Scholarly works in the Department of Electrical/Electronics Engineering

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    Development of an Aerial Robotic Oil Spill Surveillance (AROSS) System for Constant Surveillance and Detection of Spills from Crude Oil Pipelines
    (2016) Ofualagba, Godswill; O’tega A. Ejofodomi
    Development of an aerial robotic oil spill surveillance (AROSS) system for constant surveillance and detection of spills from crude oil pipelines. International Journal of Unmanned Systems Engineering. 4(2): 19-33. Current crude oil spill detection methods can only be employed intermittently and do not detect spills at their onset. The Aerial Robotic Oil Spill Surveillance (AROSS) System is a novel system that addresses this limitation. A single AROSS system is a 550 mm x 550 mm quadcopter weighing 1.5 kg. Autonomous navigation of the system is achieved using a GY521 gyrometer, BM085 Altimeter, HC-SRO4 ultrasound sensor, and Global Positioning System (GPS) module. Spills emanating from crude oil pipelines are detected using MQ gas sensors. An LS-Y201-Infrared camera is used to capture images of the spill site. Xbee Pro 900HP modules establish wireless connection between the system and the base station up to 45 km away for transmitting spill data to surveillance teams. The AROSS system was tested on a 100 m section of an underground crude oil pipeline in Effurun, Nigeria. The threshold voltage for spill detection by the gas sensor was determined experimentally to be 2.93 V. The system successfully detected 1 liter crude, which corresponded to an output voltage of 2.95 V. Spill GPS location and images were remotely transmitted to a manned base station 100 m away from the pipeline. The AROSS system has the ability to provide autonomous and constant surveillance for crude oil pipelines, detect spills as soon as they occur, and inform the appropriate authorities.
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    Electricity Generation from Cow Dung Biogas
    (Bionline, 2019) Ofualagba, Godswill; Akpojaro, J; Akpojaro, M.A
    Energy is one of the most important factors for accelerating economic development. Due to rapid industrialization and urbanization in Nigeria over the few decades, there is a huge pressure and ever increasing demand of Electrical energy, which has resulted in a concentrated need for finding some alternative sources of energy. Biomass power which is electricity produced from biomass fuel is a renewable energy source steadily gaining importance and leading the way for economic development. Biogas is obtained from biomass waste fermentation process. The paper reviews the potentials of biogas for power generation. A small-scale biogas generation system was designed and implemented. We successfully modified the internal combustion engine, which works smoothly without any sign of audible knocking during the entire experimentation. Comparatively, results show that 1.8kg of biogas runs for 127 minutes with a load capacity of 1400 watts while 1 liter of fuel runs on the power generating system with a load input of 1400 watt. 1 liter of fuel operated on the power generating system for a period of 42 minutes after which the system shutdown due to complete consumption of the available fuel. It was observed that as the load input increased, voltage dropped and current increased. Financially 1.8kg of biogas costs far less than 1 liter of fuel. Thus, the application of this technology on a large scale in the power sector has significant potentials of increasing the installed electricity capacity being generated in Nigeria. Synergistically, it can help in waste management as well as providing a long-term sustainable approach to energy self-sufficiency and economic development in Nigeria.
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    Automated Volume Measurement, Adulteration Detection, and Tracking of Petroleum Products
    (Society of Petroleum Engineers, 2020) Ofualagba, Godswill; O'tega, Ejofodomi
    The quantity of crude oil, petrol, diesel, or kerosene stored in storage tanks by the refineries, bulk oil terminals/depots, bulk consumers and petrol pumps is measured by taking the "dip" or height of the product in the tank. The process is manual, and open to theft, manipulation, and inaccurate reporting. Furthermore, petroleum products adulteration is another major challenge as there are no devices capable of detecting adulteration at point of sale (POS) terminals. A significant volume of petroleum products in Nigeria are being diverted and adulterated by corrupt officials to create artificial scarcity or smuggle to neighbouring countries to earn higher profits. The Petroleum Product Volume Estimator and Tracker (PPVET) is a portable electronic device that automatically measures the volume of a petroleum product contained with a receptacle, be it calibrated or uncalibrated. PPVET is also capable of detecting and identifying pure petroleum products, and tracking petroleum products during transportation. The Petroleum Product Volume Estimator and Tracker has been designed, built, and tested in Effurun, Delta State, Nigeria. The unit accurately measured 9 L of kerosene in a vertical cylinder with a measurement error of 2.2%. The system also demonstrated the ability to distinguish between pure crude oil, diesel, kerosene and petrol, based on their chemical signature data from gas vapor emissions. PPVET demonstrated the ability to track the transportation of a petroleum product along an authorized route, to detect when the product was being diverted outside the authorized route, and to alert the appropriate authorities on the diversion occurence and the GPS location of the diversion. Future work includes testing the system for automated volume measurement of underground storage tanks and petroleum product tankers, testing the PPVET's ability to detect adulterated petroleum products and to quantity the level of adulteration present in a given petroleum product, and testing the PPVET product tracking capability on a petroleum tanker transporting petroleum products across the country.
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    Mini-Hydro Turbine: Solution to Power Challenges in an Emerging Society with Abundance of Water
    (Science Publishing Group, 2017) Ofualagba, Godswill; Okhueleigbe, Emmanuel Ighodalo
    The mini hydro turbine research is aimed at designing and constructing a hydro-electric power plant model that can generate electric power, which can be used at the domestic level to power electrical appliances. There are three main sections for the hydro turbine, such as the pelton wheel which rotate due to falling water from the water storage tank through the penstock, the alternator, been made of a permanent magnet rotor and conducting coil windings on the stator connected to the turbine through a runner, and the feedback system for the continuous flow of water. The result shows that the construction of mini hydro turbine plant is feasible and there were no major problems apparent at the design and implementation stages of the mini hydro turbine power plant.
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    Analysis of the Electricity Distribution Supply in Eastern Nigeria: Current Challenges and Possible Solutions
    (Journal of Electrical Engineering, Electronics, Control and Computer Science, 2021) Ofualagba, Godswill; Onyishi, Donatus Uchechukwu
    Electricity Distribution Company (EEDC) is the Distribution Company responsible for electricity disbursement for the South-East geopolitical zone in Nigeria, comprising of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo states. EEDC is allocated 9% of the total electricity generated by the 28 generating stations in the Nigeria's National Electricity Grid. This paper assesses the operational efficiency of EEDC in electricity distribution to its constituent states. Electricity Distribution Analysis on EEDC was conducted for the month of July 2020, using a Power Optimization Software. The results obtained showed that EEDC could only distribute 41.7% of the electricity required by its constituent states, resulting in only 10 hours of electricity in the region on any given day. EEDC's technical distribution losses decreased the number of hours of electricity available in the region from 23.4 ± 1.3 hours to 10.1 ± 0.5 hours. No algorithm is currently employed by EEDC in distributing available power, resulting in unpredictable and erratic power supply across the region. The recommended solutions for EEDC are investments in EEDC-owned Embedded Generation (EG) units to boost regional power generation, reduction and elimination of EEDC technical distribution losses, and implementation of an automated power disbursement algorithm using regional classification. Automated rationing and distribution of available grid electricity using region classification ensured commercial regions received the available electricity from EEDC during the day (7 a.m. - 5 p.m.) to promote industrial economic activities, while residential regions received the available electricity from EEDC at night (12 a.m. - 4 a.m. and 6 p.m. - 12 a.m.). It also made Grid Electricity from EEDC predictable and available when needed the most by consumers. These solutions would ensure, predictable and constant electricity supply in South-East Nigeria.
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    Automated Student Attendance Management System Using Face Recognition
    (Open Science Online, 2018-09-13) Ofualagba Godswill; Omijie Osas; Orobor Anderson; Ibhadode Oseikhuemen; Odiete Etse
    Attendance management system is a necessary tool for taking attendance in any environment where attendance is critical. However, most of the existing approach are time consuming, intrusive and it require manual work from the users. This research is aimed at developing a less intrusive, cost effective and more efficient automated student attendance management system using face recognition that leverages on cloud computing (CC) infrastructure called FACECUBE. FACECUBE takes attendance by using IP camera mounted in front of a classroom, to acquire images of the entire class. It detect the faces in the image and compares it with the enrolled faces in the database. On identification of a registered face on the acquired image collections, the attendance register is marked as present otherwise absent. The system is developed on Open Source image processing library hence, it is not vendor hardware nor software dependent.
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    Wind Energy Conversion System- Wind Turbine Modeling
    (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 2008) Ofualagba, G; Ubeku, E.U
    In this paper, a functional structure of a wind energy conversion system is introduced, before making a comparison between the two typical wind turbine operating schemes in operation, namely constant-speed wind turbine and variable speed wind turbine. In addition, the modeling and dynamic behavior of a variable speed wind turbine with pitch control capability is explained in detail and the turbine performance curves are simulated in the MATLAB/simulink.
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    Autonomous monitoring, analysis, and countering of air pollution using environmental drones
    (Cell Press, 2020) Godall Rohi; O'tega Ejofodomi; Godswill Ofualagba
    The effect of air pollution on the environment, economic and health of the people in the affected countries cannot be overemphasized. This paper investigates large scale air pollution elimination to remove pollutants that are already in existence in the environment. This method involves the use of Environmental Drones (E-drones) to autonomously monitor the air quality at a specific location. The E-drone flies up to a predetermined height (Ealtitude) every hour, measures the air pollutants at that location, implements on-board pollution abatement solutions for pollutants above the recommended threshold, and then flies back down to its location on the ground. The advantages of this system is its ability to measure air pollution concentration of CO2, CO, NH3, SO2, PM, O3 and NO2, detect when they are too high, and implement on-board pollution abatement solutions as needed. This system's novelty lies in the fact that it not only detects when there is excessive pollution, but it also automatically deals with and abates the detected air pollution above earth. When multiple E-drones are used in different locations, a custom software generates an Air Quality Health Index (AQHI) map of the region that can be used for present and long-term environmental analysis.