a circular cylindrical conduit with an ion drag configuration. The phenomenon was modelled as a nonlinear differential equation. Furthermore, an application of artificial neural networks (ANNs) with a generalized normal distribution optimization algorithm (GNDO) and sequential quadratic programming (SQP) were utilized to suggest approximate solutions for the velocity, displacements, and acceleration profiles of the fluid by varying the Hartmann electric number (Ha2) and the strength of nonlinearity (α). ANNs were used to model the fitness function for the governing equation in terms of mean square error (MSE), which was further optimized initially by GNDO to exploit the global search. Then SQP was implemented to complement its local convergence. Numerical solutions obtained by the design scheme were compared with RK-4, the least square method (LSM), and the orthonormal Bernstein collocation method (OB... [more]

Classic and intelligent techniques aim to locate and track the maximum power point of photovoltaic (PV) systems, such as perturb and observe (P&O), fuzzy logic (FL), artificial neural networks (ANNs), and adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference systems (ANFISs). This paper proposes and compares three intelligent algorithms for maximum power point tracking (MPPT) control, specifically fuzzy, ANN, and ANFIS. The modeling of a single-diode equivalent circuit-based 3 kWp PV plant was developed and validated to achieve this purpose. Then, the MPPT techniques were designed and applied to control the buck−boost converter’s switching device of the PV plant. All three methods use the ambient conditions as input variables: solar irradiance and ambient temperature. The proposed methodology comprises the study of the dynamic response for tracking the maximum power point and the power generated of the PV systems, and it was compared to the classic P&O technique under varying ambient conditions. We observed... [more]

This paper presents a method for shaft position estimation of a synchronous motor with permanent magnets. Zero speed and very low speed range are considered. The method uses the analysis of high-frequency currents induced by the introduction of additional voltage in the control path in the stationary coordinate system associated with the stator. An artificial neural network estimates the sine and cosine values necessary in the Park’s transformation units. This method can achieve satisfactory accuracy in the case of low asymmetry of inductance in the direct and quadrature axes of the coordinate system associated with the rotor. The TensorFlow/Keras package was used for artificial network calculations and the scikit-learn package for preprocessing. Aggregating the outputs of several artificial neural networks provides an opportunity to reduce the resultant estimation error. The use of as few as four networks has enabled the error to be reduced by approximately 20% compared to a single ex... [more]

This paper presents a method for shaft position estimation of a synchronous motor with permanent magnets. Zero speed and very low speed range are considered. The method uses the analysis of high-frequency currents induced by the introduction of additional voltage in the control path in the stationary coordinate system associated with the stator. An artificial neural network estimates the sine and cosine values necessary in the Park’s transformation units. This method can achieve satisfactory accuracy in the case of low asymmetry of inductance in the direct and quadrature axes of the coordinate system associated with the rotor. The TensorFlow/Keras package was used for artificial network calculations and the scikit-learn package for preprocessing. Aggregating the outputs of several artificial neural networks provides an opportunity to reduce the resultant estimation error. The use of as few as four networks has enabled the error to be reduced by approximately 20% compared to a single ex... [more]

Heavy-duty trucks contribute approximately 20% of fuel consumption in the United States of America (USA). The fuel economy of heavy-duty vehicles (HDV) is affected by several real-world parameters like road parameters, driver behavior, weather conditions, and vehicle parameters, etc. Although modern vehicles comply with emissions regulations, potential malfunction of the engine, regular wear and tear, or other factors could affect vehicle performance. Predicting fuel consumption per trip based on dynamic on-road data can help the automotive industry to reduce the cost and time for on-road testing. Data modeling can easily help to diagnose the reason behind fuel consumption with a knowledge of input parameters. In this paper, an artificial neural network (ANN) was implemented to model fuel consumption in modern heavy-duty trucks for predicting the total and instantaneous fuel consumption of a trip based on very few key parameters, such as engine load (%), engine speed (rpm), and vehicle... [more]