In this paper, an improved gradient-based optimizer (IGBO) is proposed with the target of improving the performance and accuracy of the algorithm for solving complex optimization and engineering problems. The proposed IGBO has the added features of adjusting the best solution by adding inertia weight, fast convergence rate with modified parameters, as well as avoiding the local optima using a novel functional operator (G). These features make it feasible for solving the majority of the nonlinear optimization problems which is quite hard to achieve with the original version of GBO. The effectiveness and scalability of IGBO are evaluated using well-known benchmark functions. Moreover, the performance of the proposed algorithm is statistically analyzed using ANOVA analysis, and Holm–Bonferroni test. In addition, IGBO was assessed by solving well-known real-world problems. The results of benchmark functions show that the IGBO is very competitive, and superior compared to its competitors in finding the optimal solutions with high convergence and coverage. The results of the studied real optimization problems prove the superiority of the proposed algorithm in solving real optimization problems with difficult and indefinite search domains.

There are many studies that focus on extracting harmonics from both DC and AC sides of grid-interfaced photovoltaic (PV) systems. Based on these studies, the paper introduces an efficient method depending on hybrid DC voltage, and an active and reactive power (DC-V PQ) control scheme in a single-stage three-phase grid-interfaced PV system. The proposed scheme is designed to regulate DC voltage to minimize power loss and energy share between the network reconfiguration and the utility grid. Moreover, the technique is more effective at dealing with uncertainty and has higher reliability under various operating scenarios. These operations are the insertion of linear load 1, nonlinear load, and linear load 2. Moreover, a novel objective function (OF) is developed to improve the dynamic response of the system. OF is coupled with a particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm and a gradient optimization (GBO) algorithm. The analysis and the comparative study prove the superiority of GBO with counterfeits algorithm.

This research work focuses on a Near-Infra-Red (NIR) finger-images-based multimodal biometric system based on Finger Texture and Finger Vein biometrics. The individual results of the biometric characteristics are fused using a fuzzy system, and the final identification result is achieved. Experiments are performed for three different databases, i.e., the Near-Infra-Red Hand Images (NIRHI), Hong Kong Polytechnic University (HKPU) and University of Twente Finger Vein Pattern (UTFVP) databases. First, the Finger Texture biometric employs an efficient texture feature extracting algorithm, i.e., Linear Binary Pattern. Then, the classification is performed using Support Vector Machine, a proven machine learning classification algorithm. Second, the transfer learning of pre-trained convolutional neural networks (CNNs) is performed for the Finger Vein biometric, employing two approaches. The three selected CNNs are AlexNet, VGG16 and VGG19. In Approach 1, before feeding the images for the training of the CNN, the necessary preprocessing of NIR images is performed. In Approach 2, before the pre-processing step, image intensity optimization is also employed to regularize the image intensity. NIRHI outperforms HKPU and UTFVP for both of the modalities of focus, in a unimodal setup as well as in a multimodal one. The proposed multimodal biometric system demonstrates a better overall identification accuracy of 99.62% in comparison with 99.51% and 99.50% reported in the recent state-of-the-art systems.

In the proposed study, we examined a multimodal biometric system having the utmost capability against spoof attacks. An enhanced anti-spoof capability is successfully demonstrated by choosing hand-related intrinsic modalities. In the proposed system, pulse response, hand geometry, and finger–vein biometrics are the three modalities of focus. The three modalities are combined using a fuzzy rule-based system that provides an accuracy of 92% on near-infrared (NIR) images. Besides that, we propose a new NIR hand images dataset containing a total of 111,000 images. In this research, hand geometry is treated as an intrinsic biometric modality by employing near-infrared imaging for human hands to locate the interphalangeal joints of human fingers. The L2 norm is calculated using the centroid of four pixel clusters obtained from the finger joint locations. This method produced an accuracy of 86% on the new NIR image dataset. We also propose finger–vein biometric identification using convolutional neural networks (CNNs). The CNN provided 90% accuracy on the new NIR image dataset. Moreover, we propose a robust system known as the pulse response biometric against spoof attacks involving fake or artificial human hands. The pulse response system identifies a live human body by applying a specific frequency pulse on the human hand. About 99% of the frequency response samples obtained from the human and non-human subjects were correctly classified by the pulse response biometric. Finally, we propose to combine all three modalities using the fuzzy inference system on the confidence score level, yielding 92% accuracy on the new near-infrared hand images dataset.