Solar panel or container loading

Project Title:Solar panel or container loading

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Aims

To come up with functional software based control system for solar panel.

To come up with experimental software representation for small scale stand alone power systems based on hydrogen and solar energy.

To test the power system software using various input parameters such as electrolyser power capacity, programmable power supply capacity, capacity of fuel cell, lead-acid battery power capacity, programmable load capacity and many other input parameters and/or variables.

To report on solar panel software system performance and operational experience based on inputs supplied and the generated system output.

To make use of solutions with wide working ranges in considering future expansion of the system test facility.

Objectives

The first objective is to be able to select and apply information system design methodology in the design and implementation of a software based solar panel system.

To analyze and design a methodology based solution, by applying system development life cycle(SDLC), process estimation and framework, process architecture, case driven processes, business modeling work flow, requirements workflow as well as applying analysis and design work flow.

To implement the methodologically driven solution through the construction and test phases.

Apply project management approaches, deployments, quality and standards as well as maintenance in ensuring project quality and maintainability.

Be able to make use of presentations, audience and documentation to evaluate the success or failure of projects in terms of aims, objectives, outcomes, techniques applied and improvement required.

Brief Description

The solar panel software based control system is used to implement stand alone power system based on hydrogen and solar energy. The system’s main function is to report performance and operational experience based on various parameter inputs. The input parameters are thus used to control the output by supplying different input values each time. The implementation is to consider various requirements specifications which may be classified as input, processing and output specifications (Miland and Ulleberg 2012).

Some of the typical requirements in this system include power rate for programmable power supply, power rate for electrolyser, power rate for programmable load, power rate for fuel cell all given in kilowatts(kW). In addition, hydrogen purification unit, metal hydride storage (in Nm3) and lead acid battery size (in ampere hours/ Ah) are also part of input requirements. One of the control actions to be built within the power system is to switch the components either ON or OFF (Miland and Ulleberg 2012).

The requirements are to be analyzed according to the relationships that exist between input parameters and the expected outputs via processing operations. The analysis can be done with the help of such tools as data flow diagrams, system flowcharts, pseudo codes and even decision tables to help appreciate how input data should flow into the system in terms of graphical and logic presentation to the outputs. The analysis of requirements needed for the system is conducted by the system analyst (Vivas, Agudo and López 2011, Vivas, Agudo and López 2011).

The analysis will also be carried out in terms of financial feasibility, operational feasibility, economic feasibility and all other relevant feasibility analysis. This will help in deciding whether the expected solar panel system is cost effective in relation to cost to be incurred as well as benefits to be realized in prospect. The system is considered cost effective if the sum total of developmental and operational benefits outweighs those of developmental and operational costs (Vivas, Agudo and López 2011, Vivas, Agudo and López 2011).

The information system methodology such as agile or waterfall models is then chosen to aid in the design of the solar panel system. The entire design is based on the requirements already analyzed in the analysis phase of development. The design will basically involve transformation of analyzed system specifications into solar panel system representation. This is therefore the blue print of the system to be implemented. The types of designs to be considered in this case include architectural design, logarithmic design; Design of data structures and files, component level design, interface design and data design (involves all inputs, processing and output. The data design comprises of input design, processing design, output design and database design where appropriate. The choice of design methodology at this stage is done by the system analyst (Vivas, Agudo and López 2011).

As long as the design is perfectly done, then this will translate to few or less errors when the design is converted to program code. The design tools will such as pseudo codes, system flow charts, decision tables among others will be used to represent the system blue print. In this stage, the system analyst is equated to an architect who lays down the frame work of a house or building. The programmer who is equated to an engineer comes in the next phase to implement or to build the system in accordance with the design specifications (Vivas, Agudo and López 2011).

The implementation of the system is to take place by first choosing a suitable programming language for coding purposes. The already designed system is then transformed into executable codes. The choice of language to use is determined by many factors such as type of system, facilities offered by the language, user friendliness, availability, reliability and many other factors. Some of the languages which can be considered in this case include structured languages such as ‘C’, C++ and others, object oriented programming like java and visual languages like Microsoft visual basic among others. The coded system can then be tested and debugged to remove syntax, logical, runtime errors and many others errors that may show up. Coding is normally done by the system programmer (Vivas, Agudo and López 2011, Vivas, Agudo and López 2011).

The system can finally be tested using the various input parameters described above in order to observe how the output behaves. This is the second level of testing which is done at the unit level, integration level, module level, system level and at a user acceptance level. This process is carried out by the system programmers in the presence of other stakeholders like users (Vivas, Agudo and López 2011).

Each and every stage above will be scheduled to take place for some given time frames. Gantt charts will be employed to schedule every activity, showing the start and finishing time. The critical path analysis will also be used to help determine the combination of project activities that last for the longest possible time vas compared to other activity combinations in other paths of the project network. Other project management practices to be considered in this case include deployment, quality standards and maintenance.

Special Conditions

It is assumed that the system description above is a prototype that will further help the system analyst and other stakeholders to revise requirements collection after demonstrating its functionality. The second assumption is that users of this system are present at every stage of development so that the system can be fine tuned according to their preference. Another assumption is that requirements are partially known from the beginning of the very first phase.

The project is also being developed from the scratch until the final deliverable is achieved. The development methodology also assumes waterfall model of system development life cycle. The next assumption is that this solar panel system is to be implemented from passive solar design and therefore the passive system is simple since it has few moving parts and need minimum maintenance. Id addition, this passive solar design does not need mechanical systems. One risk that is involved here is that the project must be implemented irrespective of the cost to be incurred in terms of time and money (Dell’Orto et al. 2012).

Resources

The resources required for the implementation of this system include computers, that is, either desktop or laptop. Human resources like programmers and system analyst will be required for the smooth running of all processes required to accomplish the system. Even users are part of the resources since their views are taken in to an account at every stage of development. Other resources may include information notebooks and pens to help in recording of other facts during the time of data collection.

Finances are also needed to cater for costs of data collection, cost of analysis, design and implementation. However, the time is the most important resource in this case because system components will have to finish up within the scheduled deadline. This is because increasing time constraint for a given activity in the project may mean delaying other deliverables for the other succeeding phases hence adding up again to the overall cost of implementing the system.

Comments:

The above system description is a conceptualized details and description of the software based solar panel control system that is expected. Given enough and relevant resources that are mentioned above, then the implementation part of it can be simpler. However, the success of the system will only be realized if all the stages described above are strictly followed to enhance high degree of accuracy as well as to avoid missing data. All the relevant stakeholders must also be present at all stages of this project management to avoid future victimization of future flaws in the system being directed to a single individual.

References

Miland, H, and Ulleberg, Ø, 2012, Testing of a small-scale stand-alone power system based on solar energy and hydrogen, Solar energy, 86(1), 666-680.

Dell’Orto, E, Raimondo, L,, Sassella, A, and Abbotto, A, 2012), Dye-sensitized solar cells: spectroscopic evaluation of dye loading on TiO 2, Journal of Materials Chemistry, 22(22), 11364-11369.

Vivas, J, L,, Agudo, I, and López, J, 2011, A methodology for security assurance-driven system development, Requirements Engineering, 16(1), 55-73.

Vivas, J. L, Agudo, I, and López, J, 2011, A methodology for security assurance-driven system development, Requirements Engineering, 16(1), 55-73.