Centre for Sustainable Smart Cities

“Real-time monitoring and control of temperatures in an aquaponic system to ensure sustainability” is one of the projects funded by the Centre for Sustainable Smart Cities in the Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology at the Central University of Technology.

In order to combat falling water temperatures in an aquaponic system during winter times, the project aimed to model, design, construct, monitor and control a water heating system. The study made use of an evacuated tube system to keep the water temperature above 7⁰C during the winter season and used the internet of things for data collection and storage. The electrical engineering part of the project focuses on the modelling of the system, whereafter the system will be build and controlled by the use of a microprocessor. An ESP microcontroller is envisaged to do all the required measurements and to communicate the values via a Wi-Fi unit to a cloud server, such as Google drive. Temperatures of the main reservoir, the flood and drain as well as the deep-water grow beds must be monitored. Results from the developed model and the physical system will be compared and interpreted in order to make useful recommendations.

The project leaders are Prof Hertzog and Prof Swart. The email address for Prof Hertzog is ([email protected]).

The “Energy Efficient Electro-Hydraulic Control System for a Collaborative Humanoid Robot” is one of the projects funded by the Centre for Sustainable Smart Cities in the Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology at the Central University of Technology.

An electro-hydraulic control system is described in this research in which the system allows the human user to manipulate a humanoid robot by having it mimic the user’s moves. This approach allows the user to not do any strenuous activities while the robot does the heavy lifting. This collaborative system does not need to be reprogrammed for a new task, therefore reducing the reconfiguration time of the system. The approach further allows the robot to work in hazardous environments while the user is in a safe environment.

The research aims to:
Design, simulate and construct an electro-hydraulic collaborative humanoid robot system that will help reduce the energy consumption of humanoid robots during operation but mostly when idle.
Use hydraulic actuators in combination with an electronic system to construct a humanoid that will mimic human motion in real-time to achieve collaboration.

The objectives are to:
Increase the energy efficiency of collaborative humanoid robots.
Increase the overall Power density of the robot to enable it to lift higher loads.

The project leader is Dr E.D. Markus. The email address for Dr Markus is ([email protected]).

The “Smart Feeder” is one of the projects funded by the Centre for Sustainable Smart Cities in the Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology at the Central University of Technology.
The project aims to develop an artificial intelligent (AI) vision system for an intelligent automatic animal feeder, which can identify individual animals and dispense feed according to the specific animal needs.
The project leaders are Dr BJ Kotze and Mr PS Veldtsman. The email address for Dr Kotze is ([email protected]).

The “Design of a hybrid solar assisted air source heat pump water heater: Modelling and simulation” is one of the projects funded by the Centre for Sustainable Smart Cities in the Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology at the Central University of Technology.
The aim of the research is to develop a method to evaluate the techno-economic performance of a domestic hybrid solar assisted air source heat pump water heater via the thermo-fluid and artificial neural network models.
The main objectives include;
i. To develop thermo-fluid models to model the evaporator, compressor, condenser and expansion valve of the air source heat pump unit in the hybrid solar-assisted heat pump system.
ii. To develop thermo-fluid models to model the solar collector and storage tank of the solar water heater in the hybrid solar-assisted heat pump system.
iii. To develop a thermo-fluid model to predict the overall performance of the hybrid solar assisted air source heat pump water heater
iv. To develop a time series artificial neural network to forecast the techno-economic performance of the overall hybrid solar assisted air source heat pump water heater.
iv. To design, installed and monitor the performance of a hybrid solar assisted air source heat pump water heater
The project leaders are Prof K Kusakana and Dr Stephen Tangwe. The email address for Prof K Kusakana is ([email protected]).

The launch of the Centre for Sustainable Smart Cities, as well as the 22nd annual research seminar of the Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology, were well attended by industry and engineering staff.

All attendees at the launch of the Centre for Sustainable Smart Cities received the new logo in the form of a few gifts.

Prof M Masinde and Prof Y Woyessa with the new logo for the Centre for Sustainable Smart Cities.

At the official opening of the Centre for Sustainable Smart Cities, an overview of research and innovation initiatives in FEBIT were presented by Prof Y Woyessa (Assistant Dean: Innovation, Research and Engagement).

The Centre for Sustainable Smart Cities will be launched at the 22nd annual research seminar of the Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology. This will happen on 17 October 8h00 in the Japie Van Lill auditorium. After the official logo has been revealed this page will also start posting information regarding the centre.