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The construction sector is the second largest area for the application for plastics. Due to the long life times of construction products, the implementation of the circular economy faces its own challenges. To investigate this challenge, the study covers a market study for Germany, voluntary take-back and recycling schemes of construction products, as well as the use of plastic recyclates in construction products. In addition, plastic packaging of construction products is covered. Opportunities and barriers to the use of recycled plastics in construction products are derived from the intersection of available technologies, recyclate supply, and technical requirements for construction products. The report concludes with recommendations to various stakeholders on how to promote the use of recyclates in construction products and their packaging. Important points here are the introduction of a recyclate quota for films as construction product packaging and the description of recycling possibilities and recyclate content in the technical documentation of construction products.

Consumer behavior is a critical consideration for the development of sustainable waste management systems, including waste batteries, which pose a serious threat to human health and the environment if disposed of improperly. This study investigates the consumers’ perspective on the waste battery collection and recycling behaviors in Australia, and analyses their implications for the development of recycling schemes. The results show that, although general awareness exists among consumers about the negative impacts of improper disposal, this awareness was not reflected during the disposal of waste batteries among the participants. Insufficient knowledge about the waste battery collection points and convenience were the most important factors affecting the inappropriate disposal behavior from most of the consumers. Over 50% of participants were unaware of the collection points for waste batteries. The most-preferred battery collection systems involved a deposit return system similar to that used for bottle recycling in the state of New South Wales (NSW) or collection at supermarkets/retailers. The most preferred methods for providing an incentive to recycle batteries were “old-for-new” battery swaps, “vouchers that could be used for other items in a store,” and “cash payments.” Several policy implications have been highlighted from this pioneering study that could shape the future development of sustainable waste battery management systems in Australia.

Lithium-ion batteries have become one of the most promising technologies for speeding up clean automotive applications, where electrode plays a pivotal role in determining battery performance. Due to the strongly-coupled and highly complex processes to produce battery electrode, it is imperative to develop an effective solution that can predict the properties of battery electrode and perform reliable sensitivity analysis on the key features and parameters during the production process. This paper proposes a novel tree boosting model-based framework to analyze and predict how the battery electrode properties vary with respect to parameters during the early production stage. Three data-based interpretable models including AdaBoost, LPBoost, and TotalBoost are presented and compared. Four key parameters including three slurry feature variables and one coating process parameter are analyzed to quantify their effects on both mass loading and porosity of battery electrode. The results demonstrate that the proposed tree model-based framework is capable of providing efficient quantitative analysis on the importance and correlation of the related parameters and producing satisfying early-stage prediction of battery electrode properties. These can benefit a deep understanding of battery electrodes and facilitate to optimizing battery electrode design for automotive applications.

Frequencies above 100 GHz are the promising frequency bands for 6G wireless communication systems because of the abundant unexplored and unused spectrum. The increasing global demand for ultra-high spectral efficiencies, data rates, speeds and bandwidths in next-generation wireless networks motivates the exploration of peak capabilities of massive MIMO (Multi–Input–Multi–Output) wireless access technology at THz bands (0.1–10 THz). The smaller wavelengths (order of microns) of these frequencies give an advantage of making high gain antennas with smaller physical dimensions and allows massive spatial multiplexing. This paper presents the design of ultra-massive MIMO (ultra-mMIMO) hybrid beamforming system for multi users and its feasibility to function at THz frequency bands. The functionality of the proposed system is verified at higher order modulation schemes to achieve higher spectral efficiencies using performance metrics that includes error vector magnitude, symbol constellations, and antenna array radiation beams. The performance results suggest to use a particular mMIMO antenna configuration based on number of independent data streams per user and strongly recommended to use higher number of data streams per user in order to achieve higher throughputs that satisfy the needs of 6G wireless systems. Also the performance of the proposed system at 0.14 THz is compared with mmWave systems that operate at 28 GHz and 73 GHz bands to justify the feasibility of the proposed work.

An integrated circuit fabricated using industry-standard 40 nm complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor technology can combine silicon quantum devices, digital addressing and analogue multiplexed dispersive readout electronics., As quantum computers grow in complexity, the technology will have to evolve from large distributed systems to compact integrated solutions. Spin qubits in silicon quantum dots are thought to offer good scalability because both spin-carrying quantum dots and support complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) electronics can, in principle, be monolithically integrated on a single chip. However, monolithically integrated quantum-classical hybrid circuits based on industry-standard CMOS technology remain limited. Here we report a millikelvin integrated circuit fabricated using 40 nm CMOS technology that integrates silicon quantum-dot arrays with support electronics in an architecture that allows the array to be efficiently addressed and read. The architecture contains integrated microwave lumped-element resonators for dispersive sensing of the charge state of the quantum dots, mediated via digital transistors in a column-row-addressing distribution. With the chip, we demonstrate combined time- and frequency-division multiplexing, which scales sublinearly the resources as well as footprint required for readout.

Ultrafast charge/discharge process and ultrahigh power density enable dielectrics essential components in modern electrical and electronic devices, especially in pulse power systems. However, in recent years, the energy storage performances of present dielectrics are increasingly unable to satisfy the growing demand for miniaturization and integration, which stimulates further researches on dielectrics with higher energy density and efficiency. Among various inorganic dielectrics, perovskite relaxor ferroelectrics are recognized as promising candidates for energy storage applications, with high permittivity and relatively high efficiency. Here, we focus on recent progress and achievements on optimizing perovskite relaxor ferroelectrics toward better energy storage capability through hierarchical design. The principles and key parameters of dielectric energy storage, together with the definition of majority types of dielectrics, are introduced at first. Strategies within various scales include domain, grain size, orientation, and composite engineering are summarized. The existing challenges are presented and future prospects are proposed in the end, with the background of both academic explorations and industrial applications.

The influence of online and offline dual recycling channels in a closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) is investigated in our work. The CLSC models of three recycling modes (single online recycling, single offline recycling, and dual recycling channels of online and offline) are established, respectively, and the impact of government subsidies on the pricing decision-making and recycling mode selection of channel members is therefore researched. The study found that the remanufacturer sets appropriate recycling price and transfer price to coordinate online and offline recycling channels and maximize its profits in the dual recycling modes; collector's offline recycling faces the competitive threat of remanufacturers' online recycling under the dual recycling modes, so the collector prefers a single offline recycling mode; the relationship between the collection quantities of the three modes depends on consumers' preference of the online recycling channel. In the meanwhile, it is illustrated that government subsidy plays a positive role in promoting the recycling and remanufacturing willingness of remanufacturers and collectors. This work provides practical insights for the CLSC system to make recycle decisions.

The double gate junctionless transistor (DG-JLT) has become the most promising device in sub nano-meter regime. DGJLT based circuits have improved performance and simpler fabrication than their inversion mode counterparts. This paper demonstrates the design of different analog and digital circuits using DGJLT. Amplifiers and inverters are the basic building block of electronic ICs. A MOS amplifier converts the variation of the gate to source voltage to a small current under transconductance and hence, the output voltage. A single-stage amplifier and differential amplifier have been designed with junctionless-double-gate (JL-DG) MOSFET. Trans-conductance, output voltage, and gain have been investigated using ATLAS 2D device simulator. The inverter is the primary logic gate that can be used to verify the device's response in digital applications. Further, CMOS inverter have been designed using JL-DG MOSFET, and its performance parameters such as switching voltage, noise margin, and logic delay have been analyzed. A switching voltage of 0.43 V, noise margin of 0.265 V, and a delay of 19.18 psec have been obtained for the basic cell. CMOS inverter using JL-DG MOSFET at 20 nm technology node have prompted better performance results. Thus, The JL-DG MOSFET has a bright future in low-power analog and digital applications.

Diamond is a typical super-hard material with very high thermal conductivity. This makes is highly suited to heat dissipation from electronic microchips. The stability of its chemical lattice structure, however, means it has no free-electrons and a high melting point, making machining of diamond difficult. In this study, a micro-energy w-EDM (wire-Electric Discharge Machining) power source with dual-capacitance is designed for using high-frequency spark erosion to precisely cut boron-doped nano-polycrystalline diamond (B-NPD) material. The power source design consists of a dual-capacitance circuit, a programmable logic circuit (PLC), and a metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET). By utilizing a high-frequency switching dual-capacitance circuit, each capacitor has enough charge/discharge time to create a micro-energy pulse train of uniform iso-pulse on-time (τon) and iso-pulse peak current (Ip). Material removal occurs rapidly so that micro-quantities of diamond are readily removed to reduce the probability of thermal damage and graphitization. The technique allowed successful machining of a highly consistent plate-finned diamond heat-sink array and trapezoid-pillar diamond heat-sink array. Furthermore, manufacturing using the designed low-energy power-source is highly efficient. To estimate machining efficiency in terms of the content of charge per unit volume per unit of time in diamond cutting, “Charge Density (CD)” is proposed and examined as an evaluation criterion. The following are all discussed in detail: work frequency, work capacitance, wire-electrode number and short-circuiting percentage, heat-erosion on fins of different thicknesses, and fin efficiency.

In recent times, transportation electrification has been recognized as one of the key solutions to accelerate global GHG emission reductions. As the electric vehicle industry grows faster, plug-in electric vehicles (PEV) are expected to be the most dominant load in the utility sector in less than a decade. Regular charging of the battery energy storage system (BESS) is a mandate for the continued operation of the vehicle, and the PEVs are connected to the utility to charge. Since PEVs are mobility loads, predicting the interconnection of these mobility loads in the utility network for recharging is a major challenge. The intermittent connection of mobility loads to the grid for charging leads to an unpredictable increase in electricity demand and other grid-related issues. Optimal scheduling of PEV charging would conquer the grid-related issues and provide financial benefits to the users. In this paper, an intelligent charge scheduling technique of PEV charging for both residential and commercial charging stations using the heuristic algorithm is proposed and discussed. The primary objective of the algorithm is to achieve the minimization of PEV charging costs by implementing an interrupted charging schedule. The proposed algorithm is tested by conducting exhaustive simulation studies under several conditions for PEVs with different power ratings for residential and commercial charging scenarios. The time-of-use pricing (ToUP) system is adopted as a tariff system in this paper. A detailed comparison of the unscheduled algorithm, the modified placement algorithm (MPA) and proposed heuristic technique-based charge scheduling is carried out through simulation studies. A detailed cost analysis for charging the PEVs with the selected charge scheduling techniques for various conditions is conducted and cost minimization by implementing the proposed charging scheme is validated.

Stacked Dielectric Triple Material Cylindrical Gate All Around (SD-TM-CGAA) Junctionless MOSFET has been explored for low power applications. This paper presents an analytical model of subthreshold current of Stacked Dielectric Triple Material Cylindrical Gate All Around (SD-TM-CGAA) Junctionless MOSFET. The analytical results are compared with TMSG MOSFET and good agreement was obtained. The sub-threshold current of the device is very low and is considered for the implementation of CMOS inverter. A PMOS transistor is designed and the drive current of the PMOS transistor is tuned with the NMOS device to obtain the ideal matching in the drive current. A CMOS inverter has been designed. The transient and DC behavior of the device have been examined. The power dissipation of the CMOS inverter has been computed and compared with the CMOS DMG-SOI JLT inverter. The power dissipation is found to be 5 times less for the proposed device as compared to the CMOS DMG-SOI JLT inverter. This exhibits an excellent improvement in power dissipation which is useful for making low-power future generation devices.

This paper analyzes the influence of a DC-link capacitor under open-switch failures in hybrid active neutral point clamped (ANPC) inverters that consist of Si-IGBTs and SiC-MOSFETs. Open-switch failures cause the current harmonic distortion of DC-link capacitors. This distorted current affects the capacitor loss increase, which in turn affects the lifetime decrement of the DC-link capacitor. These influences of open-switch failures on inverter operation have not been discussed despite the fact that they lead to secondary failures of the system. In this paper, the influence of open-switch failure is analyzed based on the current harmonics of the DC-link capacitor, which experiences the highest failure rate. Simulation and experimental results demonstrate the effects of various open-switch failure scenarios on DC-link capacitors in terms of current harmonics and lifetime.

Accurate estimation of battery State of Charge (SOC) is a crucial factor for the safe and efficient usage of the batteries in hybrid electric vehicles. The combined method of Coulomb counting and Open circuit Voltage (OCV) is already under practical usage for the estimation of battery SOC, but the methods have significant error when there is parasitic current leakage (dark current) or short rest period. Thus, Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) is one of the battery SOC estimation methods used to overcome such drawbacks. And, most importantly, due to structural dependency of EKF upon battery model, the battery model used for the EKF contributes significantly to the accuracy of EKF. Thus, in this paper, 3 types of battery Equivalent Circuit Models (ECMs) including second order RC model, first order RC model, and R model are compared under practical vehicle driving conditions. To simulate the vehicle driving condition, a micro Hybrid Electric Vehicle (micro-HEV) is modeled and simulation is conducted under NEDC condition.

High-energy batteries for automotive applications require cells to endure well over a decade of constant use, making their long-term stability paramount. This is particularly challenging for emerging cell chemistries containing silicon, for which extended testing information is scarce. While much of the research on silicon anodes has focused on mitigating the consequences of volume changes during cycling, comparatively little is known about the time-dependent degradation of silicon-containing batteries. Here we discuss a series of studies on the reactivity of silicon that, collectively, paint a picture of how the chemistry of silicon exacerbates the calendar aging of lithium-ion cells. Assessing and mitigating this shortcoming should be the focus of future research to fully realize the benefits of this battery technology. Silicon-containing batteries are increasingly becoming a reality in the mass market, but their calendar aging behaviours have received comparatively little attention. Researchers from the Silicon Consortium Project discuss the issues surrounding the calendar lifetime of silicon anodes for lithium-ion batteries.

In Wireless Rechargeable Sensor Networks (WRSNs), charging scheme optimization is one of the most critical issues, which plays an essential role in deciding the sensors’ lifetime. An effective charging scheme should simultaneously consider both the charging path and the charging time. Existing works, however, mainly focus on determining the optimal charging path and adopt the full charging strategy. The full charging approach may increase the sensors’ charging delay and eventually lead to sensor energy depletion. This paper studies how to optimize the charging path and the charging time at the same time to avoid energy depletion in WRSNs. We first formulate the investigated problem with a Mixed-Integer Linear Programming model. We then leverage the bi-level optimization approach and represent the targeted problem with two levels: the charging path optimization at the upper level and the charging time optimization at the lower level. A combination of Genetic Algorithm and Greedy method is proposed to determine the optimal charging path. Besides, to reduce the computational complexity of charging time identification level, we propose a Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm to optimize the charging time of the best charging path in each evolutionary generation. The experimental validation on various network scenarios demonstrates our proposed charging scheme’s superiority over the existing algorithms.

A low current ripple high step-up interleaved boost converter with switched-capacitors and switched-inductors that can be used in renewable resources such as photovoltaic energy and fuel cells is studied in this paper. In the proposed converter, the voltage gain is significantly increased and the voltage stresses of the switches are reduced by applying two switched-inductor units to replace individual inductors and by adding a switched-capacitor network to the output side. In addition, the current ripple of the inductor branch is reduced with the help of introducing a coupled-inductor, while the dynamic response speed remains almost unchanged. Therefore, smaller inductors can be used to reduce the volume of the converter. In this paper, the operating principles; the steady-state performance including the voltage gain, the voltage stresses of the switching devices, and the current ripple of the inductor; and transient-state performance of the proposed topology are analyzed. Moreover, the design criteria of the coupled-inductor are given in detail, and the double closed-loop PI controllers are designed. Finally, experimental results are given for a 160 W, 18 V input to 240 V output prototype. These results verify the correctness of the theoretical analysis. In addition, the efficiency analysis and power calculations are also discussed.

Along with the rapid development of flexible and wearable electronic devices, there have been a strong demand for flexible power sources, which has in turn triggered considerable efforts on the research and development of flexible batteries. An ideal flexible battery would have not only just high electrochemical performance but also excellent mechanical deformabilities. Therefore, battery constituent components, chemistry systems, device configurations, and practical applications are all pivotal aspects that should be thoroughly considered. Herein, we systematically and comprehensively review the fundamentals and recent progresses of flexible batteries in terms of these important aspects. Specifically, we first discuss the requirements for constituent components, including the current collector, electrolyte, and separator, in flexible batteries. We then elucidate battery chemistry systems that have been studied for various flexible batteries, including lithium-ion batteries, non-lithium-ion batteries, and high-energy metal batteries. This is followed by discussions on the device configurations for flexible batteries, including one-dimensional fiber-shaped, two-dimensional film-shaped, and three-dimensional structural batteries. Finally, we summarize recent efforts in exploring practical applications for flexible batteries. Current challenges and future opportunities for the research and development of flexible batteries are also discussed.

The main aim of device scaling or usage of different technology is to reduce power. The major problem with technology scaling is power dissipation and stability of the device. SRAM is an integral part of any memory, different topologies are proposed in SRAM to address the problem of power dissipation and stability in nanometer technologies. FinFET based devices have proven to be the better alternative for having low power dissipation in any SRAM. In the low dimension devices, the process variations have to be considered in low power applications. In this paper data retention voltage, a parameter used for estimation of cell stability is considered and also the leakage power with a variation of transistor functionality. Cadence Virtuoso tool is used to evaluate process corner analysis with 18 nm FinFET technology. The data retention voltage in fast-slow (FS) corner is low and it is high in fast–fast (FF) corner at low temperatures and when the temperature is high FF corner has a high data retention voltage. Similarly, the leakage power is low at the TT process corner maintaining stability.

The importance of reasonable pricing strategy for electric vehicle batteries under the background of government subsidies has been recognized. However, variable government subsidy policy may highly impact the pricing strategy of electric vehicle batteries recycling market in its infancy. There is an urgent need to discover the hidden electric vehicle batteries relation, give the pricing strategy, and suggest the effective policy design. The paper studies the optimal pricing strategies for electric vehicle batteries in three different Chinese recycling channels in the government subsidies situation by using Stackelberg game. And then, the model is simulated in decentralized decision-making and centralized decision-making, respectively, to explain the relationship among parameters using MATLAB. Finally, a numerical experiment derived from the market data of electric vehicles in China and existing literature is used to show the effectiveness of Stackelberg model, proving that our approach can contribute to closed-loop supply chain pricing strategy for electric vehicle batteries recycling under government subsidies. Results show that the government should increase the subsidy of electric vehicle batteries recycling and urge the electric vehicle enterprises to take responsibility of batteries recycling. The total profit of the closed-loop supply chain with centralized decision-making is higher than the decentralized decision-making, so the upstream and downstream of the supply chain should strengthen communication to achieve profit growth. It significantly provides a theoretical basis for the enterprises in the electric vehicle batteries recycling closed-loop supply chain to formulate pricing strategies under three recycling models and provides suggestion for the government in the designing power battery recycling subsidy policy.

In a given environment, individuals with genetic properties that are appropriate for the environment are more likely to survive or produce more offspring than those who are not. In a standard competition, technical standards suitable for the environment are more likely to win than those that do not. In the 4th wireless telecommunication industry, technology standard Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) and Long Term Evolution (LTE) compete with each other. The early time of the 4th wireless telecommunication industry, WiMAX had been considered as a first-moving technology standard. The first-moving technology standard is very important due to its possibilities to make the players with the standard to be on the advantageous position in the industry. However, potential strong technology standard LTE substituted the position of WiMAX and become surviving technology in the industry. To understand and interpret this standard competition process, we use Evolutionary game theory as its research methodology and consider the quality features and quantitative features of patent. From this research, we find that (1) LTE is more suitable for the environment than WiMAX. So LTE survive from the competition even though LTE is not a first-moving technology standard. (2) In determining surviving technology standard, key consumers can have a much greater impact than a number of suppliers.

In this paper, we suggest to optimize both power allocation coefficients, harvesting and sensing durations for cognitive radio networks using non orthogonal multiple access (CR-NOMA). In the first slot, secondary transmitter harvests energy from radio frequency signal received from node A. In the second slot, secondary transmitter sense the channel to check if primary user is active or not. When primary user is idle, secondary transmitter transmits data to N NOMA users in the third slot. We derive and optimize the total throughput for Rayleigh channels.

In this paper, an UWB micro-strip antenna design has been proposed which is suitable for future cognitive radio applications. The geometry of proposed antenna is composed of two semi-circles with their interior modified in order to achieve higher impedance bandwidth. The semi-etched ground provides further bandwidth enhancement. The proposed antenna is fabricated on an inexpensive dielectric substrate FR-4 with relative permittivity of 4.4 and thickness of 1.6 mm. The overall dimensions of UWB antenna are 60 × 60 × 1.6 mm and have a bandwidth of 5.7 GHz. The designed antenna covers the most commonly used wireless communication bands such as DCS-1800, ISM bands, GPS, Wi-MAX, WLAN, 3G, 4G, etc. The design process and the variations in antenna’s performance due to different parameters has been discussed. The design and simulation of the antenna are carried out in the Ansys Electronic Desktop HFSS. The measured results are in good agreement with simulated results and design theory which shows that the proposed antenna is good candidate for the UWB applications.

LTE-A network offers data rates up to 1 Gbps which is 10 × faster than LTE catering to growing demand of users. LTE improves user experience by reducing latency and increasing bandwidth efficiency. The emerging services and key enhancements such as Further Enhancement of Downlink Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO), Heterogeneous Networks, and Carrier Aggregation (CA) in LTE-A has improved performance of LTE-A networks. Scheduling optimization still remains one of the biggest challenges in high speed data transmission network. Scheduling in LTE-A networks are performed at various levels; User Equipment (UE), Serving Gateway (SGW), Air Interface and eNodeB. Remote Radio Head (RRH) is an extremely specialized device installed at antenna of eNodeB for optical to electrical signal conversion, amplification of signals and Uplink and Downlink Scheduling. Resource scheduling at Antenna of eNodeB module is constituted as a significant research optimization area. This paper proposes a soft computing based scheduler for RRH. Results of proposed technique are evaluated on Fairness Index, Throughput, Spectral Efficiency and Rank Indicator Distribution. The proposed algorithm aims to improve performance of scheduling. From experimental results, it is observed that proposed model succeeds to achieve significantly better performance as compared to state-of-art algorithms.

CMOS circuits based on scaled transistors are typically more susceptible to soft errors caused by energetic particles in the radiation environment than circuits employing their large-area counterparts. In this paper, a soft error tolerant latch built on a Schmitt trigger, which is entirely realized with NMOS transistors with an additional voltage booster, which we refer to as NST-VB, is proposed. To evaluate the circuits’ radiation resilience, we identify the most sensitive nodes by analyzing the critical charges at the various latches’ internal sensitive nodes. We also examine the linear energy transfer (LET) of the essential latches and observe that the NST-VB latch has an improved LET of $$0.386~\mathrm {MeV~cm^2/mg}$$ as compared to $$0.231~\mathrm {MeV~cm^2/mg}$$ and $$0.365~\mathrm {MeV~cm^2/mg}$$ for unhardened latch and ST latch, respectively. For the process variation analysis, we further examined 5k Monte Carlo simulations to analyze the impact of device variability on our design and observe that the proposed NST-VB latch has $$1.96\times $$ less variability critical voltage concerning the ST latch. Further, the logic flipping probability for NST-VB latch is 48.32% compared to 53.04% for ST latch. Also, the critical charge to power delay area product ratio (QPAR) is calculated and evaluated for the proposed latch’s effectiveness compared to other considered latches.

With the widespread application of large-capacity lithium batteries in new energy vehicles, real-time monitoring the status of lithium batteries and ensuring the safe and stable operation of lithium batteries have become a focus of research in recent years. A lithium battery’s State of Health (SOH) describes its ability to store charge. Accurate monitoring the status of a lithium battery allows the Battery Management System (BMS) to timely adjust the working voltage, charge and discharge current, and heat dissipation efficiency. Lithium batteries have the characteristics of high energy density, high rated voltage, and low self-discharge rate. Improper use can cause accidents such as spontaneous combustion and explosion. The key to ensure stable and safe operations of a lithium battery in a system is to quickly and accurately estimate the SOH of the lithium battery. In this paper, the definition of SOH of lithium battery and the factors affecting the aging of lithium battery are introduced. Current and predominant methods for estimating the SOH of lithium batteries are summarized. Finally, based on the problems and challenges of current SOH estimation methods of lithium battery, future research directions and emphasis areas are proposed.

The modular multilevel converter (MMC) is a promising topology for high-power converters. The capacitor voltage balancing method for the submodules (SMs) is one of the key technologies in terms of modular multilevel converters. Aiming at the problems of the large calculation burden and the high switching frequency in the traditional capacitor voltage balancing method, an improved balancing method based on a novel selection algorithm for MMCs is proposed in this paper. The proposed method can avoid the sorting operation of the arm SM voltages in each control cycle without reducing the control precision of the capacitor voltages. In addition, it greatly improves the sorting efficiency. Thus, a criterion for algorithm rerun is introduced, which makes the MMC controller avoid reordering the capacitor voltages and leave the control signals unchanged when the capacitor voltages experience small changes. Finally, simulation and experimental results confirm the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.

Traditional deterministic power flow analysis does not take into account the randomness of the charging load due to electric vehicles. In order to accurately assess the impact of charging load on the voltage quality of a distribution network, we present a method of evaluating the probability of excessive voltage in a distribution network with an uneven charging electric vehicle load, based on Latin hypercube sampling. First, we establish a probability model of uneven charging load of an electric vehicle, and construct a sample matrix for the uneven charging scenario using Latin hypercube sampling. The dynamic probability distribution of the voltage across the nodes is obtained using a probabilistic power flow calculation and non-parametric kernel density estimation to realize a probability assessment of the voltage quality of the distribution network. Finally, a simulation analysis using an IEEE 30-node system shows that the proposed method is accurate and effective.

The lithium-ion power battery is widely used in energy management system of electric vehicles. Our study proposed an adaptive optimal charge strategy based on multi-objective particle swarm optimization algorithm. The basic principles of multi-objective algorithm are introduced and the physical performance of lithium-ion battery based on different charge mode is discussed. In our research, the internal charge resistance and charge capacity value are analyzed under different charge current. The simulation model of our new method is established and the parameters are calculated. The experiments are operated to verify the influence of the charge stage number, cutoff voltage and inertia weights. The results indicate that our new charge strategy can be applied to the field of grid energy storage and expand the application scope of lithium-ion power battery.

This research article reports electronically tunable high-frequency meminductor based on single output operational transconductance amplifiers (OTA) and differential voltage current conveyor (DVCC). The reported design has two OTAs, one DVCC, two capacitors and a resistor. Here we have presented both theoretical as well as the simulation aspects of the meminductor design using Cadence Virtuoso at 0.18 µm CMOS technology. Both methods verify the realization of meminductor behaviour. It demonstrated huge electronic tunability with external bias voltage in a wide operating frequency range of 10 MHz. Further, the circuit performance estimation with respect to various parameters such as process corners, capacitor, voltage, temperature, and frequency variation is also carried out here in detail.

Lateral-channel dual-gate organic thin-film transistors have been used in pseudo complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) inverters to control switching voltage. However, their relatively long channel lengths, combined with the low charge carrier mobility of organic semiconductors, typically leads to slow inverter operation. Vertical-channel dual-gate organic thin-film transistors are a promising alternative because of their short channel lengths, but the lack of appropriate p- and n-type devices has limited the development of complementary inverter circuits. Here, we show that organic vertical n-channel permeable single- and dual-base transistors, and vertical p-channel permeable base transistors can be used to create integrated complementary inverters and ring oscillators. The vertical dual-base transistors enable switching voltage shift and gain enhancement. The inverters exhibit small switching time constants at 10 MHz, and the seven-stage complementary ring oscillators exhibit short signal propagation delays of 11 ns per stage at a supply voltage of 4 V. Organic n- and p-type vertical transistors, with considerably shorter channel lengths than their planar counterparts, can be used to create complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS)-like inverters and ring oscillators that operate in the megahertz frequency range.

For applications with hold-up time requirements, the LCLC converter can achieve a wider voltage gain range than the LLC converter without degrading the normal operation efficiency due to its variable-magnetizing-inductor (VML) structure, which is formed by an inductor and an additional capacitor. However, the wide gain range achieved by the VML is at the expense of a high resonant voltage stress of the VML’s capacitor, which affects the converter volume/cost. Hence, to solve the contradiction between wide gain range and low capacitor voltage stress when the VML technique is adopted for hold-up operation, this paper proposes a novel C-LLC-LL converter. Specifically, the VML is arranged into a novel C-dual-LL structure. By relying on the unique output voltages relation between C-dual-LL’s two branches, the reduced voltage stress of the VML’s capacitor and the expanded voltage gain range can be simultaneously realized. To evaluate the feasibility of the proposed solution, a comprehensive analysis is conducted, and experimental results obtained from a 500-W C-LLC-LL prototype are also provided.

Leakage current in a MOS device has become a bottleneck with the technological growth of semiconductor industry. As the device is scaled down to sub nano meter regime, leakage current components becomes comparable to that of ON-state current. The focus of this paper is to investigate a detailed comparative analysis of various leakage currents present with or without short channel effects. The overview of the various parameters affecting the leakage currents has been extensively explored. Further, various techniques to minimize the leakage have also been considered. A quantitative analysis of leakage affecting the various short channel devices including the junctionless transistor has been performed and compared.

A three-stage amplifier with transistor impendence modulation compensation technique is proposed for driving ultra-large capacitive loads. By modulating the impendence-controlled transistors, proposed structure can effectively reduce layout area while enhancing the stability of the amplifier. With the support of sub-amplifier and slew-rate enhancement structure, the effectiveness of proposed amplifier has been verified in a 0.18 μm CMOS process, and proposed three-stage amplifier has over 120dB gain, 3.2 MHz gain-bandwidth product, and 60° phase margin while consuming only 41µW power and 0.0042mm2 area from a 1.2 V supply when driving a 20nF ultra-large capacitive load.

This paper focuses on improving the performance of a MEMS technology based variable capacitor for high frequency wireless communication applications. The paper starts with a discussion on the Q factor and methods of improving it. A novel expression for the Q factor of a MEMS capacitor was derived from an equivalent T-line model of the capacitor. Using the derived expression for Q factor and other parameters, Ashby analysis was performed to choose the best materials for the dielectric layer and metal plates. Based on the analysis, the most suitable materials for the dielectric and metal plates were obtained to enhance the performance of the capacitor.

This paper presents a systematic approach of high-frequency electrical properties of embroidered dipole-type antennas based on electro-textiles. Firstly, characterizations of conductive thread and silver ink on cotton fabric are completed by UTM (Universal testing machine) and sheet resistance measurement. Secondly, estimating and optimizing the embroidered dipole antenna suitable for implementing radio frequency identification (RFID) tags are proposed. The effect of bending and thread density on the performance of embroidered antennas is included. Thirdly, the proposed low-cost antenna structure requires the less conductive thread to decrease conductive thread and time consumption yet still achieve good enough performance compared with the conventional antenna. Finally, the comparison between silver thread and ink demonstrates that parasitic capacitance of conductive threads is much higher than metallic materials. However, the structure of silver conductive threads has more potential to significantly improve the conductor’s efficiency than silver ink at the high frequencies.

As the increasing trend of global consumption of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), the recycling of WEEE has been thought highly of. In order to solve the problems of high economic cost, environmental detrimental caused by improper recycling, ignorance of social benefits of recycling, uncertain recycling amount and single recycling channel in recycling process of WEEE, this paper proposes a sustainable multi-objective WEEE double recycling channel fuzzy programming model based on triple bottom line (TBL) theory. First of all, TBL is used to develop sustainable multi-objective recycling models concerning economy, environment and society. Secondly, the model is fuzzed. This process includes two steps: the first step is to take WEEE recycling quantity as a triangular fuzzy parameter, and use fuzzy chance constraint method to transform fuzzy constraint into an equivalent clear condition; the second step is to fuzzify suboptimal objective in the model by defining objective membership degree, and transform multi-objective optimization problem into a single-objective optimization problem based on the maximum satisfaction. Finally, taking a recycling enterprise in Shantou, China, as an example, genetic algorithm (GA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) are comparatively used to solve a calculation case related to the model and the contribution of the model is verified by comparing economic cost, environmental impact and social benefits of the dual recycling channels.

In this paper, we optimize the throughput of cognitive radio networks (CRN) when all secondary nodes harvest energy from radio frequency signal received from primary transmitter ( $$P_T$$ ). These secondary nodes are equipped with multiple antennas and adapt their power so that the interference at primary receiver $$P_R$$ is less than interference threshold I. Our results are valid for cooperative CRN with opportunistic amplify and forward, partial and reactive relay selection. We also choose an appropriate value of harvesting duration to enhance the throughput at secondary destination.

This paper presents the design of a highly integrated eight port broadband slot antenna. The proposed slot antenna has a smaller footprint (33 × 33 × 0.8 mm3) and is constructed using one-quarter of an annular slot ring antenna. The miniaturized antenna has a broadband impedance characteristics covering 3 GHz–9 GHz making the antenna suitable for broadcasting applications within the realized 6 GHz bandwidth. The unit cell antenna is made polarization diverse by exciting the unit cell antenna with two feeds. The antenna is then replicated to produce an eight-port MIMO antenna. Thus the proposed antenna provides both polarization and pattern diversity characteristics. The average peak gain of the proposed MIMO antenna is greater than 5.51 dBi and the efficiency is greater than 80% throughout the operating bandwidth. The prototype antenna is fabricated and the simulation results are validated. Furthermore, the MIMO parameters such as envelope correlation coefficient, diversity gain and mean effective gain are evaluated and presented.

Continuous failure of Metal oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors due to short channel effects has motivated researchers to find novel devices like tunnel field-effect transistors and junctionless transistors. The impractical nature of the analysed devices showed that the metal oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor is still the backbone of the industry. In this manuscript, a single transistor-based AND gate is analysed. For designing the gate, a split-gate metal oxide semiconductor field-effect-transistor is used. Due to the physical limitations of Silicon, MoTe2 is considered as the substrate material. To consider all the quantum effects, the Non-equilibrium Green’s function is used to solve the device behavior. The split-gate acts as the input for the designed AND logic structure. For state ‘01’ and ‘10’, different device properties are studied and it is shown that proper conduction does not take place when either of the gates is in OFF-state. For state ‘11’, the analysed device operates as conventional MOSFET, and the drain current–gate voltage characteristics are studied. To investigate the device thoroughly, the effect of parameter variation on device characteristics is examined. The device behavior as an AND gate is confirmed by checking the linearity parameters. It is found that the device can be used as an AND gate with low noise and power dissipation.

The wireless sensor network (WSN) consist of battery-powered sensor nodes which are self-configured and are deployed for monitoring several physical or environmental conditions such as temperature, pressure, humidity, vibration, pollutants etc. The major constraint in most of the WSN applications is the replacement/recharging of the battery contained by the node once it gets exhausted. This limitation reduces the lifetime of WSN. The placement of energy harvesting device within the sensor node may be the best probable solution to recharge the exhausted battery. In this paper, the integration of low cost, light weight and foldable flexible solar cells with WSN has been focused. The aim of this paper is to fabricate the flexible solar cells and showing the potential use of them in WSN. Moreover, the use of flexible solar cell is the better selection for emerging wearable WSN. This paper also describes the various issues in the already developed energy harvesting models and suggested a self-powered model for energy management based on finite state machine (FSM). The proposed models completely avoid the overcharging and the frequent charging of the batteries. This optimal utilization of the battery maximizes the lifetime of WSN network. In the proposed model, the flexible p–i–n solar cells are used to convert solar energy into electrical energy that can charge the battery of the WSN node. Finally, it can be concluded that the node will continue to function actively till the battery lifetime i.e. approximately 25–30 years.

This paper proposes a new rad hard layout L style of nmos metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor (n-MOSFET), which is evaluated to show that its efficacy at reducing radiation-induced leakage currents, thus improving the total ionization dose(TID) tolerance with very less area and parasitic capacitance as compared to enclosed layout transistor(ELT). This proposed layout structure is fully compatible to present commercial fabrication technology without any additional mask requirement as compared to conventional n MOSFET fabrication and can be used as radiation tolerant by design technique. The simulated ID - VG characteristics of the rad hard L n-MOSFET layout demonstrated the effectiveness of eliminating radiation-induced leakage current paths. The leakage current in proposed rad hard L n-MOSFET has been reduced by factor of 108 at 300Krad dose as compared to conventional layout n-MOSFET.

With respect to semiconductor industry, Complementary metal oxide semiconductor is considered to be successful because of integration in Integrated Circuits (ICs). As transistor size is shrinked exponentially, there is an exponential increase in number of transistors on a chip. This potential of increase in number of transistors on chip is achieved by scaling of Metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET). With scaling, the characteristics of devices are also degraded. Several advanced MOSFETs like Multigate transistors (Double gate, triple gate, Gate all around), Junctionless transistors and Tunnel FETs are proposed recently. These are thought to aid Moore’s law and scaling of transistors to next decade and continue improvement in computer performance. This paper presents 2D ATLAS simulation of high-K gate dielectric engineered Double gate metal oxide field effect transistor (DGMOSFET). The performance parameters for bulk MOSFET is poor as the transistors on integrated circuit is increasing. Therefore various challenges are invoked in nanometer scale. The new devices to control these challenges is needed and thus a non planar multigate structures are emerged. These structures have shown considerably better performance in nanometer scale. The surface potential for different dielectric materials for a fixed channel length and variation of surface potential for different channel lengths in a fixed dielectric materials is shown. In similar way the electron concentration along the length of channel is shown. The $$I_{DS}$$ versus $$V_{DS}$$ graphs are also shown for different materials. The electrical characteristics of proposed device is shown in this paper. The proposed device has shown very good $$I_{ON}$$ , $$I_{OFF}$$ and $$I_{ON}/I_{OFF}$$ ratio.

In this paper, a voltage mode all-pass filter design employing floating current sources (FCS) is proposed. The presented all-pass filter circuit contains two floating current sources, one grounded resistor and one floating capacitor. Furthermore, the PMOS transistors of the FCSs are replaced with dynamic threshold-voltage MOSFET (DTMOS) transistors. Due to the use of DTMOS transistors, power consumption and supply voltages of the filter circuit are reduced considerably, compared to the classical circuit. The gain and phase responses, input and output waves, the total harmonic distortion (THD) results, temperature performance, output noise voltage and Monte Carlo (MC) analyses of the all-pass filter are simulated. The simulation results of the proposed DTMOS based circuit are performed with the LTSPICE program using 0.18 μm TSMC CMOS process parameters.

We solve the problem of electromagnetic positioning on the basis of two magnetic dipoles with the same center. We construct a navigation and orientation algorithm for a remote object.

Today’s information-rich world has become more flexible, and its development trusts upon green technologies. Due to rise in demand for proficient transmission of worldwide information and communication, a portable podium is required. Small electronic devices such as portable computers, mobile phones and other electronic devices serve as encouraging entrants that have endorsed the swift progression of information handling and allocation. Attributable to the increased use of portable electronic devices, the batteries have become closely associated with human life and hardly there will be an area without its application. The devices used for these purposes are made of critical elements which have matchless properties inimitable by other materials. Such metals are in high ultimatum and head-on supply insecurity because of several hurdles in recycling technologies. For handling the supply challenges associated with these metals, new approaches have been adopted to isolate these elements from secondary sources. The discarding of voluminous spent batteries has produced a compulsion to discover ways to recover and recycle metals that exist for the development of recycling facility. This report is envisioned to be an appreciated reference for providing state of art of hydrometallurgical and pyrometallurgical treatments for the management of spent nickel metal hydride and lithium-ion batteries. It has been revealed that efficient hydrometallurgical recycling techniques proved to be helpful in terms of environmental defence and maintenance of resources.

A contactless scribe-line channel-leakage monitor with relaxed alignment requirement is described. It comprises photovoltaic converters for powering from indoor illumination, a visible light communication downlink for selecting one among multiple monitors, and an ultra-wideband impulse-radio uplink for transmitting the measured leakage data in the form of impulse repetition frequency. Readout is accomplished with an external loop antenna loosely aligned to the scribe-line transmitter antenna. The proposed monitor was implemented in 0.18-μm CMOS with a footprint 4960 μm $$\times $$ 160 μm including the transmitter antenna. It deploys a novel leakage sensor of ring-oscillator topology. All circuit blocks, except for the transmitter, are power-supplied directly by photovoltaic converters without regulation, and consume 64 nW. Transmitter is powered by an integrated storage capacitor charged to 1.8 V by a photovoltaic-powered voltage booster.

The 5G technology will revolutionize the world more than 3G or 4G. 5G means a world where not only people but all the things are also connected. Thus, a new version of wireless technology gives us a lot of advantages which include a boost in speed, reduce reluctance, and provides a more reliable connection for a wide range of users. In this paper, the design of 5G Multiple Inputs and Multiple Outputs (MIMO) antenna structure is proposed. Also, an inset feeding technique is being used. MIMO is the means for improving the capacity of the radio link. It provides higher data rates and reliability which also operates at millimeter-wave (mm-wave) frequency. The patch antenna is designed to resonate at a 29 GHz frequency. The FR4 epoxy, a dielectric substrate is used in the proposed design which has a dielectric constant (er) of 4.4 and thickness (h) of the substrate is 1.6 mm. In this work, Ansys HFSS software is used to design and simulate the MIMO antenna system. At a desired frequency of 29 GHz, the multiple antennas are resonated with better S11, low VSWR, higher performance, and high bandwidth.

In order to suppress leakage current caused in the traditional multi-cells series Li-ion battery pack protection system, a new battery voltage transfer method is presented in this paper, which uses the current generated in the transfer process of one of the batteries to compensate for the leakage of itself and other cells except the top cell. Based on the 0.18 µm Bipolar and CMOS and DMOS technology, this proposed circuit has been integrated into a 7-cells Li-ion battery charge and discharge protection chip successfully. The experimental results of cell balancing confirm that the balancing algorithm can help with the shortage of the voltage transfer circuit. Furthermore, analysis of 20 samples shows that the new method can greatly suppress the battery leakage. Compared with the traditional solution, the voltage transfer circuit proposed in this paper greatly reduces the leakage current, which helps to extend the service life of the battery.

This work presents the design of a front-end MEMS piezoresistive pressure sensor readout circuit along with a drug actuator model based on TSMC 0.18 μm CMOS technology. The overall system finds application in implantable systems based on micro-pressure sensing and actuation such as the closed loop automatic micturition chip. The system consists of high performance and ultra-low noise chopper stabilized differential amplifier front-end, a digitally programmable threshold generator and window comparator circuit for setting up the pressure thresholds for urination, and an actuator model that simulates drug delivery for micturition, overactive bladder control, and bladder closure. The system also has a novel core circuit enable for power savings mode. The corresponding sub-circuits have been designed to operate in low power that is suitable for implantation and be powered by energy harvesters.

Reliability of the electronic circuits is one of the most prominent factor in the development of very large-scale integration (VLSI) industry. Huge demand for compact size and high performance of electronic devices leads the excessive scaling of the transistor. Aggressive scaling of transistor in ultra-deep submicron regime arises the problem of short channel effects (SCEs) which is the major reason for subthreshold leakage and reliability issues. Negative input voltage to p-channel metal oxide semiconductor (PMOS) transistor causes interface traps at silicon dioxide and silicon substrate interface which leads to increase in the threshold voltage of the transistor and degrades the circuit performance. The design parameters exceed the design specification and causes the variations in timing due to negative bias temperature instability (NBTI) degradation that results logic failure. This paper presents the impact of reliability variations on 32 nm complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) predictive technology model (PTM) and 20 nm multi-gate PTM fin-shaped field effect transistor (FinFET) circuits. NBTI degradation of various circuits are evaluated with the help of Cadence’s virtuoso tool containing Spectre native reliability simulator. Simulation results are showing that NBTI degradation causes variations in threshold voltage and alters the output performance.