Project-1: Studies on Technical Feasibilities of Solar Powered Farm Machineries Suitable for Bangladesh
Project Description: The economy of Bangladesh heavily depends on agriculture. The agricultural activities of the country have been mechanized over the last few decades. Most of the farm machineries are based on diesel engine like; water pump, tractor, rice howler etc. In the new era when people around the world are very much concern about the green house gas and climate change, clean technologies should be developed in farm machineries. Solar photovoltaic panels could be used as energy source for powering an electric motor. The motor could be used as prime mover for all agricultural activities instead of diesel engine. The technical feasibility of the project would be performed by constructing a prototype and testing it in the field.
Contact: Prof. Khosru M. Salim, Project Supervisor; E-mail: khosru@iub.edu.bd
Project-2: Studies on Economic Feasibilities of Solar Powered Cooking in the Rural Household of Bangladesh
Project Description: Depletion of Natural Gas and increasing price of LPG, burning wood, coal etc, are now the main menaces for cooking purposes in Bangladesh. On the other hand, inefficient burning of wood, charcoal, agricultural wastes and animal dung etc, generate smoke and emits ozone gasses. This results in global warming and health issues due to inhalation of the smoke. Because of a good solar irradiation pattern, a solar powered conduction cooker can minimize this burden from the nation. Solar photovoltaic panels could be used as the main source of energy for cooking, although it is one time investment, the initial high cost of the solar panels would be the main obstacle for adopting the technology. Over the last few years the price of solar panel drastically declined and still the trend is decreasing, therefore, it is hoped that cooking using solar panels would be realistic in the near future. The purpose of the project is to study the economic feasibility of solar powered cooking by comparing with the conventional cooking practices.
Contact: Prof. Khosru M. Salim, Project Supervisor; E-mail: khosru@iub.edu.bd
Project-3: Design and Construction of a Smart Electric Wheel Chair for the Mobility Impaired People
Project Description: This project is intended for the people who are mobility impaired, for a variety of reasons, incapable of using an ordinary wheelchair. A low-cost robotic wheelchair can assist the operator of the chair in avoiding obstacles, going to predestinated places, and maneuvering through doorways and other narrow or crowded areas. These systems can be interfaced to a variety of input devices, and can give the operator as much or as little moment by moment control of the chair as they wish.
Contact: Prof. Khosru M. Salim, Project Supervisor; E-mail: khosru@iub.edu.bd
Project-4: Design and Implementation of a Synchrounous Buck Converter for Solar-Powered Fishing Trawlerl
Project Description: In Bangladesh, approximately 3900 square miles of entire length is surrounded by 700 rivers including tributaries. Around 770,000 inland and 510,000 marine fishermen survive in this country, whose income entirely depends on fisheries. Bangladeshi fishermen mainly use trawler for fishing purpose in sea and river. Those trawler boats require electric power at night for fishing and lighting purposes. Currently, in a trawler, electric power is supplied by a battery which is charged through a dynamo synchronized with trawler engine. These dynamos require diesel to serve electric power. In this project, a novel MPPT-based solar power system for fishing trawler is aimed to reduce fuel consumption. This project aims a method of extracting the maximum current from the PV cell to quickly charge a lead acid cell battery during its “bulk” or constant current charging phase. A PID controller will be attempted to ensure that the DC-DC buck converter maintains a constant current output regardless of the charge level of the battery as long as it is in the bulk charging stage. The simulation and hardware to be implemented through the algorithm to optimized the commercially available 24V PV cells.
Contact: Dr. M. Abdur Razzak, Project Supervisor & Professor, Department of EEE, IUB; E-mail: razzak@iub.edu.bd; Phone: +880-1753872800
Project-5: Design and Implementation of an Intelligent Solar Photovoltaic Energy Management System for Developing Countries
Project Objectives: The objective of the proposed project is to design and implement of an intelligent photovoltaic energy management system to meet up the automatic energy distribution recording and playback calculation and providing necessary information to concern people. The system will undergo the solar photovoltaic energy efficiency variability analysis based on country’s current scenario leading to the large scale energy generation from renewable sources.
Required Qualifications: The potential candidate is expected to have engineering / physics / mathematics or similar / relevant technological background to work in this project. He/she must have a high passion to contribute to a real-world problem with their skills and knowledge by realizing the current scenario of renewable energy system in developing countries.
Contact: Dr. M. Abdur Razzak, Project Supervisor & Professor, Department of EEE, IUB; E-mail: razzak@iub.edu.bd; Phone: +880-1753872800
Project-6: Optimizing the Efficiency of Solar Cells Using Patterned Nanostructures
Project Description: Photovoltaic (PV) cells are important devices that can be used to convert photons into electrical energy. However, the cost of current PV devices needs to be significantly reduced and their efficiencies need to be substantially enhanced to enable large scale implementation of PV cells as sources of clean electrical energy. Surface plasmonpolaritrons (SPP) in metallic nanostructures in close proximity to a Si substrate can lead to enhanced optical absorption and improved energy conversion efficiency in amorphous silicon thin-film PV devices. Optimization of this phenomenon requires a detailed characterization and understanding of the parameters that govern the underlying physical mechanisms. This research will explore the relationship between energy conversion efficiency in thin-film Si solar cells and the type of metallic nanoparticle, the size of the metallic nanoparticles, and the distance between neighboring metallic nanoparticles in a periodic array of the metallic nanoparticles deposited on top of the Si substrate. Such plasmonic metal nanoparticles can also be incorporated into the Si substrate in different other configurations to increase in the generated short circuit current density (JSC).
Research goals and objectives: i. Determine the optimal size, shape and orientation of the plasmonic metal nanoparticles to use with the Si substrate to maximize the solar cell efficiency. ii. Determine the optimal configuration of coupling the plasmonic metal nanoparticles to the Si substrate to maximize the solar cell efficiency. iii. Determine way to combine plasmonic metal nanoparticle with other patterned nanostructures to maximize the solar cell efficiency.
Contact: Dr. Mustafa H. Chowdhury, Project Supervisor, E-mail: mchowdhury@iub.edu.bd; Phone: +880-1706635679
Project-7: Design and Implementation of an Intelligent Solar Photovoltaic Energy Management System for Developing Countries
Project Objectives: The objective of the proposed project is to design and implement of an intelligent photovoltaic energy management system to meet up the automatic energy distribution recording and playback calculation, and providing necessary information to concern people. The system will undergo the solar photovoltaic energy efficiency variability analysis based on country’s current scenario leading to the large scale energy generation from renewable sources.
Contact: Dr. M. Abdur Razzak, Project Supervisor & Professor, Department of EEE, IUB; E-mail: razzak@iub.edu.bd; Phone: +880-1753872800
Project-8: Impact of THD and Power Factor on the Grid Power Quality Due to EV Charging
Project Objectives: The objective of this project is to analyze the impact of Total Harmonic Distortion and Power Factor on the grid power quality due to EV charging.
Contact: Dr. M. Abdur Razzak, Project Supervisor & Professor, Department of EEE, IUB; E-mail: razzak@iub.edu.bd; Phone: +880-1753872800
Project-9: A Prediction Approach for Demand Analysis of Energy Consumption in a Residential Apartment using Machine Learning
Project Objectives: Sustaining with the surge of population, energy supply and demand has to be optimized. Net zero or near zero energy consumption building models can only provide robustness in future reliability. Introducing intelligent systems in monitoring and training any model in this case renders efficient buildings. Thereby, machine learning can train the system itself so that better accuracy can be achieved. It will surely bring smoothness in power consumption system along with costing. In residential sectors, rising electricity bill can affect economy, safety, and solvency. Machine learning algorithm in such case can wisely analyze data provided to it and train itself to predict better outcome. Hence, both consumer and provider will acknowledge the deep problems and can analyze solutions accordingly.
This project will introduce new methods of machine learning algorithms in energy consumption costing of residential home. The main goal is to analyze the most effectively predicted machine learning algorithm of assuming electricity bill monthly and figure out the most consumed equipment used in the home. Building of such algorithms will be fulfilled using Anaconda open source distribution platform by Python programming language. The dataset ingesting into the algorithms by which it will train themselves can be gathered considering surrounding feature points. By deeply surveying the machine learning algorithms, most efficient system for prediction the goals can be achieved which will allow to balance energy-usage and energy-waste.
Contact: Dr. M. Abdur Razzak, Project Supervisor & Professor, Department of EEE, IUB; E-mail: razzak@iub.edu.bd; Phone: +880-1753872800
Project Title-10: Integration of Renewable Energy Sources into the Power Grid for Energy Demand Management
Project Objectives: The energy sector is undergoing a paradigm shift from a fossil fuel-based system to a much more distributed system with increasing renewable energy capacity and improved energy efficiency. In this regard, new smart grid technologies are opening tremendous opportunities for energy transition and greenhouse gas emissions reduction. The desire to make the grid smarter, safer, reliable and more cost-effective using advanced sensors, communication technologies and distributed computing.
The power system operators and planners still face the challenge of integrating renewable energy sources into power system grids. Renewable energy system is an innovative option for electricity generation, especially the solar PV system as it is a clean energy resource. The objective of the research project is to integrate consumers as active players in the electricity system; savings, achieved by reducing peaks in demand and improving energy efficiency, as well as cutting greenhouse gas emissions..
Contact: Dr. M. Abdur Razzak, Project Supervisor & Professor, Department of EEE, IUB; E-mail: razzak@iub.edu.bd; Phone: +880-1753872800
Project-11: Design and Analysis of a 48V On-board Fast Charging System for Electric Vehicles
Project Objectives: Globally the usage of Electric Vehicles is emerging. To decline the usage of fossil fuels, EVs are the best potential solution. Compared to diesel or oil vehicles, EVs are cheaper to maintain and run, they are greener and better for the environment, and most importantly they reduce the use of fossil fuels. In contrast to gasoline vehicles EVs are noiseless means for traveling. All of these qualities makes the EVs more energy efficient and environmental friendly means of transportation. Conventionally EVs are charged using the fossil fuel based power grids which makes the charging system quiet expensive, less environment friendly and also the charging time that is required by the EVs to get fully charged using the available Level 1 and Level 2 charging infrastructures is quiet high. Furthermore, this exerts a lot of stress on the grid and the distribution lines. Solar energy is a form of renewable energy that has a great potential to generate massive amount of electrical energy from PV panels. Solar power is free of cost, does not produce any noxious waste and is available during the peak hours of charging. Coupling solar panels with EVs charging stations is one of the solutions that can be used to make the EVs charging system more efficient and environment friendly. Fast charger is used to charge EVs in only about 30 minutes. Solar powered charging stations paired with fast charging system has the ability to reduce the time needed to charge the EVs along with the reduction of the pressure on the grid.
The objective of the project is to develop a fast charging system for EVs using solar power, with the purpose of utilizing the solar power more proficiently and charging the EVs in a short span of time. A high performance DC-DC converter is designed in our proposed project with the aim of attenuating the problems of the present state of fast charging and environmental problems. A PI controller is used in the proposed DC to DC converter. The EV customers will be able to charge their EVs wherever an electric power outlet is available because of this on-board battery charger.
Contact: Dr. M. Abdur Razzak, Project Supervisor & Professor, Department of EEE, IUB; E-mail: razzak@iub.edu.bd; Phone: +880-1753872800