This thesis presents the design and implementation of control strategies for building energy management systems (BEMS). The controllers considered include the multi PI-loop controllers, state-space designs, constrained input and output MIMO adaptive controllers, fuzzy logic solutions and genetic algorithm techniques. The control performances of the designs developed using the various methods based on aspects such as regulation errors squared, energy consumptions and the settling periods are investigated for different designs. The aim of the control strategy is to regulate the room temperature and the humidity to required comfort levels. In this study the building system under study is a 3 input/ 2 output system subject to external disturbances/effects. The three inputs are heating, cooling and humidification, and the 2 outputs are room air temperature and relative humidity. The external disturbances consist of climatic effects and other stochastic influences. The study is carried out within a simulation environment using the mathematical model of the test room at Loughborough University and the designed control solutions are verified through experimental trials using the full-scale BMS facility at the University of Bradford.

In order to identify the weakest bus in a power system so that the Unified Power Flow Controller could be connected, an investigation of static and dynamic voltage stability is presented. Two stability indices, static and dynamic, have been proposed in the thesis. Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO) analysis has been used for the dynamic stability analysis. Results based on the Western System Coordinate Council (WSCC) 3-machine, 9-bus test system and IEEE 14 bus Reliability Test System (RTS) shows that these indices detect with the degree of accuracy the weakest bus, the weakest line and the voltage stability margin in the test system before suffering from voltage collapse. Recently, Flexible Alternating Current Transmission systems (FACTs) have become significant due to the need to strengthen existing power systems. The UPFC has been identified in literature as the most comprehensive and complex FACTs equipment that has emerged for the control and optimization of power flow in AC transmission systems. Significant research has been done on the UPFC. However, the extent of UPFC capability, connected to the weakest bus in maintaining the power flows under fault conditions, not only in the line where it is installed, but also in adjacent parallel lines, remains to be studied. In the literature, it has normally been assumed the UPFC is disconnected during a fault period. In this investigation it has been shown that fault conditions can affect the UPFC significantly, even if it occurred on far buses of the power system. This forms the main contribution presented in this thesis. The impact of UPFC in minimizing the disturbances in voltages, currents and power flows under fault conditions are investigated. The WSCC 3-machine, 9-bus test system is used to investigate the effect of an unsymmetrical fault type and position on the operation of UPFC controller in accordance to the G59 protection, stability and regulation. Results show that it is necessary to disconnect the UPFC controller from the power system during unsymmetrical fault conditions. / Libyan Government

This thesis aims to contribute to the developments of wireless communication systems. The work generally consists of three parts: the first part is a discussion on general digital communication systems, the second part focuses on wireless channel modelling and fading mitigation techniques, and in the third part we discuss the possible application of advanced digital signal processing, especially time-frequency representation and blind source separation, to wireless communication systems. The first part considers general digital communication systems which will be incorporated in later parts. Today's wireless communication system is a subbranch of a general digital communication system that employs various techniques of A/D (Analog to Digital) conversion, source coding, error correction, coding, modulation, and synchronization, signal detection in noise, channel estimation, and equalization. We study and develop the digital communication algorithms to enhance the performance of wireless communication systems. In the Second Part we focus on wireless channel modelling and fading mitigation techniques. A modified Jakes' method is developed for Rayleigh fading channels. We investigate the level-crossing rate (LCR), the average duration of fades (ADF), the probability density function (PDF), the cumulative distribution function (CDF) and the autocorrelation functions (ACF) of this model. The simulated results are verified against the analytical Clarke's channel model. We also construct frequency-selective geometrical-based hyperbolically distributed scatterers (GBHDS) for a macro-cell mobile environment with the proper statistical characteristics. The modified Clarke's model and the GBHDS model may be readily expanded to a MIMO channel model thus we study the MIMO fading channel, specifically we model the MIMO channel in the angular domain. A detailed analysis of Gauss-Markov approximation of the fading channel is also given. Two fading mitigation techniques are investigated: Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) and spatial diversity. In the Third Part, we devote ourselves to the exciting fields of Time-Frequency Analysis and Blind Source Separation and investigate the application of these powerful Digital Signal Processing (DSP) tools to improve the performance of wireless communication systems.

Au cours de la dernière décennie, les communications optiques en espace libre (FSO) ont pris de l’ampleur dans les deux domaines académiques et industriels. L’importance de FSO s’appuie sur la possibilité de faire un système de transmission économique et écologique avec un débit élevé et sans licence à l’opposition des systèmes de transmission radiofréquences (RF). Dans la plupart des travaux antécédents sur les systèmes multi-émetteurs, seulement les canaux décorrélés ont été considérés. Un canal décorrélé nécessite un espace suffisant entre les émetteurs. Cette condition devient difficile et non-réalisable dans certaines applications. Pour cette raison, nos études se focalisent sur les performances des codes à répétition RC (Repitition Codes) et les codes OSTBC (Orthogonal Space-Time Block Codes) dans des canaux log-normaux corrélés en utilisant une modulation d’intensité et une détection directe (IM/DD). En addition, les effets des différentes conditions météorologiques sur le taux d’erreur moyen (ABER) sont étudiés. Les systèmes FSO à multi-entrées/ multi-sorties MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output) avec une modulation SSK (Space Shift Keying) ont été abordés. Les résultats obtenus montrent que la SSK est supérieure aux RC avec une modulation d’impulsion (Multiple Pulse Amplitude Modulation) pour toute efficacité spectrale égale ou supérieure à 4 bit/s/Hz. Nous avons aussi analysé les performances d’un système à sauts multiples (Multi-Hop) et des relais à transmission directe (forward relays). Nos simulations montrent que le système ainsi considéré est efficace pour atténuer les effets météorologiques et les pertes géométriques dans les systèmes de communication FSO. Nous avons montré qu’un tel système avec plusieurs entrées et une sortie (MISO, i.e. multiple-input single-output) à sauts multiples est supérieur à un système MISO avec un lien direct (direct link) avec une forte atténuation. Pour satisfaire la demande croissante des réseaux de communication à débits élevés, la communauté scientifique s'intéresse de plus en plus aux systèmes FSO avec des relais full-duplex (FD). Pour ces derniers systèmes, nous avons étudié la probabilité d'erreur moyenne (ABER) et nous avons analysé leurs performances. En considérant des différentes conditions de transmission, les performances de relais FD ont été comparées à celles d'un système avec un lien direct ou des relais half-duplex. Les résultats obtenus montrent que les relais FD ont le minimum ABER. En conséquence, les résultats obtenus dans cette thèse sont très prometteurs pour la prochaine génération de FSO. / Free-space optical (FSO) communication has been the subject of ongoing research activities and commercial attention in the past few years. Such attention is driven by the promise of high data rate, license-free operation, and cheap and ecological friendly means of communications alternative to congested radio frequency communications. In most previous work considering multiple transmitters, uncorrelated channel conditions have been considered. An uncorrelated channel requires sufficient spacing between transmitters. However, this can be difficult and may not be always feasible in some applications. Thereby, this thesis studies repetition codes (RCs) and orthogonal space-time block codes performance in correlated log-normal FSO channels using intensity modulation and direct detection (IM/DD). Furthermore, the effect of different weather conditions on the average bit error rate (ABER) performance of the FSO links is studied. Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) FSO communication systems using space shift keying (SSK) modulation have been also analyzed. Obtained results show that SSK is a potential technique for spectral efficiencies equal or greater than 4 bits/s/Hz as compared to RCs with multiple pulse amplitude modulations. The performance analysis of a multi-hop decode and forward relays for FSO communication system using IM/DD is also considered in this thesis. It is shown that multi-hop is an efficient technique to mitigate atmospheric turbulence and different weather attenuation effects and geometric losses in FSO communication systems. Our simulation results show that multiple-input single-output (MISO) multi-hop FSO systems are superior to direct link and MISO systems over links exhibiting high attenuation. Meeting the growing demand for higher data rates communication networks, a system with full-duplex (FD) relays is considered. For such a system, the outage probability and the ABER performance are analyzed under different turbulence conditions, misalignment error and path loss effects. FD relays are compared with the direct link and half-duplex relays. Obtained results show that FD relays have the lowest ABER and the outage probability as compared to the two other systems. Finally, the obtained results in this thesis are very promising towards the next generation of FSO systems.