Mohd Fuad Abdul Latip

Transient stability analysis on Sarawak's Grid using Power System Simulator for Engineering (PSS/E)

Transient stability analysis has become one of the major analyses in the power system to ensure the system stability to withstand a major disturbance. The effect of transient occurrence can lead to malfunction of electronic control equipment. Transient analysis can be conducted using simulation software package. One of the commercial simulation software package that used by industry worldwide is Siemens Power System Simulation for Engineering (PSS/E). This research paper highlights the usage of PSS/E to analyze Sarawaks Grid System stability using the simplest dynamic model that has been embedded into the program. To observe transient analysis using PSS/E, basic machine model such as generator, exciter and governor were used by varying default data in the program to find the best simulation output. This paper also analyzed the theory of critical clearing time (CCT) of fault occurrence between a transmission line near to the generator and far from the generator. CCT appears to be lesser when the fault occurs at a transmission line near to the generator. On the contrary, when fault occurs far from the generator, the duration of CCT is greater. The stability of the system is observed based on the machine rotor angle, machine speed, output electrical power and terminal voltage.

Outcome Based Education Performance Evaluation on Electrical Engineering laboratory module

Implementing Outcome Based Education (OBE) in evaluating program outcomes is a standard practice nowadays at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering (FEE), Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM). Previously, laboratory assessments method was merely based only on lab report submitted by each group of students and the procedure is inconsistence as each module consists of different area of electrical engineering fields and involves many lecturers from various disciplines in the FEE. Furthermore, there were no specific guidelines for grading the report and lecturers would rely on their experiences, resulting large variance of judgments in giving the marks. To overcome such problem, an OBE assessment tool known as Laboratory Sensor Performance Evaluation Course Tool (LAB-SPECT) has been designed recently for evaluating laboratory modules. This tool has taken into account additional students attributes that represents teamwork skill, practical skill and ethical in the lab. With rubrics table provided, it has successfully facilitated lecturers to evaluate students fairly in terms of their Group Related Skills (GRS) besides than the laboratory report. Each of the assessment section in this process is addressing the respective the course outcome (CO) and program outcome (PO). The output plots produced by this tool would be used as indicators for Continual Quality Improvement (CQI) recommendations.

Remote monitoring system based on a Wi-Fi controlled car using Raspberry Pi

Developing surveillance and monitoring systems can be quite challenging at times, since the systems should be designed with consideration of the environment to be monitored. Good surveillance systems need to have dynamic features, e.g. monitoring cameras that are mobile and can move around the area being monitored. One scenario that requires such mobile monitoring is the surveillance of a large building with many levels, which would incur a high cost to install many cameras at many places. Monitoring such a large area would also be a challenge for the security officers, as they will need to spend too much time to patrol covering all places. Other scenarios that require dynamic surveillance systems include dangerous areas, e.g. areas with explosion and fire risk, or those contaminated with toxic gases. Another use case includes areas that cannot be accessed by humans. To address these challenges, we propose a dynamic monitoring system based on a moving camera carried by a Wi-Fi remote controlled car. The remote-controlled (RC) car is able to move on its own in an area remote from the operator. Users can be in the next room, the next building, or even in another country while controlling the movement of the car via the Internet. Some sensing mechanism is needed to help the user to locate the current location of the car and effectively navigate. Thus, the camera that is attached to the car also act like the eyes showing the frontal view of the car to be seen by the user via a browser in real-time. This system is using Wi-Fi as the only communication medium to connect the car to the server. The web application which provides the interface for the user to interact with the car also provides live streaming views in the vicinity to be monitored, i.e. via some other CCTV cameras installed in the area.

Android-based application for real time energy monitoring of domestic electricity

The electricity demand keeps on increasing year by year. In Malaysia, energy consumption has increased rapidly from an average of 5% in 1980s and 12% in 2009. Due to this increasing trend, government has encouraged users to reduce their electricity consumption. One of the way is by introducing the smart meter as a solution, where the smart meter device is used to display the total of energy consumption by users. In this context, we have developed an online-based energy smart monitoring system for domestic electricity consumption. This system offers a beneficial feature, where the user is able to monitor which part of a house consumes more power energy than others. In recording the electricity usage, smart meter microcontroller is installed to continually measure data for different areas of a house. The captured electricity usage data is uploaded by the microcontroller to an online database, which can then be viewed by users on their Android devices. Through this monitoring system, the objectives are achieved such that the users are able to know how much energy are being consumed for a particular area in the house. The Android application provides an interface to show the analysis of electricity consumption for different areas of a house in terms of voltage, current, power consumption and the corresponding pricing for a specified duration.

Dynamic encoding of binaural beats for brainwave entrainment

This paper shows the development of the dynamic binaural beat encoding using JAVA program. Binaural beat is an auditory phenomenon that has been used worldwide to alter our brain state, to get to the desired state, e.g. Relax. However, most of the Binaural Beat system designed is a static binaural beat on which the user is not able to alter the frequency of the audio. The binaural beat frequency listened by the user might not be suitable to the users current brain state. Such incompatibility may cause the user to feel uncomfortable and may also cause dizziness while listening to the audio being played. Hence, dynamic encoding of binaural beats is designed and implemented to replace the existing static encoding of binaural beats. The GUI of the system has two options, Manual Configuration and Automatic Configuration on which the user able to choose the base frequency and the offset frequency as desired. The developed system has been tested and validated in the lab to show its ability to generate the binaural beat frequency.

Semantic-based Bayesian Network to determine correlation between binaural-beats features and entrainment effects

In coping with hectic everyday lives, people have tried many different ways to reduce stress and depression. Such effort has also lead to meditation practice, which is believed and proven able to help. While meditation is beneficial, for some people, meditation is just hard to perform. These people may switch to other alternatives that give the same effects as meditation, such as through binaural beats entrainment. Many studies on brainwave entrainment have demonstrated that the brain responds by synchronizing its own electrical cycles to the same rhythm of the stimulating binaural-beats audio. The results of binaural beats entrainment towards the brainwave can be determined by monitoring the EEG readings, which can be analyzed to capture the altered brainwave patterns and qualities they exhibit. In relation to the monitoring process, our work focuses on capturing and analyzing the correlations between different binaural beats features to resulting EEG and perceived mental states. A general methodology is presented while detailing further on the proposed Semantic-based Bayesian Network Engine, which is the core mechanism employed in capturing the correlations. This novel approach is proposed firstly due to the well-known capability of Bayesian Network in modeling the elements of causal and effects. Secondly, with the introduction of semantic notion, the engine is enhanced even more for allowing dynamic-construction of Bayesian Network based on its semantics.

OBE performance evaluation tool for Electrical Engineering laboratory

Previously, laboratory assessment method was inconsistent and complex. Due to that reason, an Outcome Based Education (OBE) assessment tool has been implemented at Faculty of Electrical Engineering (FEE), Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM). This assessment tool has been designed particularly for laboratory modules and is called Laboratory Sensor Performance Evaluation Course Tool (LAB-SPECT). LAB-SPECT is purposely designed to facilitate lecturers to evaluate students more consistence, precise and less complexity. Students are evaluated in terms of Group Related Skills (GRS) and laboratory reports. The output of the system will be used as the final marks for the students. The output of this system will be used in the Continual Quality Improvement (CQI) report for future enhancement.

Depression Diagnostic and Screening Tools Using Android OS Platform

Depression affects all walks of life and is a common form of mental health illness. Some of the common methods to diagnose depression are usually through a session with certified psychiatrist or with the aid of depression rating scales. This paper seeks to provide both clinicians and patients with an Android based mobile application that may store and calculate results based on depression rating scales i.e. DASS and MINI. A novel approach of combining both questionnaire statistics is proposed in one solution. As such, a tablet friendly application that uses a scoring algorithm and a series of psychiatric questionnaires as an indicator to a person’s mental state or depression level is developed by means of an android platform.

Enhancement of branch and bound method in a distributed generation expansion planning using multithreading technique

This paper presents a multithreading technique to enhance the branch and bound method in determining the optimal expansion planning of a distributed generation. In such analysis, there are many factors that need to be considered due to a vast number of components and total contingency states for a large distribution system. In this context, the main issue of the existing method is due to its limitation which only allows a single computational process to perform the whole total contingency states for a large distribution system. Therefore, a large number of iterative computations have to be executed sequentially which is done one after another state. This problem can be solved by eliminating the sequential constraint that is the analysis on each contingency state is performed concurrently by converting the iterative computations into parallel processing threads. In this manner, excessive computations can be reduced into a single and shorter execution time. Besides that, other advantages of adopting multithreading technique include the improvement of extensive computer processor utilization and also to enable distributed calculation across multiple computers.

Semantic-based online Outcome-based education measurement system

This paper proposes an online Outcome-based Education (OBE) Measurement System, which promotes a centralized OBE data repository for an institution, allowing concurrent online transactions between distributed multi-users. A well-known OBE framework currently being followed by most higher learning institutions in Malaysia is based on the four to seven levels of learning outcomes; a hierarchy commonly composed of course outcomes, program outcomes, program educational objectives, learning outcomes and soft-skill outcomes. The last two learning-outcomes were outlined by the Ministry of Higher Education serving as a standard guideline to be followed by all higher learning institutions in Malaysia. In connecting between the different levels of learning-outcomes, mappings or links between the different levels were pre-defined. Based on these mappings, OBE measurement activities could be carried out across all levels, indicating learning performance achievement reflected at different degrees and perspectives. To accelerate such evaluation processes, we propose a novel online-system design for our OBE measuring engine, adopting semantic notion in defining the concepts of learning-outcomes and their mappings.