The domain of Robotics is a good partner of renewable energy and is becoming critical to the sustainability and survival of the energy industry. The multi-disciplinary nature of robots offers precision, repeatability, reliability, productivity and intelligence, thus rendering their services in diversified tasks ranging from manufacturing, assembling, and installation to inspection and maintenance of renewable resources. This paper explores applications of real robots in four feasible renewable energy domains; solar, wind, hydro, and biological setups. In each case, existing state-of-the-art innovative robotic systems are investigated that have the potential to create a difference in the corresponding renewable sector in terms of reduced set-up time, lesser cost, improved quality, enhanced productivity and exceptional competitiveness in the global market. Instrumental opportunities and challenges of robot deployment in the renewable sector are also discussed with a brief case study of Saudi Arabia. It is expected that the wider dissemination of the instrumental role of robotics in renewable energy will contribute to further developments and stimulate more collaborations and partnerships between professionals of robotics and energy communities.

In this article, a compact four-port MIMO antenna system resonating from 4.7–5.1 GHz on −6 dB criteria is discussed. The proposed antennas are arranged in a perpendicular manner providing diversity with good isolation characteristics. The proposed antenna was fabricated and designed on a commercially available low-cost FR-4 substrate with a relative permittivity of 4.4. The total size of the antenna is 40 × 40 mm², and a minimum isolation of 25 dB was observed at most nearby resonating elements. The proposed antenna was fabricated and tested at an in-house facility, and the measured results agree well with the simulations. The MIMO antenna characteristics, such as the envelope correlation coefficient (ECC) among any two radiating elements, have been found to be less than 0.1, and the diversity gain (DG) value evaluated showed that the proposed antenna is well designed. Furthermore, the SAR analysis showed that the desired antenna system is safe for users, with a value of 0.94 W/Kg. The channel capacity (cc) was found to be 18.7 bps/Hz, approximately 2.7 times more than SISO systems. Through its robust and reliable performance and its peak gain of 2.8 dBi, the proposed compact antenna is a good candidate for future 5G devices.

The operation of smart buildings (with solar, storage and suitable power routing infrastructure) can be optimized with the addition of parking stations for electric vehicles (EVs) with vehicle-to-everything (V2X) operations including vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), vehicle-to-building (V2B) and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) operations. In this paper, a multi-objective optimization framework is proposed for the smart charging and discharging of EVs along with the maximization of revenue and savings of smart building (prosumers with solar power, a battery storage system and a parking station) and non-primary/ordinary buildings (consumers of electricity without solar power, a battery storage system and parking station). A mixed-integer linear program is developed to maximize the profits of smart buildings that have bilateral contracts with non-primary buildings. The optimized charging and discharging (V2X) of EVs at affordable rates utilizing solar power and a battery storage system in the smart building helps to manage the EV load during on-peak hours and prevent utility congestion. The results indicate that in addition to the 4–9% daily electricity cost reductions for non-primary buildings, a smart building can achieve up to 60% of the daily profits. Further, EVs can save 50–69% in charging costs while performing V2X operations.

The demand of 5G in modern communication era due to its high data rate, reliable connectivity and low latency is enormous. This paper presents a novel dual band antenna resonating at two distinct bands allotted for 5G services. The proposed antenna is composed of inverted L shape probes comprising a rectangular defected ground structure. The propose antenna covers 3.4–3.6 GHz and 5.4–5.6 GHz spectrum. In propose MIMO system, the efficiency ranges from 52 to 69% with peak gain of 3.1 dBi. The proposed antenna system is sufficiently isolated with minimum value of 13 dB and ECC less than 0.05 among any two radiating elements. Similarly, the channel capacity is found to be 38 and 39.5 at both resonating bands at 20 dB SNR and diversity and mean effective gains lies in acceptable range. The radiation characteristics of the proposed design shows that the proposed antenna is providing good diversity characteristics and SAR values have demonstrated to be safe for user vicinity. The proposed dual band antenna prototype is developed tested. With the measured results obtained, the MIMO system proposed can be seen as vital candidate for 5G LTE band 42 and 46 services.

Integration of the renewable energy sources with utility grids is receiving more impressive concerns to provide extra-green energy sources to work in parallel or to phase out the sources with fossil fuels. The effects of the transient surges are the most vital parameters that are used in the insulation coordination studies for integrated systems of smart grid. Therefore, the electromagnetic transient overvoltages caused by switching surges and faults on the smart grids are the competitive design issues. Moreover, the contingency analysis of either sources or loads patching/dispatching is one of the major issues in the design process of the power system grid. The transient overvoltages imposed over the integrated grid systems need to be more properly investigated using most sophisticated numerical methods. Although, the transient surges have relatively short durations, but it may cause severe overvoltages stresses for the insulation systems and consequently may yield to insulation failure. This paper presents the simulation of large-scale renewable energy resources integrating with the utility grid. The transient overvoltages appear over the utility grids due to different renewable energy resources are investigated. Moreover, the different methods that proposed to be used to suppress, mitigate, and control these overvoltages and to minimize their probable sever effects over the permissible insulation level (BIL) are elaborated. Furthermore, the full simulation of the IEEE 39 grid integrated with large Photovoltaic and wind farms using EMTP-RV /MATLAB is developed. In addition, different proposed methods to mitigate and to control internal surges are investigated. Finally, the obtained results are presented with very good consistency level and compliance with other research studies found in literature and with the different standards related to the renewable energy sources.

Drones are widely known for their mobility and ease of use and represent a significant technological breakthrough with various applications. In this paper, a novel inexpensive Search and Rescue (SAR)-based approach for application in indoor environments is presented. The usage of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) has been evaluated with respect to other technologies and a conceptual view of the complete setup has been presented. Besides the cost of the drone and the locator devices, the other hardware is relatively inexpensive costing only a fraction of a US dollar. The system is believed to cover a wide area in a small-time frame ranging a few minutes, for instance, a 3600m2 surface area could be scanned in less than 5 minutes. The system is tested by attaching a BLE device in the payload to evaluate the presence of target beacons. Potential upgrades in the system are also proposed, including design modifications for outdoor use and the application in locating missing objects. This system can confidently replace search parties dealing with missing children in public places or venues, with minimal human interaction while bearing the potential for complete automation.