This paper analyzes the impact of remote classrooms and labs as an outcome of “social distancing” during COVID-19 outbreak. It is important to analyze the emergence of web technologies and tools available for online learning and its impact on engineering education. The intended focus is to find a way out to address the issues regarding continued teaching and learning during long academic breaks due to this unpredicted pandemic. Some challenges in developing economies include the unavailability of internet services all over the country and limited resources accessible to large community to earn and learn during such epidemics. This study outlines various policy guidelines for online delivery of engineering courses and assessment techniques as experienced during this global pandemic. These guidelines will provide a roadmap for quality teaching and evaluation of online engineering courses.

Contribution: This study compares the outcome-based education (OBE) system with the traditional teaching-learning methods. A detailed analysis regarding the effectiveness of these techniques at Riphah International University (RIU), Faisalabad Campus is presented. Background: Education is becoming more demanding in terms of students' learning. In the same way, teaching methods are becoming more systematic and outcome-oriented. Pakistan has turned out to be a full signatory of the Washington Accord, and Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC) has directed all engineering institutions to implement the described OBE system. Intended Outcomes: The aim of this work is to investigate the advantages and drawbacks of both teaching methods. Also, it reveals the strengths of the OBE system to improve future students' learning. Application Design: The analysis is performed by considering the student's feedback, average learning scores, letter grades, and overall class impact as the main driving factors toward the comprehensive system's evaluation. The data for two consecutive batches under OBE and non-OBE systems is collected and compared. Reliability and validity tests were also performed for the data validation. Findings: The overall transformation from non-OBE to OBE has proved the new educational system superlative in student learning, subject delivery, and teaching technique.

The Alternating Current-Direct Current (AC-DC) hybrid distribution network has received attention in recent years. Due to advancement in technologies such as the integration of renewable energy resources of DC–type output and usage of DC loads in the distribution network, the modern distribution system can meet the increasing energy demand with improved efficiency. In this paper, a new AC-DC hybrid distribution network architecture is analyzed that considers distributed energy resources (DER) in the network. A network reconfiguration scheme is proposed that uses the AC soft open point (AC-SOP) and the DC soft open point (DC-SOP) along with an SOP selection algorithm for minimizing the network power losses. Subsequently, the real-time data for DER and load/demand variation are considered for a day-a-head scenario for the verification of the effectiveness of the network reconfiguration scheme. The results show that the proposed network reconfiguration scheme using AC-SOP and DC-SOP can successfully minimize the network power losses by modifying the network configuration. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed scheme in minimizing the network power losses by the upgraded network configuration is verified by constructing an AC-DC hybrid distribution network by combining two IEEE 33-bus distribution networks.

In this paper, a nonlinear least squares optimization method is employed to optimize the performance of pole-zero-cancellation (PZC)-based digital controllers applied to a switching converter. An extensively used step-down converter operating at 1000 kHz is considered as a plant. In the PZC technique, the adverse effect of the (unwanted) poles of the buck converter power stage is diminished by the complex or real zeros of the compensator. Various combinations of the placement of the compensator zeros and poles can be considered. The compensator zeros and poles are nominally/roughly placed while attempting to cancel the converter poles. Although PZC techniques exhibit satisfactory performance to some extent, there is still room for improvement of the controller performance by readjusting its poles and zeros. The (nominal) digital controller coefficients thus obtained through PZC techniques are retuned intelligently through a nonlinear least squares (NLS) method using the Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) algorithm to ameliorate the static and dynamic performance while minimizing the sum of squares of the error in a quicker way. Effects of nonlinear components such as delay, ADC/DAC quantization error, and so forth contained in the digital control loop on performance and loop stability are also investigated. In order to validate the effectiveness of the optimized PZC techniques and show their supremacy over the traditional PZC techniques and the ones optimized by genetic algorithms (GAs), simulation results based on a MATLAB/Simulink environment are provided. For experimental validation, rapid hardware-in-the-loop (HiL) implementation of the compensated buck converter system is also performed.

As the world’s demand for sustainable and reliable energy source intensifies, the need for efficient energy storage systems has become increasingly critical to ensuring a reliable energy supply, especially given the intermittent nature of renewable sources. There exist several energy storage methods, and this paper reviews and addresses their growing requirements. In this paper, the energy storage options are subdivided according to their primary discipline, including electrical, mechanical, thermal, and chemical. Different possible options for energy storage under each discipline have been assessed and analyzed, and based on these options, a handsome discussion has been made analyzing these technologies in the hybrid mode for efficient and reliable operation, their advantages, and their limitations. Moreover, combinations of each storage element, hybrid energy storage systems (HESSs), are systems that combine the characteristics of different storage elements for fulfilling the gap between energy supply and demand. HESSs for different storage systems such as pumped hydro storage (PHS), battery bank (BB), compressed air energy storage (CAES), flywheel energy storage system (FESS), supercapacitor, superconducting magnetic coil, and hydrogen storage are reviewed to view the possibilities for hybrid storage that may help to make more stable energy systems in the future. This review of combinations of different storage elements is made based on the previous literature. Moreover, it is assessed that sodium-sulfur batteries, lithium-ion batteries, and advanced batteries are the most helpful element in HESSs, as they can be hybridized with different storage elements to fulfill electricity needs. The results also show that HESSs outperformed other storage systems and, hence, hybridizing the characteristics of different storage elements can be employed for optimizing the performance of energy storage systems.