MERCon - 2015

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://192.248.9.226/handle/123/14696

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Now showing 1 - 20 of 61

item: Conference-Abstract
3D Environmental force : position impedance variation for different motion parameters
Ruwanthika, RMM; Harsha, AM; Abeykoon, S
The skill preservation of an expert has been a serious problem for countries with aging population because decrease of the number of successors. The concepts of haptic database and force sensor recorder which have been developed recently suggests solutions of using third multimedia type of haptic communication. Haptic information is a bilateral information of the law of action and reaction. The reaction from real world includes not only position and force information but also environmental impedance. In this paper, the behavior of environmental impedance has been studied with the changes of the different motion parameters like applied force, velocity, position and depth on the object 3D space. This idea is exemplified using a rubber balloon and a rubber sponge which is often modeled using simple linear equations. The experimental results show the importance of considering motion parameters when abstracting haptic information for a haptic database. Nonlinear impedance variations against the motion parameters suggest the necessity of adopting complex haptic abstraction techniques.
item: Conference-Abstract
Adsorption of cadmium and lead heavy metals by Chitosan Biopolymer : a study on equilibrium Isotherms and kinetics
Unagolla, JM; Adikary, SU
Since heavy metal pollution is a significant aspect to aquatic ecosystems, the objective of this research work was to investigate adsorption characteristics of chitosan as an alternative adsorbent material. In this study, chitosan, synthesized from locally available shrimp type “penaeus monodon” was used to observe adsorption characteristics of cadmium (Cd) and lead (Pb) heavy metals from aqueous solution. Batch kinetic experiment studies were conducted for changing initial pH, initial concentration of metal ions, particle size and degree of deacetylation (DD) of chitosan. Simplified models such as, pseudo first order, pseudo second order and intra-particle diffusion models were used to analyze the experimental data. The result showed that the adsorption capacity strongly depends on pH and DD. It was clearly seen that higher adsorption of heavy metals occur at comparatively high pH and high DD. Equilibrium experimental data were analyzed by using two different isotherm models namely, Langmuir and Freundlich. The characteristic parameters for each isotherm and related correlation coefficients were determined by using mathematical modeling software. Isotherms show that adsorption process of Cd and Pb is a heterogeneous process.
item: Conference-Abstract
Aperture-array directional Sensing using 2-D Beam Digital Filters with Doppler-Radar Front-Ends
Randeny, T; Madanayake, A; Sengupta, A; Li, Y; Li, C
A directional sensing algorithm is proposed employing doppler radar and low-complexity 2-D IIR spatially bandpass filters. The speed of the scatterer is determined by the frequency shift of the received signal following down-conversion. The downconversion is done by mixing it with the instantaneous transmitted signal. The direction of the scatterer is determined by the means of 2-D plane-wave spectral characteristics, using 2-D IIR beam filters. The proposed architecture was simulated for three scatterers at 10,o 30,o 60o from array broadside, traveling at speeds of 31 ms,−1 18 ms−1 and 27 ms−1, respectively. A doppler radar module was used to transmit and receive reflected signals, that has a carrier frequency of 2.4 GHz. Simulations show both direction and doppler information being enhanced.
item: Conference-Abstract
Appliance-level demand identification through signature analysis
Dhananjaya, WAK; Rathnayake, RMMR; Samarathunga, SCJ; Senanayake, CI; Wickramarachchi, N; demand identification; harmonic analysis; signature analysis.
Appliance specific load monitoring is very useful in energy management solutions that are becoming a challenging task with growing energy demand. It facilitates appliance recognition and load monitoring such that optimum resource utilization can be achieved by correct appliance scheduling. In this paper we present a study of non-intrusive load recognition using steady state appliance signatures for identifying commonly used household appliances. Current harmonics, active and reactive power components acquired from data loggers are used as appliance signature in this study. This analysis enables the capability of providing detailed information on appliances in use and consumers could benefit from customized energy management recommendations. Also, suppliers could implement smart metering technology introducing appliance level information as well. We propose algorithms for non-intrusive load recognition using combination of several methods and techniques. It was seen that a higher accuracy of identification could be achieved when a combination of techniques are used rather than using a single technique.
item: Conference-Abstract
An Approach to evaluate interrelationships among lean attributes of manufacturing systems : ් case study based on lean enterprises
Srinath, SLD; Dharmapriya, USS
Lean philosophy has received more emphasize during recent times due to its robust features which facilitate productive manufacturing environments in companies regardless of the type of industry. However, enormous approaches taken to implement lean manufacturing systems inside factories, have failed to achieve desired objectives. This is mainly due to the focus on individual lean attributes rather than considering their collective impact on a system. This paper suggested an approach to measure correlations among lean attributes using their degrees of implementation. These correlations will help organizations to identify lean attributes which are interrelated. The quest is how to measure the degree to which each lean attribute has been implemented within the organization. Different companies have varying levels of lean implementations. Therefore identifying the leanness requires the organization to compare itself against a proxy company who has also implemented similar lean attributes. This research suggested an approach to identify a proxy company and then evaluate the degrees of lean attribute implementations of the selected company. The fuzzy membership functions were used to calculate the degrees. These degrees were then used to figure out possible correlations among lean attributes. The research findings showed that visual feedback made available to the factory floor had triggered a positive impact on other lean attributes in most circumstances.
item: Conference-Abstract
Automatic governor for Tie-line control : a teaching tool
De Silva, LUN; Deegala, DDMI; Karunathilake, IMM; kUMARI, PHSSDI; Lucas, JR
Power transmission between interconnected systems is a major concern in the present electrical engineering context and is of utmost importance to Electrical Engineering undergraduates. A voltage scaled power system simulator with two interconnected areas has been designed, for educational purposes, using vacuum circuit breakers, a diesel generator, a motor-generator set, transmission lines, bus bars, loads etc. Synchronization of two areas and a power controller of the tie line between the two areas have been implemented. In addition, students can learn about different interactions, such as synchronous and isochronous operation of generators with large systems. This paper finally discusses the possible experiences of interconnected power systems that undergraduate students could be exposed to.
item: Conference-Abstract
Behaviour of nailed timber box beams
Hettiarachchi, MTP
Experimental investigations on nailed built up timber box beams of different cross sectional profiles in which the flanges and webs are both entirely of timber are carried out with the objective of understanding the behaviour of the different nailed built up beam configurations and identify their potential as an alternative to the use of solid timber beams. In particular the effect of web thickness, overall depth and shape of flange on the load carrying capacity and flexural rigidity of timber box beams are investigated. Timber beams consisting of webs of 25 mm thickness and overall depth of 225 mm are the most cost effective. The profile of the flange does not have a significant effect on either the load carrying capacity or flexural rigidity. It is observed that flexural rigidity and load capacity are better correlated with the second moment of area and section modulus of only the webs of the box beam rather than that of the entire box beam.
item: Conference-Abstract
Bio-methane adsorption by activated carbon understanding the potential via characterization of Sri Lankan activated carbon
Herath, HMBM; De Alwis, AAP
There is growing global interest on bio-methane as a vehicular fuel and Europe Union (EU) has stated that this as a best well-to-wheel fuel. Commercialization of bio-methane under atmospheric conditions is limited due to its requirement of higher storage capacity. Compressed bio-methane systems have been currently commercialized in Europe in order to increase its low energy density however the process requires higher capital and maintenance costs. Thus, adsorbed bio-methane is suggested as a better alternative to store methane under low pressure conditions & activated carbon (AC) has shown promise as a methane adsorbent. This study is based on identifying the potential absorptivity of bio-methane into commercially available AC in Sri Lanka. The paper presents the pathway envisage in this task. Two types of commercial AC samples as granular & pelletize forms have been used from supplier HAYCARB for the analysis. this paper, characterization data from the principals is used to investigate the methane uptake potential into commercial AC. Further, the study has been continued in evaluating several developed correlations in literature on linear behaviour of micropore volume of AC to methane uptake & concluded that the linear parameters of micropore volume to methane uptake would vary according to AC properties. Thus a correlation for local AC is important to be developed. Hence, an experimental setup is developed to carry out detailed studies on bio-methane adsorption on commercial AC available in Sri Lanka.
item: Conference-Abstract
CDME – Crowd-sourced data mapping engine
Ruwanpathirana, S; Perera, I
Availability of records on environmental factors like noise, temperature, and precipitation is important in making critical decisions concerning public safety and wellbeing. Traditional methods involving dedicated human personnel and equipment in capturing these data have been reliable, but extremely costly and time consuming. We propose a data collecting and visualizing framework based on crowdsourcing that is readily available, extensible, and virtually incurs zero cost. The crowd-sourced data mapping engine (CDME) presents an extensible back-end web application and a noise data collecting mobile application targeting analyses on noise pollution, which poses a significant concern especially in urban areas. The mobile applications runs as a service and updates the server with periodic noise data. The server accepts data updates and provides analytical functions such as graphs and heat maps.
item: Conference-Abstract
Climate change adaptation : a hydraulic model study to improve the spillway discharge of Giritale Reservoir
Krishantha, RARV; Wickramasuriya, SS
The Piano Key (PK) spillway constructed at Giritale in 2013, is the first of its kind in Sri Lanka. A capacity enhancement of the Giritale reservoir was required to overcome the frequent water shortages during cropping seasons and droughts. A decision was taken to enhance the capacity by increasing the crest level of the spillway and a new spillway of the PK type was introduced to satisfy this requirement. In this research, a model study was done to improve the discharge efficiency of such a PK spillway. Two models with different sectional arrangements were fabricated and later these were modified basically in crest shape. A total of four different models were tested to simulate the flow behavior over the spillway and the results were analyzed in order to find the head discharge relationship. The research focused on how to obtain a suitable PK model, among the models tested. The conclusion was that model 1b (among the models 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b) was the optimum model for the Giritale project.
item: Conference-Abstract
Cloud images capturing system for solar power level prediction
Rodrigo, WDAS; Perera, KHE; Priyadharshana, HMS; Priyanka, VGC; Ranasinghe, RARA
Solar energy has received increasing attention as one of the potential renewable energy sources for power generation in recent past. Introduction of Net Metering and the increment in provision for renewables encouraged the usage of Solar PV systems in Sri Lanka. However, the intermittent nature of solar energy has become one of the barriers for solar energy based power to be integrated to the national power grids. Due to unpredictability solar energy based power plants are non-dispatchable and can cause network instability. With an efficient and reasonably accurate predictable model, a better system balance can be achieved. Shadowing on solar PV modules results in reduction of power produced. Cloud coverage blocking the sun can be identified as the major contributor in shadowing. Identifying and tracking the clouds can be used to finally predict the solar PV output. This paper presents a methodology to obtain cloud image data and an algorithm to process the images which can be used to predict the relationship between the cloud movements and the solar PV output.
item: Conference-Abstract
Comparison of stabilizing NMPC designs for wheeled mobile robots : an experimental study
Mehrez, MW; Mann, GKI; Gosine, RG
In this paper, two stabilizing nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) designs, namely, final-state equality constraint stabilizing design and final-state inequality constraint stabilizing design have been applied to achieve two wheeled mobile robot’s control objectives, i.e. point stabilization and trajectory tracking. In both controllers, final-state constraints are imposed, on the online optimization step, to guarantee the closed loop stability. As shown in the literature, both stabilizing designs were addressed to be computationally intense; thus, their real-time implementation is not tractable. Nonetheless, in this work, a recently developed toolkit implementing fast NMPC routines has been used to apply the two stabilizing designs on a mobile robot research platform after developing a C++ code, coupling the toolkit and the research platform’s software. Full scale xperiments implementing the two stabilizing designs are conducted and contrasted in terms of performance measures and real-time requirements.
item: Conference-Abstract
Computer assisted plant identification system for android
Priyankara, hac; Withanage, DK
Plant leaves provide sufficient features to distinguish them among other species. Identification of plants using leaf images is a classic problem in digital image processing. Usually those image processing systems use shape based digital morphological features for leaf identification task. Even there are number of studies on leaf based plant identification, very few of them are for mobiles. In this paper we describe a leaf image based plant identification system using SIFT features combining with Bag Of Word (BOW) model and Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier. The system is trained to classify 20 species and obtained 96.48% accuracy level. Based on the results, we developed an Android application communicates with the server and gives users the ability to identify plant species using photographs taken of plant leaves using the smart phone.
item: Conference-Abstract
Computing Requirements of Sri Lankan Scientific Community
Dias, A; Bandara, HMND
Significant improvements in Information and Communication (ICT) infrastructure over the last decade put Sri Lanka among the top developing nations for ICT-led economic and social growth. While ICT has also contributed to increased research outcomes through better access to world-class knowledge, research resources, and other researchers, overall growth and significance of research findings are not in par with most of the top developing nations. In this research, through surveys and interviews, we explore the current state of computing resources available for research, as well as the needs and challenges faced by researchers. We identified a number of challenges, including shortage of computational and storage resources, cost of software licenses, limited awareness of alternative tools, inadequate programing skills among graduate students, unavailability of research computing support staff, unreliable infrastructure,and organizational constraints. We further discuss potential solutions to address some of these technical and nontechnical challenges.
item: Conference-Abstract
Crime analytics : analysis of crimes through newspaper articles
Jayaweera, I; Sajeewa, C; Liyanage, S; Wijewardane, T; Perera, GIUS; Wijayasiri, A
Crime analysis is one of the most important activities of the majority of the intelligent and law enforcement organizations all over the world. Generally they collect domestic and foreign crime related data (intelligence) to prevent future attacks and utilize a limited number of law enforcement resources in an optimum manner. A major challenge faced by most of the law enforcement and intelligence organizations is efficiently and accurately analyzing the growing volumes of crime related data. The vast geographical diversity and the complexity of crime patterns have made the analyzing and recording of crime data more difficult. Data mining is a powerful tool that can be used effectively for analyzing large databases and deriving important analytical results. This paper presents an intelligent crime analysis system which is designed to overcome the above mentioned problems. The proposed system is a web-based system which comprises of crime analysis techniques such as hotspot detection, crime comparison and crime pattern visualization. The proposed system consists of a rich and simplified environment that can be used effectively for processes of crime analysis.
item: Conference-Abstract
Defining multiagent system for a reliable Micro-Grid
Dinushi, HMN; Kariapper, MHMS; Porawagamage, GD; Rathnayaka, PKH; Srimal, UP; Hemapala, KTMU
Electrical power supply to serve critical facilities are of high importance in today’s world. Instead of building a large electric power system, an intelligent Micro Grid (MG) can be considered as a promising power supply alternative for those critical facilities. This study presents the development and controlling of a laboratory scale MG which consists of several Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) such as Solar PV, Diesel Generator, Micro Hydro model, Battery Bank with a bidirectional inverter and critical and non-critical loads. Controlling of the MG is done by using distributed autonomous control strategies and Multi Agent System Architectures. It can operate in a grid connected mode as well as autonomous mode when it is isolated. The whole system was simulated using MATLAB and the simulation results and practical results were compared when MG is operated in different scenarios. The effectiveness of this controlling method is discussed in this paper.
item: Conference-Abstract
Design and development of flexible fixturing system for handling irregular shaped components
Rukshan, KHI; Chaminie, WAN; Madushan, MD; Jayaweera, N
Manufacturing industry is a rapid developing area and requires new technologies and concepts to increase the profit margin through high production rate and high quality. To have a sufficient and higher production rate there should be competent fixturing systems, because fixtures perform major tasks such as locating, holding and supporting components during manufacturing processes. Due to the large variety of the components manufactured in the industry, the fixture systems differ from one another. Therefore dedicated fixtures are widely used in the industry. Aerospace and automotive industries are facing problems such as huge space allocation for large number of dedicated fixtures, long lead time for designing and fabricating and low flexibility to change the setup at the modifications of the design. These problems cause to increase the overall cost and slow down the production. A reconfigurable or modular fixture can be introduced as a single fixture for set of components. Although it reduces the number of fixtures, leads to other issues such as high knowledge and skills required to change the setup and inadaptability with robot cells and flexible manufacturing systems because of human involvements. Flexible fixtures can be used to minimize the problems associated with irregular shaped components. This paper discusses proposed solutions of an ongoing project on flexible fixturing system for handling irregular shaped components. Alternative concepts introduced in the paper are flexible and reconfigurable. Therefore they can be applied to industries such as aerospace, automotive, stamping and ship building.
item: Conference-Abstract
Design and simulation of a MEMS based dual axis capacitive accelerometer
Jayanetti, VC; Jayathilaka, wadm; Talawatta, KI; Amarasinghe, YWR
Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) based multi axis accelerometers are embedded in many modern technological applications. These sensors are widely used in smart electronics, bio-medical uses, automobiles and aeronautics. The work followed herewith is focused on designing of a 2 degree of freedom (D.O.F) MEMS based capacitive accelerometer which can be used with such vibration detection modules. The 2mm x 2mm x 100μm sensor has a working range of up to ±16g and a failure limit of 20g The movement of a proof mass which is 74.5% of the sensor area is used to generate amplified voltage signals based on the theory of capacitance using a series of capacitive comb elements mounted on the perimeter of the sensor. Process simplification is achieved with the use of a single Silicon-on- Insulation (SOI) wafer and minimum masking material. The paper contains details on structural and motion analysis performed on the design and also contains techniques which can be used for the fabrication of the sensor and electrical contacts needed for the successful implementation of the sensor into electrical circuitry.
item: Conference-Abstract
Designing a microgrid test system for transient analysis
Lidula, NWA; Nishshanka, RMMP; Wijesundara, SB; Wijemanna, WLKD; Weerakkody, WNL
A power system test system is designed using PSCAD/EMTDC software for transient analysis, which can be specifically used for transient studies with Distributed Generators (DGs) or this system can be easily developed as a Microgrid test system. The model is developed based on a section of a practical power system that is Kukuleganga area of the Sri Lanka power system. This includes 132kV transmission system, Kukuleganga hydro power station, five grid substations with 33kV distribution buses and DGs. The developed model is verified through comparing the actual fault data obtained from the Ceylon Electricity Board, Sri Lanka with the results obtained from the developed PSCAD/EMTDC model. The Discrete Wavelet Transform is used to identify the degree of accuracy in verification of the model. The test results are demonstrated for both current and voltage waveforms.
item: Conference-Abstract
A Deterministic hazard assessment for storm surge induced flooding : a case study
Marasinghe, ck; Wijetunge, jj
Sri Lanka is vulnerable to cyclones generated mostly in the southern part of Bay of Bengal, and to a lesser extent, to those in the southeast of Arabian Sea. The cyclones which form over the southernmost part of Bay of Bengal at low latitudes mainly move west or west to northwestwards into the Gulf of Mannar across the coast of Sri Lanka. These cyclones generally form during the later part of the post-monsoon season or early part of the pre-monsoon season. On the other hand, cyclones that form over Arabian Sea mostly move north or north-easterly while a few travel west or northwestwards.

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