ANT COLONY OPTIMIZATION

ANT COLONY OPTIMIZATION

Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) technique is newly invented optimization technique to solve graphical optimization problem. It has been developed for combinatorial optimization problems. ACO are multi-agent system in which the behaviour of each single agent, called artificial ant or ant for short in the following, is inspired by the behaviour of real ants . ACO has been successfully employed to combinatorial optimization problems such as maximum loadability in voltage control study, loss minimization in distribution networks, unit commitment problem, multi0bjective reactive power compensation, and complex multi-stage decision problem.

ACO CONCEPT:
There is a path, along which ants are walking (for example from food source A to the nest E, and vice versa, as shown in Fig 1.

Suddenly an obstacle appears and the path is cut off. So at position B the ants walking from A to E (or at position D those walking in the opposite direction) have to decide whether to turn right or left. The path of ants followed is shown in Fig 2.

Because path BCD is shorter than BHD, the first ant following it will reach D before the first ant following path BHD which is shown in Fig.3. The result is that an ant returning from E to D will find a stronger trail on path DCB, caused by the half of all the ants that by chance decided to approach the obstacle via DCBA and by the already arrived ones coming via BCD: they will therefore prefer (in probability) path DCB to path DHB. As a consequence, the number of ants following path BCD per unit of time will be higher than the number of ants following EHD. This causes the quantity of pheromone on the shorter path to grow faster than on the longer one, and therefore the probability with which any single ant chooses the path to follow is quickly biased toward the shorter one. The final result is that very quickly all ants will choose the shorter path.
The algorithm that is going to be defined in the next sections is models derived from the study of real ant colonies. Therefore the system is called as Ant System (AS) and the algorithms as Ant algorithms.
The use of artificial ant colonies as an optimization tool, will have some major differences with a real (natural ant) one:
1. artificial ants will have some memory,
2. they will not be completely blind,
3. they will live in an environment where time is discrete.
Ant colony optimization is a major breakthrough in Engineering as well as non engineering applications

Clean Energy from BIOmass

Clean Energy from Biomass

Biomass is a renewable energy resource derived from the carbonaceous waste of various human and natural activities. It is derived from numerous sources, including the by-products from the timber industry, agricultural crops, raw material from the forest, major parts of household waste and livestock manure.

Biomass does not add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere as it absorbs the same amount of carbon in growing as it releases when consumed as a fuel. Its advantage is that it can be used to generate electricity with the same equipment or power plants that are now burning fossil fuels.

Biomass is an important source of energy and the most important fuel worldwide after coal, oil and natural gas. Traditional use of biomass is more than its use in modern application. In the developed world biomass is again becoming important for applications such as combined heat and power generation. In addition, biomass energy is gaining significance as a source of clean heat for domestic heating and community heating applications.
Biogas is a product of fermentation ( anaerobic process ) of organic material. Organic means substances from plants or animal origin and with a high content of carbon. The main goal of the fermentation is to produce biogas as a energy source of renewable energy. The main components are methane (CH4, round about 60 %) and carbon dioxide ( 30-40 %).

Digital ant for cyber security

Digital ant for cyber security

Ants are normally very fast and quick in action for searching food. Based on its activities, ant colony algorithm has been developed by the technology world and put it in many real time applications.
Even when its colony is under threat, it behave in such a way, it protect its colony from any intruders. Ants use swarming intelligence to detect intruders. While it detects a threat, it joins with many other ants to overcome their opponents.
This technique is effectively incorporated by cyber scientist into their security system at Wake Forest University, North Carolina, US. They call the ants as “digital ants” which will wander through computer networks looking for any intruders or worms or virus. Each time a digital ant detects any intruder, it is programmed to leave a strong digital scent ( a real ant leave a scent called as pheromones). The stronger scent trails attract more ants, producing the swarm that marks a potential computer infection. The researcher at the University has said that 3000 different types of digital ants could be deployed for evidence of a threat. As the digital ant moves over the network, they leave digital scent as trails to guide other ants.
This is very interesting which saves our computers and networks from viruses

Piezo Electric Power Generation on Road

Piezo Electric Power Generation on Road

In the last post, i have discussed about Solar road. The technological inventions are never going to end. The another try with the technology is that electric power generation from road by Piezoelectric effect. According to the principle, When a mechanical stress is applied over a Piezoelectric materials, it generate voltage or current.
This principle has been utilized in order to generate power in the order of Kilowatts / Km distance. In the design, the the road is integrated with Piezoelectric materials. Hence, while a vehicle moves over the road, due to its mechanical stress, electric power can be harvested. This will somewhat reduce our demand of electric power worldwide. I would like to thank the researcher who have done this wonderful contributions to the world.

An novel idea of Solar panels integrated with roads

Solar roads

The solar technology is going to make a another milestone. Normally solar panels are used to receive solar power from sun which is used for electrifying many electrical appliances such as lighting, solar car, electrifying house appliances and so on.
The roads are running all over the world, think about that if all the roads are integrated with solar panels, then the tremendous amount of solar power can be extracted which can be used for all the electric appliances. This will in turn improve the shortage of power worldwide.
In addition to this, the power extracted can be used for making signals on the black roads. This will enhance the smooth riding on roads.

1G, 2G, 3G and 4G telecome technology

Cell phones are used millions and billions of users worldwide. How may of us know the technology behind cell phones that is used for our communication? I have also intrigued about the type of technology used in my phone. What are 1G, 2G, 3G and 4G technologies? I would like to share some of these thoughts in this article

1G, 2G, 3G & 4G ("G" stands for "Generation") are the generations of wireless telecom connectivity

1G (Time Division Multiple Access and Frequency Division Multiple Access ) was the initial wireless telecom network system. It's out-dated now . The analog “brick phones” and “bag phones” are under 1G technology. Cell phones era began with 1G.

The next era, 2G has taken its place of 1G. Cell phones received their first major upgrade when they went from 1G to 2G. This leap effectively took cell phones from analog to digital. 2G and 2.5G were versions of the GSM and CDMA connections. And GSM is still the most popular technology, but with no internet. Fortunately, GPRS, an additional service, is provided over GSM for the purpose of internet access. GPRS has been developed and thus, EGPRS was created . It's more secure and faster than GPRS.

Then 3G came, the new Wireless CDMA technology. It is the first wireless telecom technology that provides broadband-speed internet connection on mobile phones. It has been specially made for the demand of internet on smart phones. Further development led to the creation of 3.5G, which provides blazing fast internet connection on phones, up to the speed of 7.2 MBPS. A smart phone can be connected to a PC to share its internet connection and 3G and 3.5G are ideal for this. But, as this WCDMA technology is not available in all regions, its not as popular as GSM yet. Before making the major leap from 2G to 3G wireless networks, the lesser-known 2.5G was an interim standard that bridged the gap. Following 2.5G, 3G ushered in faster data-transmission speeds so you could use your cell phone in more data-demanding ways. This has meant streaming video (i.e. movie trailers and television), audio and much more. Cell phone companies today are spending a lot of money to brand to you the importance of their 3G network.

4G, which is also known as “beyond 3G” or “fourth-generation” cell phone technology, refers to the entirely new evolution. Developers are now going for 4G (OFDMA), which will provide internet upto the speed of 1 GBPS! It is said to be able to overcome the problems of weak network strength and should provide a much wider network, making sure that the users get high-speed connectivity anytime anywhere. No doubt, 4G will open new doors of revolutionary internet technologies, but for now, 3G and 3.5G are the best. 4G will allow for speeds of up to 100Mbps. 4G promises voice, data and high-quality multimedia in real-time form all the time and anywhere.
Whatever technology that comes or goes, I am still using only 2G technology phone which is cheaper and more comfortable for me

Invisible solar roof

Invisible solar roof

The future world will be electrified with the help of renewable energy sources. One such in exhaustible energy source is solar energy. Now a days, solar panels have been replacing the conventional energy for electrifying any of the electrical appliances. Though it is not accepted all the people due to its high cost, many people are changing their taste to solar powered home or vehicles. In this connection, if any home is powered with solar energy, i will be distinguishably visible to all that the house is using the solar energy or power.
Because the solar panels are visible over the roof. In modern technology in the solar energy era has changed its design in such a way that the solar panels are invisibe, on the other hand i can state that it is integrated within the roof itself. This is what shown in the figure. Hence, no one can identify whether that particular house is backed with solar energy. What a great technology revolution?

Novel Engineering projects from electrofriends

Novel Engineering projects from electrofriends

Final students are in hunting of their engineering projects. Novel projects in different areas are required for them. Electrofriends is one such website where plenty of engineering projects are available.

The project list varies from microcontroller based projects to computer oriented control. Few of the projects are vehicle monitoring and safety, robotic car controlled by 8951 micro controller, solar tracking system, Intelligent train engines, Digital IC tester. Even this site includes some famous C++ programming based project. Sudoku using C++ coding is very interesting puzzle to solve.
One important thing is that we can submit our own engineering projects. Really a lot of collections of projects are available.