Grant awarded: 1,965,583.75 EUR (Total EU Grant Awarded); DMU to receive 353,396.25 EUR
Funder: EU – HORIZON-SESAR-2023-DES-ER2-WA2-2
Project Leads: Raouf Hamzaoui (PI) and Feng Chen (Co-I)
The ATMACA (Air Traffic Management and Communication over ATN/IPS) project proposes an innovative solution that enables effective, seamless, interoperable air-to-ground datalink communication and digital flight monitoring and management through aeronautical telecommunication (ATN) based on the Internet Protocol Suite (IPS) within all domains of flight. ATMACA aims at supporting the “air-ground integration and autonomy” initiative in the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA), which presents strategic roadmaps to achieve SESAR phase D “Digital European Sky” in the European ATM Master Plan 2020 edition. ATMACA proposes a beyond the state-of-the-art IP-based datalink communication solution by introducing an application-layer mobility management for ATN and enabling commercial of-the-shelf equipment. It will also provide a next generation human-machine interface (HMI) that will process higher quality data, enable interactions with existing and future aeronautical applications and services, and meet the needs of end-users. The ATMACA solution will be validated through real-time simulations and real-time monitoring tests by considering relevant applicable SESAR key performance areas and indicators, as well as industry standards. The consortium consists of a balanced mixed of universities and industrial partners (an air navigation service provider, an airline, and a research and consultancy firm specialized in HMI design) to ensure the project meets its objectives.
Plastic pollution has become one of the most pressing environmental issues, for example, around one million plastic water bottles are bought every minute yet only 9% are recycled, with the rest leaking into landfill or the ocean.
Furthermore, as of August 23, 2021, the total excess plastic waste generated during the pandemic is calculated as 4.4 to 15.1 million tons due to COVID 19 pandemic. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that 650 million people worldwide are disabled. Which equates to approximately 10% of the world’s population. Of those people, 80% currently live in LMICs that are often at various stages of economic development depending on active conflict or post conflict state. Diabetes and traffic accidents are two of the biggest causes of lower-limb amputation – both of which are continuously on the rise.
In LMICs, fewer than 3% of persons with disabilities have access to required rehabilitation services. Without access to the rehabilitation they require, those with disability may become entrenched in a cycle of poverty. Upcycling of recycled plastics and offering affordable prosthesis are two major global issues that we need to tackle. The De Montfort University’s research team led by Dr Kandan developed ARM (Accessible Recycled Material) developed a prosthetic limb that was cost effective yet comfortable and durable for amputee patients. The new design spins recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET), the building blocks of plastic bottles, into yarns 10 times stronger than bulk plastic.
These yarns were “knitted” into a three-dimensional net-shape preform which exactly matches the patient’s stump. By applying pressure and heat, those preforms were precisely converted into a patient- specific solid yet porous socket which keeps the patient cooler, particularly crucial in the case of diabetic amputees, who often sweat a lot and also for the amputees living in tropical climate. The ARM prosthetic limbs enable a more exact fit around the patient’s stump and reduces the risk of infection because of its breathable design. This is a feature that neither carbon or glass fibre sockets – currently the best designs available – can boast.
ARM prosthetic innovation tackling two problems: turning excess plastic bottle waste into prosthesis for patients in underserved areas. The ARM prosthetic socket technologies provide physical solutions for fabricating fit-for purpose prosthetic socket which are: accessible, comfortable, reduce fabrication time (days to hours), able to accommodate aging (crucial for limb-deficient child), while also being able 10 to manufacture using local materials and resources.
The research team led by Dr Kandan have won the RAE’s Frontiers Follow-On Funding for a project to further develop Upcycled Plastic Prosthetic limbs for amputees residing in lower and middle-income countries (LMICs).
The principal aim for the project team is to engage in developmental collaborative research between the UK and LMICs to scale-up and translate the success of Accessible Recycled Materials (ARM) Prosthetic Socket (PS) technologies with Majicast – a device to obtain accurate contours of a patient’s residual limbs for achieving tailor made fit that increases comfort and dramatically reduces socket fabrication time.
The ambitious two-year project will engage in networking and collaborative developmental research to consolidate ARM PS technologies with Majicast to engage in patient specific large-scale trials of ARM PSs with Indian amputees to gather the evidence-base for user-acceptance. At present, large-scale trials have been conducted with Indian amputees.
The project team actively engaged with wider audiences such as academics, NGOs and general public and presented the outcome of the project at the following key events: The project team organised a special symposium entitled ‘Prosthetics for Low-and-Middle- Income Countries (LMICs): Challenges and Opportunities’ at the International Society for Prosthetics and Orthotics (ISPO) 18th World Congress, 1-4 November 2021.
The project team successfully showcased Upcycled Plastic Prosthetics at Dubai Expo 2020 on the 27th of January 2022. This event was organised by the UK’s Department for International Trade at the UK pavilion at Dubai Expo 2020.
Energy is crucial for the developing World and must be provided when needed to avoid serious impact on society.
Among all energy forms, electricity has an increasingly central role.
Electricity security is the power system’s capability to withstand disturbances or contingencies with an acceptable service disruption and represents a crucial concern forpolicy decision-making at all levels.
Usually, service disruption is due to cables insulation damage, often caused by, or accompanied by, a partial discharge (PD) event that is a localized electrical discharge that partially bridges the insulation between conductors. Since PD is one of the best early warning indicators of insulation damage, the on-line PD location is the most suitable method of monitoring network integrity and a desirable network protection method to guarantee electricity security.
The project’s main objective is to develop a new method for online PD location based on the innovative electromagnetic time reversal (EMTR) theoy.
Effects of Partial Discharge
✓ Cable premature failure within 3 years of operation ✓ Localised heating/moisture into the cable ✓ Interruption of power supply ✓ Reduction of power quality and customer satisfaction ✓ Reduction of Electricity Security of Power Networks.
On-Line Partial Discharge Location in Power Networks
On-line PD location is a desired feature in modern protection schemes’ power networks to guarantee:
a fault preventive action, improving reliability
a continuous monitoring condition for grid integrity
an increase of equipment lifetime and network resilience
a reduction of overall operating costs increasing plant productivity
a reduction of outage duration of supply, improving power quality, customer satisfaction and life quality.
Design of EMTR Method to Locat Partial Discharge on Power Networks
EMTR methods, in source-location identification, take advantage of the time reversibility of Maxwell’s equations and the spatial correlation property of the time-reversal theory to refocus the time reversed back-propagated electromagnetic waves into the original disturbance location: when the electromagnetic wave is time reversed and back injected into the original system, it refocuses back to the location of its source.
The new method to on-line locate PD source based on EMTR theory and using the Transmission Line Matrix (TLM) method to model PD signal propagation, under development at DMU.