Mohammad Jamjoum

The classical solar chimney offers passive electricity and water production at a low operating cost. However, the solar chimney suffers from high capital cost and low energy output density per construction area. The high capital investment increases the levelized cost of energy (LCOE), making the design less economically competitive versus other solar technologies. This work presents a new noteworthy solar chimney design for high energy density and maximizing water production. This was achieved by integrating a cooling tower with the solar chimney and optimizing the operating mood. The new design operated day and night as a hybrid solar double-chimney power plant (HSDCPP) for continuous electricity and water production. During the daytime, the HSDCPP operated as a cooling tower and solar chimney, while during the night, it operated as a cooling tower. The annual energy output from the cooling towers and solar chimney (i.e., the HSDCPP) totaled 1,457,423 kWh. The annual energy production from the cooling towers alone was 1,077,134 kWh, while the solar chimney produced 380,289 kWh. The annual energy production of the HSDCPP was ~3.83-fold greater than that of a traditional solar chimney (380,289 kWh). Furthermore, the HSDCPP produced 172,344 tons of fresh water per year, compared with zero tons in a traditional solar chimney. This led to lower overall capital expenditures maximizing energy production and lower LCOE.

Overheating of photovoltaic (PV) panels decreases their efficiency and lifetime, and subsequently increases the levelized cost of energy (LCOE). Passive PV cooling would enhance the PV operational stability and durability. The cooling tower (CT) technology offers an attractive approach for zero-cost capability. In this work, we developed and customized a CT specific for passive PV cooling. Since the dense downdrafted cooled air gained high velocity, a turbine was installed at the bottom of the CT for power production. At the height’s ambient temperature, the CT cooled the air from 50 °C down to 30 °C. The cooled air at 30 °C has enough capacity to cool the PV panels. This cooling capacity improved the average annual efficiency of the PV panels by 6.83%. The design specifications of the CT have the highest performance, with the maximum radius of PV area of panels that can be cooled at 50 m. Furthermore, the current design could operate during the night for power production with minimum operational cost.

This work presents a novel design of a modular- based drone. The modules are standalone sensors with standard interface that allow for plug-and-play configurations suitable for flexible drone applications. In this paper, a web-based interface with a smart portable patient monitoring module was presented. Initial prototype was built and tested to proof the conceptual model. A functional web-based interface was developed. The web interface included a two-way video and audio communication capability, map location of the drone, an analog box that shows the point of view of the drone itself. Furthermore, the web interface provides multiple important information such as the battery voltage, flight mode, drone speed, altitude, and numeric GPS coordinates. The results showed that the design was fully functional to provide the intended features.

This paper presents a portable patient monitoring system. Patients’ oxygen saturation level in blood, electrocardiogram, heart rate and body temperature are the main vital signs measured. Each vital sign is captured by a sensor which is connected to a micro-controller with built-in wireless communication module. The micro-controller processes the vital signs data, and then uploads them to the cloud. The user interface was built on three platforms, an Android application, a website, and a hand-held module based on Raspberry Pi. The system captures the vital signs and upload the readings real time, enabling medics to monitor and assess a patient medical condition remotely. Real measurements were taken using the system and compared to readings obtained using appropriate devices in a medical clinic. The results showed that the system was able to capture the vital signs with a deviation of less than 10% from referenced readings. The system architecture makes it very suitable for far distance online patient monitoring. The main novelty in this work is the integration of various sensors to read multiple vital signs with real time syncing to multiple user interfaces, enabling preliminary health assessment.