A novel robust finite time disturbance observer (RFTDO) based on an independent output-finite time composite control (FTCC) scheme is proposed for an air conditioning-system temperature and humidity regulation. The variable air volume (VAV) of the system is represented by two first-order mathematical models for the temperature and humidity dynamics. In the temperature loop dynamics, a RFTDO temperature (RFTDO-T) and an FTCC temperature (FTCC-T) are designed to estimate and reject the lumped disturbances of the temperature subsystem. In the humidity loop, a robust output of the FTCC humidity (FTCC-H) and RFTDO humidity (RFTDO-H) are also designed to estimate and reject the lumped disturbances of the humidity subsystem. Based on Lyapunov theory, the stability proof of the two closed-loop controllers and observers is presented. Comparative simulations are carried out to confirm that the proposed controller outperforms conventional methods and offers greater accuracy of temperature, humidity, and carbon dioxide concentration, having superior regulation performance in terms of a rapid finite time convergence, an outstanding disturbance rejection property, and better energy consumption. In addition to presenting the comparative simulation results from the control applications on the VAV system, the quantitative values are provided to further confirm the superiority of the proposed controller. In particular, the proposed method exhibits the shortest settling time of, respectively, 15 and 40 min to reach the expected temperature and humidity, whereas other comparative controllers require a longer time to settle down.
In this work, a novel design for the NiO/TiO2 heterojunction solar cells is presented. Highly-pure nanopowders prepared by dc reactive magnetron sputtering technique were used to form the heterojunctions. The electrical characteristics of the proposed design were compared to those of a conventional thin film heterojunction design prepared by the same technique. A higher efficiency of 300% was achieved by the proposed design. This attempt can be considered as the first to fabricate solar cells from highly-pure nanopowders of two different semiconductors.
Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) is the technology of electronically extracting intended data from marked fields, such as squareand bubbles fields, on printed forms. OMR technology is particularly useful for applications in which large numbers of hand-filled forms need to be processed quickly and with a great degree of accuracy. The technique is particularly popular with schools and universities for the reading in of multiple choice exam papers. This paper proposed OMRbased on Modify Multi-Connect Architecture (MMCA) associative memory, its work in two phases: training phase and recognition phase. The proposed method was also able to detect more than one or no selected choice. Among 800 test samples with 8 types of grid answer sheets and tota
... Show MoreThe concept of the active contour model has been extensively utilized in the segmentation and analysis of images. This technology has been effectively employed in identifying the contours in object recognition, computer graphics and vision, biomedical processing of images that is normal images or medical images such as Magnetic Resonance Images (MRI), X-rays, plus Ultrasound imaging. Three colleagues, Kass, Witkin and Terzopoulos developed this energy, lessening “Active Contour Models” (equally identified as Snake) back in 1987. Being curved in nature, snakes are characterized in an image field and are capable of being set in motion by external and internal forces within image data and the curve itself in that order. The present s
... Show MoreBecause of the quick growth of electrical instruments used in noxious gas detection, the importance of gas sensors has increased. X-ray diffraction (XRD) can be used to examine the crystal phase structure of sensing materials, which affects the properties of gas sensing. This contributes to the study of the effect of electrochemical synthesis of titanium dioxide (TiO2) materials with various crystal phase shapes, such as rutile TiO2 (R-TiO2NTs) and anatase TiO2 (A-TiO2NTs). In this work, we have studied the effect of voltage on preparing TiO2 nanotube arrays via the anodization technique for gas sensor applications. The results acquired from XRD, energy dispersion spectro
... Show MoreThe work includes synthesis and characterization of some new heterocyclic compounds, as flow: The compound (3) (5-(4-chlorophenyl) -2-hydrazinyl-1,3,4-oxadiazole was synthesized by using two methods; the first method includes the direct reaction between hydrazine hydrate 80% and 5-(4-chlorophenyl)-2- (ethylthio) 1,3,4-oxadiazole (1), the second method involves converting 5-(4-chlorophenyl)-1,3,4-oxadiazol-2-amine (2) to diazonium salt then reducing this salt to compound (3) by stannous chloride. Compound (3) was used as starting material for synthesizing several fused heterocyclic compounds. The compound 6-(4-chlorophenyl)[1,2.4] triazolo [3,4,b][1,3,4] oxadiazole-3-(2H) thione (compound 4) was synthesized from the reaction of compound (3)
... Show MoreThe work includes synthesis and characterization of some new heterocyclic compounds, as flow: The compound (3) (5-(4-chlorophenyl) -2-hydrazinyl-1,3,4-oxadiazole was synthesized by using two methods; the first method includes the direct reaction between hydrazine hydrate 80% and 5-(4-chlorophenyl)-2- (ethylthio) 1,3,4-oxadiazole (1), the second method involves converting 5-(4-chlorophenyl)-1,3,4-oxadiazol-2-amine (2) to diazonium salt then reducing this salt to compound (3) by stannous chloride. Compound (3) was used as starting material for synthesizing several fused heterocyclic compounds. The compound 6-(4-chlorophenyl)[1,2.4] triazolo [3,4,b][1,3,4] oxadiazole-3-(2H) thione (compound 4) was synthesized from the reaction of compound (
... Show MoreIn this paper, a compact multiband printed dipole antenna is presented as a candidate for use in wireless communication applications. The proposed fractal antenna design is based on the second level tent transformation. The space-filling property of this fractal geometry permits producing longer lengths in a more compact size. Theoretical performance of this antenna has been calculated using the commercially available software IE3D from Zeland Software Inc. This electromagnetic simulator is based on the method of moments (MoM). The proposed dipole antenna has been found to possess a considerable size reduction compared with the conventional printed or wire dipole antenna designed at the same design frequency and using the same substrate
... Show MoreThe aim of this study is to compare the effects of three methods: problem-based learning (PBL), PBL with lecture method, and conventional teaching on self-directed learning skills among physics undergraduates. The actual sample size comprises of 122 students, who were selected randomly from the Physics Department, College of Education in Iraq. In this study, the pre- and post-test were done and the instruments were administered to the students for data collection. The data was analyzed and statistical results rejected null hypothesis of this study. This study revealed that there are no signifigant differences between PBL and PBL with lecture method, thus the PBL without or with lecture method enhances the self-directed learning skills bette
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