The science and technology of ultracapacitors are reviewed for a number of electrode materials, including carbon, mixed metal oxides, and conducting polymers. More work has been done using microporous carbons than with the other materials and most of the commercially available devices use carbon electrodes and an organic electrolytes. The energy density of these devices is 3¯5 Wh/kg with a power density of 300¯500 W/kg for high efficiency (90¯95%) charge/discharges. Projections of future developments using carbon indicate that energy densities of 10 Wh/kg or higher are likely with power densities of 1¯2 kW/kg. A key problem in the fabrication of these advanced devices is the bonding of the thin electrodes to a current collector such the contact resistance is less than 0.1 cm2. Special attention is given in the paper to comparing the power density characteristics of ultracapacitors and batteries. The comparisons should be made at the same charge/discharge efficiency.

Ultracapacitors: Why, How, and Where is the Technology

An increase in world population along with a significant aging portion is forcing rapid rises in healthcare costs. The healthcare system is going through a transformation in which continuous monitoring of inhabitants is possible even without hospitalization. The advancement of sensing technologies, embedded systems, wireless communication technologies, nano technologies, and miniaturization makes it possible to develop smart systems to monitor activities of human beings continuously. Wearable sensors detect abnormal and/or unforeseen situations by monitoring physiological parameters along with other symptoms. Therefore, necessary help can be provided in times of dire need. This paper reviews the latest reported systems on activity monitoring of humans based on wearable sensors and issues to be addressed to tackle the challenges.

Wearable Sensors for Human Activity Monitoring: A Review

Energy storage technologies and real life applications – A state of the art review

コンピュータ・サイエンス : ACM computing surveys

A communication infrastructure is an essential part to the success of the emerging smart grid. A scalable and pervasive communication infrastructure is crucial in both construction and operation of a smart grid. In this paper, we present the background and motivation of communication infrastructures in smart grid systems. We also summarize major requirements that smart grid communications must meet. From the experience of several industrial trials on smart grid with communication infrastructures, we expect that the traditional carbon fuel based power plants can cooperate with emerging distributed renewable energy such as wind, solar, etc, to reduce the carbon fuel consumption and consequent green house gas such as carbon dioxide emission. The consumers can minimize their expense on energy by adjusting their intelligent home appliance operations to avoid the peak hours and utilize the renewable energy instead. We further explore the challenges for a communication infrastructure as the part of a complex smart grid system. Since a smart grid system might have over millions of consumers and devices, the demand of its reliability and security is extremely critical. Through a communication infrastructure, a smart grid can improve power reliability and quality to eliminate electricity blackout. Security is a challenging issue since the on-going smart grid systems facing increasing vulnerabilities as more and more automation, remote monitoring/controlling and supervision entities are interconnected.

https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1315&context=electricalengineeringfacpub

A Survey on Smart Grid CommunicationInfrastructures: Motivations, Requirements andChallenges

Review of energy storage technologies for sustainable power networks

Forecasting the behavior of an elderly using wireless sensors data in a smart home

The centralised power grid bears a heavy burden in a time when consumers expect an uninterrupted reliable power supply, a reduction in carbon emissions, increased efficiency within the national grid and power supplied to remote communities As expectations increase, it becomes the task of power systems research and design to develop new structures to meet these demands This has led to alternatives being sought for centralised power generation, which is prone to outages (due to long distance transmission), is a substantial contributor to global carbon emissions, has large transmission losses and is often not a practical solution when supplying remote communities Distributed generation (DG) looks to remedy these inadequacies by producing power close to its point of consumption, often utilising carbon neutral, renewable energy (RE) sources (sun, wind) To maximise the efficient use of DG, control structures are used to balance the intermittent RE power production with consumer power consumption One such structure is used to implement control of small scale DG, at a single house/small building level: the nanogrid This paper explores the current nanogrid research, it collates the existing definitions and uses the knowledge to give a concise definition of a nanogrid It then discusses the control topologies and techniques which enable the intelligent control of the nanogrid, before presenting the hardware platform used to ensure the efficient operation of a small scale DG system The paper then considers the interconnection of multiple nanogrids forming a network (microgrid), facilitating the sharing of power between individual nanogrids The future developments are then explored before the paper's conclusions are presented

A review of nanogrid topologies and technologies

Communication technologies for smart grid applications

The age span of elderly people is increasing and this trend may continue for another two decades. The independent living of elderly people are keen on fulfilling lives, but the self-regulating way of life involve with risks, such as weakening, memory loss or impaired judgment and falls that limit mobility. In particular, the daily home activity involving basic functions like preparing breakfast or food, showering, walking, sleeping, watching television, reading books etc., is a key indicator in determining the performance of elder home activity. An intelligent, robust, less cost, flexible and real time home monitoring unit has been developed to record the basic home activities and respond immediately when there is a change in the regular daily activity of the elder person. This paper will report our recent works on the development of intelligent algorithm to determine the behavior.

Ramesh Rayudu

Papers

Review of energy storage technologies for sustainable power networks

Forecasting the behavior of an elderly using wireless sensors data in a smart home

A review of nanogrid topologies and technologies

Communication technologies for smart grid applications

Wireless sensors network based safe home to care elderly people: behaviour detection