Ahmad Al-Daraiseh

Multi-agent system for energy consumption optimisation in higher education institutions

Global warming is one of the most serious issues faced by todays world. The increase in world population and adoption of modern lifestyle have dramatically increased the demand for energy. Over the last decade Higher Educational Institution (HEI) buildings have seen massive increase in energy consumption due to increased use of IT equipments, longer occupancy and increased use of Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems. Current Building Management Systems (BMS) fail to optimize energy consumption of HVAC systems in commercial and educational buildings. In this paper we present an intelligent agent based system to optimize energy consumption of HVAC system in HEI buildings. The system employs artificial intelligence techniques to predict the demand of the system and optimize energy consumption of the HVAC system. The experimental results have shown that the deployment of the system has resulted in 3% reduction in energy consumption of HVAC.

An Intelligent Energy Management System for Educational Buildings

There is a wide variation in the energy consumption between different educational institutions due to the adoption of different management strategies and different levels of occupants’ environmental understanding. The presence of large amounts of information and communication technology (ICT) equipment and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system causes a major consumption of energy in higher education institution (HEI) buildings. The main objective of this research is to investigate the use of ICT to optimize the energy consumption in HEI buildings and reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emission. The first phase of the system has been implemented at King Saud University to measure energy consumption through sensors that read energy consumption of electrical appliances and devices every 10 seconds. The analysis of collected data allows us to develop and employ energy saving strategies that lead to a reduction in total energy consumption. Our preliminary results show that up to 17% of energy consumption can be reduced by simply dealing with standby energy loss of labs’ computers. The novelty of this research comes from the use of a functional database approach to deal with high volume of data and query performance and the incorporation of a timetabling system in energy management system.

Utilizing sensors networks to develop a smart and context-aware solution for people with disabilities at the workplace (design and implementation)

The developments and improvements in human–computer interaction and information and communication technologies have resulted in innovative assistive technology (AT) solutions for the people with disabilities (PWDs). Although, there have been many new ideas and technologies for assisting the PWDs, still very few of them have considered the workplace environment. Therefore, there is a need to develop a comprehensive universal AT solution that can maximize the PWDs productivity at work. In this work, an AT and smart context-aware solution has been developed to assist the PWDs at the workplace. This has been achieved through the designing and the implementation of a smart unified interface to guide and assist the PWDs. A wireless sensor network has been employed in this context-aware smart solution in order to track and determine user’s location. The unified interface is adaptive and includes four modules that are smart helping, smart communication, smart editor, and auto emergency response. A proper AT process and technological design considerations have been adopted to achieve a comprehensive, universal, adaptive, and context-aware solution.

PWCT: visual language for IoT and cloud computing applications and systems

Developing IoT, Data Computing and Cloud Computing software requires different programming skills and different programming languages. This cause a problem for many companies and researchers that need to hires many programmers to develop a complete solution. The problem is related directly to the financial cost and the development time which are very important factors to many research projects. In this paper we present and propose the PWCT visual programming tool for developing IoT, Data Computing and Cloud Computing Applications and Systems without writing textual code directly. Using PWCT increase productivity and provide researchers with one visual programming tool to develop different solutions.

Assessment of Technologies Relevant for People With Motor Hearing and Speaking Impairment

ABSTRACT People born with disabilities (PWDs) face many problems because of their inability to accomplish simple daily tasks. However, the evolution of technological solutions has helped the PWDs to accomplish their tasks independently. Although a significant amount of the research work can be found on these technologies still, the authors believe that there is a lack of a rational method to quantitatively assess the solutions for their applicability to the respective impairment. In this paper, a quantitative and a qualitative assessment approach for the evaluation of the various technologies is proposed. It measures the applicability of the technological solutions for the different impairment groups. Based on the scoring model known as the multi-weighted scoring model (MWSM), the proposed evaluation approach carries out comparative judgment of clinical experts and input from PWDs using a well-defined criteria. The technique is applied to 16 research papers which are dealing with the application of technologies that assist PWDs suffering from various impairment conditions. The assessment technique has successfully identified the relevant criteria that can be used to assess technological research papers. It has also identified the research gaps which require further attention. The proposed quantitative approach can be a very useful tool to assess the applicability and the quality of the previous relevant works.

A University-Based Smart and Context Aware Solution for People with Disabilities (USCAS-PWD)

(1) Background: A disabled student or employee in a certain university faces a large number of obstacles in achieving his/her ordinary duties. An interactive smart search and communication application can support the people at the university campus and Science Park in a number of ways. Primarily, it can strengthen their professional network and establish a responsive eco-system. Therefore, the objective of this research work is to design and implement a unified flexible and adaptable interface. This interface supports an intensive search and communication tool across the university. It would benefit everybody on campus, especially the People with Disabilities (PWDs). (2) Methods: In this project, three main contributions are presented: (A) Assistive Technology (AT) software design and implementation (based on user- and technology-centered design); (B) A wireless sensor network employed to track and determine user’s location; and (C) A novel event behavior algorithm and movement direction algorithm used to monitor and predict users’ behavior and intervene with them and their caregivers when required. (3) Results: This work has developed a comprehensive and universal application with a unified, flexible, and adaptable interface to support the different conditions of PWDs. It has employed an interactive smart based-location service for establishing a smart university Geographic Information System (GIS) solution. This GIS solution has been based on tracking location service, mobility, and wireless sensor network technologies. (4) Conclusion: The proposed system empowered inter-disciplinary interaction between management, staff, researchers, and students, including the PWDs. Identifying the needs of the PWDs has led to the determination of the relevant requirements for designing and implementing a unified flexible and adaptable interface suitable for PWDs on the university campus.

A Framework for Energy Monitoring and Management System for Educational Institutions

Excessive utilization of Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC), and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) equipment in Higher Education Institutes (HEI) in addition to variation in occupancy patterns are the main reasons behind the ever increasing level of energy consumption in such environments. Reducing energy consumption while maintaining the comfort level of students and staff is a very challenging task. In this research we attempt to solve this dilemma by developing a framework that utilizes ICT to monitor and manage energy consumption in HEI. The system monitors electrical equipment individually and also collects environmental parameters such as temperature, humidity and occupancy to optimize energy consumption. At King Saud University (KSU) we implemented the first phase of the system by using wireless sensors that measure energy consumption of any electrical device once every 10 second. Energy consumption data is then displayed to building managers, students and staff to create awareness. It was also utilized to generate situation specific advice. In addition to the unique design, the novelty of this work stems from the utilization of timetable and event management systems, which we believe was never used before in developing such systems.

Exclusion Based VANETs (EBV)

Vehicular Ad hoc NETworks (VANETs) were proposed to improve driving safety. In VANETs vehicles communicate with other vehicles and with the infrastructure’s Road Side Units (RSUs) to achieve this safety. 5.9 GHz band was assigned by FCC for the use of VANETs in Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) [1]. VANETs’ security has been a hot topic since the very first day of its announcement. While IEEE 1609.2 is setting security standards for VANETS, many researches around the world are working hard to provide an ideal system. IEEE 1609.2 chose Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) to be used in VANETs [2]. PKI comes with its inherent issues such as key management and Certificate revocation lists (CRLs) in addition to issues related to wireless networks such privacy and linkability. In this paper we propose Exclusion-Based Vanet (EBV), a novel framework based on a combination of PKI and Exclusion Based Systems (EBS) [3] to address the above issues. EBV eliminates the need for CRLs, guarantees privacy and scalability.