Promoting Growth in the Use of Bioenergy in Europe by Converting Existing Coal-Fired Power Plants to Biomass

Repowering existing power plants by replacing coal with biomass might offer an interesting option to ease the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources and promote a fur-ther expansion of bioenergy in Europe, on account of the potential to decrease greenhouse gas emissions, as well as other pollutants (SOx, NOx, etcetera). In addition, a great part of the appeal of repowering projects comes from the opportunity to reuse the vast existing invest-ment and infrastructure associated with coal-based power generation. Even so, only a limited number of experiences with repowering are found. Therefore, efforts are required to produce technical and scientific evidence to determine whether said technology might be considered feasible for its adoption within European conditions. A detailed evaluation of the technical and economic aspects of this technology constitutes a powerful tool for decision makers to define the energy future for Europe. To better illustrate this concept, a case study is analyzed. A Slovakian pulverized coal plant was used as the basis for determining the effects on perfor-mance, operation, maintenance and cost when fuel is shifted to biomass. It was found that biomass fuel properties play a crucial role in plant repowering. Furthermore, results demon-strate that this technology offers renewable energy with low pollutant emissions at the cost of reduced capacity, relatively high levelized cost of electricity and sometimes, a maintenance-intensive operation. Lastly, regardless of the fact that existing equipment can be reutilized for the most part, extensive additions/modifications may be required to ensure a safe operation and an acceptable performance.

A Project Portfolio Tool for Forecasting Small Projects Profitability

The case company in this study is a large industrial engineering company whose business is largely based on delivering a wide-range of engineering projects. The aim of this study is to create and develop a fairly simple Excel-based tool for the sales department. The tool’s main function is to estimate and visualize the profitability of various small projects. The study also aims to find out other possible and more long-term solutions for tackling the problem in the future. The study is highly constructive and descriptive as it focuses on the development task and in the creation of a new operating model. The developed tool focuses on estimating the profitability of the small orders of the selected project portfolio currently on the bidding-phase (prospects) and will help the case company in the monthly reporting of sales figures. The tool will analyse the profitability of a certain project by calculating its fixed and variable costs, then further the gross margin and operating profit. The bidding phase of small project is a phase that has not been covered fully by the existing tools within the case company. The project portfolio tool can be taken into use immediately within the case company and it will provide fairly accurate estimate of the profitability figures of the recently sold small projects.

Applying Augmented Reality to Outdoors Industrial Use

Augmented Reality (AR) is currently gaining popularity in multiple different fields. However, the technology for AR still requires development in both hardware and software when considering industrial use. In order to create immersive AR applications, more accurate pose estimation techniques to define virtual camera location are required. The algorithms for pose estimation often require a lot of processing power, which makes robust pose estimation a difficult task when using mobile devices or designated AR tools. The difficulties are even larger in outdoor scenarios where the environment can vary a lot and is often unprepared for AR. This thesis aims to research different possibilities for creating AR applications for outdoor environments. Both hardware and software solutions are considered, but the focus is more on software. The majority of the thesis focuses on different visual pose estimation and tracking techniques for natural features. During the thesis, multiple different solutions were tested for outdoor AR. One commercial AR SDK was tested, and three different custom software solutions were developed for an Android tablet. The custom software solutions were an algorithm for combining data from magnetometer and a gyroscope, a natural feature tracker and a tracker based on panorama images. The tracker based on panorama images was implemented based on an existing scientific publication, and the presented tracker was further developed by integrating it to Unity 3D and adding a possibility for augmenting content. This thesis concludes that AR is very close to becoming a usable tool for professional use. The commercial solutions currently available are not yet ready for creating tools for professional use, but especially for different visualization tasks some custom solutions are capable of achieving a required robustness. The panorama tracker implemented in this thesis seems like a promising tool for robust pose estimation in unprepared outdoor environments.

The viability of a tool for fetal health monitoring

Health monitoring has become widespread these past few years. Such applications include from exercise, food intake and weight watching, to specific scenarios like monitoring people who suffer from chronic diseases. More and more we see the need to also monitor the health of new-born babies and even fetuses. Congenital Heart Defects (CHDs) are the main cause of deaths among babies and doctors do not know most of these defects. Hence, there is a need to study what causes these anomalies, and by monitoring the fetus daily there will be a better chance of identifying the defects in earlier stages. By analyzing the data collected, doctors can find patterns and come up with solutions, thus saving peoples’ lives. In many countries, the most common fetal monitor is the ultrasound and the use of it is regulated. In Sweden for normal pregnancies, there is only one ultrasound scan during the pregnancy period. There is no great evidence that ultrasound can harm the fetus, but many doctors suggest to use it as little as possible. Therefore, there is a demand for a new non-ultrasound device that can be as accurate, or even better, on detecting the FHR and not harming the baby. The problems that are discussed in this thesis include how can accurate fetus health be monitored non-invasively at home and how could a fetus health monitoring system for home use be designed. The first part of the research investigates different technologies that are currently being used on fetal monitoring, and techniques and parameters to monitor the fetus. The second part is a qualitative study held in Sweden between April and May 2016. The data for the qualitative study was collected through interviews with 21 people, 10 mothers/mothers-to-be and 11 obstetricians/gynecologists/midwives. The questions were related to the Swedish pregnancy protocol, the use of technology in medicine and in particular during the pregnancy process, and the use of an ECG based monitoring device. The results show that there is still room for improvements on the algorithms to extract the fetal ECG and the survey was very helpful in understanding the need for a fetal home monitor. Parents are open to new technologies especially if it doesn't affect the baby's growth. Doctors are open to use ECG as a great alternative to ultrasound; on the other hand, midwives are happy with the current system. The remote monitoring feature is very desirable to everyone, if such system will be used in the future.