Abstract This paper describes the advantages of using data acquisition systems and software modelling tools to support the assessment and therefore redesign of the existing medium voltage switchgear. A 38kV/630A load break linear puffer (LP) will be used as an example for this study. In house testing was conducted to capture important design parameters of the switch such as displacement, velocity of mechanical parts and gas pressure using various sensors and three different measurement setups. The first setup, which is primarily intended for no-load measurements, consists of a DAQ system equipped with different types of sensors - two rotational encoders, three laser-based distance sensors, six pressure sensors, contact separation measurement, and a high-speed camera integrated and synchronized with the measurement system. The second and third setups, which are suitable both for no-load and on-load measurements, are based on state-of-the-art DAQ systems, which use three piezo-electric based pressure sensors, two fibre-optic based pressure sensors, three laser-based distance sensors and a high speed camera synchronized with the measurement system. The data acquired by the measurement systems is used in combination with an in-house developed simulation software HV CB Simulation, which enables simulating and predicting various variables of switching devices. Moreover, high speed camera videos analysed with both commercial and in-house developed image processing software, visualize and reveal many otherwise inaccessible occurrences. In addition to a comprehensive analysis of the proposed data acquisition and simulation setups, three design improvements in the linear puffer design - increase of the opening speed, removal of the flexible conductors and the length increase of the puffer cylinder - are presented and discussed in this paper.

Car gates can be found in many private and business facilities. Typically, gates are controlled by commercially available electronic systems that allow users to remotely operate them. Most of those systems are based on robust RF 315/433MHz transmitters for remote control. These communication modules suffer from limited range and allow the user to establish only simplex communication. Today, with the rapid growth of the Internet of Things, not only that every driver has an Internet-enabled smartphone, but most modern cars are equipped with such systems as well. This paper proposes a prototype of an electronic gate control structure that allows users, in addition to the common gate-panel and an RF-based remote, to control and supervise the gate using an Internet connection (e.g. with a smartphone). Both hardware and software parts that are required to operate the gate are designed, developed, and presented in this paper. Experimental tests on the small-scale model are conducted to point out the device's advantages and disadvantages and propose guidelines for future work and development.

Counting the number of objects that are transported on a conveyor belt is frequently encountered in production facilities, airports or post offices. Although most of these tasks may usually be solved by using common photoelectric or inductive sensors, there are cases when objects have to be counted using more complex sensing systems based on machine vision. In this paper, an image-processing algorithm for segmenting, detecting and counting rectangular objects which are being transported on a conveyor belt is presented. The method is specifically designed to detect rectangular objects that can be partly occluded. The application is implemented using OpenCV/C++ library. Two different test scenarios are analyzed in the paper. Experimental results suggest that the proposed method has promising accuracy and it is applicable in real-world applications.

Abstract This paper presents the design and development of a distributed measurement system for measuring pressure in high voltage circuit breakers (HV CB) and other switching apparatuses, during no-load operations. Instead of using traditional pressure transducers which require significant installation space, additional data acquisition cards and often demand for complex wiring, an in-house solution of pressure measurement is proposed. The system consists of miniature sensors, accompanied with a suitable amplifier, microcontroller unit and communication module, which may be distributed inside the interrupter unit in convenient locations. Due to the fact that the measurement values are transmitted digitally, measurement noise is significantly reduced while the wiring of the system is additionally simplified. The proposed measurement system is tested using two different interrupters (HV CB and a load break switch). The experimental results have demonstrated that the developed system is applicable, accurate, cost-effective, flexible and simple to use.

Abstract The magnitude-based Fourier descriptors (FD) are frequently used in shape-based image retrieval, due to their efficiency and effectiveness. Unlike the phase-preserving Fourier descriptors, the magnitude-based Fourier descriptors are inherently invariant under rotation and starting point change, but they discard all valuable information contained in the phase of the Fourier coefficients (FCs). In order to preserve the coefficients’ phase, the orientation and starting point of the shape must be determined. In this paper, we conducted a comprehensive evaluation of different state-of-the-art methods for determining nominal shape orientation, which can be used to extract phase-preserving Fourier descriptors: the point of maximal radius, the axis of least inertia (moments), the phase of the first harmonic, the cross-correlation, the Procrustes distance and the pseudomirror points. The methods were compared in terms of sensitivity to non-rigid transformations, retrieval performance, computational complexity and computational time. The experimental results give insight into the pros and cons of all analyzed methods.

The trajectory of a moving object may be extracted from video using image processing algorithms. However, the quality of the extracted information largely depends on the frame rate and exposure time of the camera, thus it is difficult to capture fast movement using slower and less expensive cameras. To this end, we propose to use an active modulated light source for object tracking, interacting with exposure times and subsampling existing frames. A prototype of a multi-functional active visual marker is presented in this paper. The system is based on the ESP-WROOM-32 microcontroller, which is configured to use various communication protocols, namely WiFi 802.11, RF 2.4 GHz GFSK and RS485. The microcontroller controls the RGB LED, which is used as light source. In addition, the system can be synchronized with the external real-time clock. The experimental results have illustrated the advantages and disadvantages of the designed active markers and pointed out the directions for future work and development.