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Power Supplies are a key part of the modern Internet and Communications Technologies (ICT) industry. Modern Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) systems are modular and as such, consist of several Power Supply Units (PSUs). Even though various PSU designs are used to optimize operation efficiency at specific loading conditions they engender inefficient operation at other loading conditions. In order to optimize the energy efficiency in various loading conditions, this paper proposes a novel power supply multiplexing system engaging different combinations of PSUs which are controlled through machine learning techniques to maximize efficiency depending on the loading conditions. Each PSU combination is given a state number. Due to the vast number of combinations (states) that can occur in such systems and redundancy requirements, machine learning techniques are proposed. It is shown that by using the proposed novel system, an efficiency improvement of over 78% can be achieved in low loading conditions and an average 5.23% in all loading conditions.

This paper presents the design and implementation of iPONICS: an intelligent, low-cost IoT-based control and monitoring system for hydroponics greenhouses. The system is based on three types of sensor nodes. The main (master) node is responsible for controlling the pump, monitoring the quality of the water in the greenhouse and aggregating and transmitting the data from the slave nodes. Environment sensing slave nodes monitor the ambient conditions in the greenhouse and transmit the data to the main node. Security nodes monitor activity (movement in the area). The system monitors water quality and greenhouse temperature and humidity, ensuring that crops grow under optimal conditions according to hydroponics guidelines. Remote monitoring for the greenhouse keepers is facilitated by monitoring these parameters via connecting to a website. An innovative fuzzy inference engine determines the plant irrigation duration. The system is optimized for low power consumption in order to facilitate off-grid operation. Preliminary reliability analysis indicates that the system can tolerate various transient faults without requiring intervention.

The rapid growth of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector requires additional infrastructure, such as more micro-datacenters and telecom stations, to support the higher internet speeds and low latency requirements of 5G networks. The increased power requirements of the new ICT technologies necessitate the proposal of new power supplies, in an attempt to support the increase in energy demand and running costs. This work provides an in-depth theoretical analysis on the losses of the individual stages of commercially available PSU and proposes a new multicell PSU, the buck PFC converter, which offers a higher overall efficiency at varying load levels. The theoretical results are verified using simulation results, via a PSIM Thermal Module, and using experimental data. The results indicate that multicell structures can improve the overall PSU efficiency by 1.2% at 50% rated power and more than 2.1% at full power. Finally, taking into consideration the economic implications of this study, it is shown that the proposed multicell structure may increase the PSU costs by 10.78%, but the payback period is in the order of just 3.3 years.