Ronnie Concepcion II

De La Salle University | DLSU · Department of Manufacturing Engineering and Management

To enhance the power efficiency of a dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) or Grӓtzel cell, photosensitizer concentration must be fine-adjusted within the ultraviolet and near-infrared spectrum. In this study, evolutionary computing through genetic algorithm (GA) and evolutionary strategy (ES) was employed to determine the optimal combination of chlorop...

Precise and timely monitoring of leaf water content and growth is necessary for precision agriculture. In this study, the impact of temperature and gas concentration variations was synthesized with leaf canopy shape and moisture content of aquaponic lettuce in a customized partially diffused microclimatic chamber equipped with an RGB camera. Using...

Lignocellulosic biomass (LCB) is considered as a sustainable feedstock for a biorefinery to generate biofuels and other bio-chemicals. However, commercialization is one of the challenges that limits cost-effective operation of conventional LCB biorefinery. This article highlights some studies on the sustainability of LCB in terms of cost-competitiv...

Optimizing photosynthesis is vital in maintaining quality farm produce in the agricultural food production sector. The nonlinear behavior of the interaction of crop pre-harvest growth factors can promote or retard its growth. This study employed multigene symbolic regression genetic programming (MSRGP) in developing the chlorophyll-a fitness functi...

Water quality assessment is currently based on time-consuming and costly laboratory procedures and numerous expensive physicochemical sensors deployment. In response to the trend of device minimization and reduced outlays in sustainable aquaponic water monitoring, the integration of aquaphotomics and computational intelligence is presented in this...

The increase in worldwide demand for energy is driven by the rapid increase in population and exponential economic development. This resulted in the fast depletion of fossil fuel supplies and unprecedented levels of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. To valorize biomass into different bioproducts, one of the popular and carbon-neutral alternatives i...

Root growth and their interactions can provide valuable information for the development of asynchronous logic systems. Here, maize root behavior due to positive gravitropism and nutritropism is evaluated as three-inputs-three-outputs logical gates. Using plant roots as the element for unconventional computing, the Boolean functions of each root tro...

Nitrate is the primary water-soluble macronutrient essential for plant growth that is converted from excess fish feeds, fish effluents, and degrading biomaterials on the aquaponic pond floor, and when aquacultural malpractices occur, large amounts of it retain in the water system causing increase rate in eutrophication and toxifies fish and aquacul...

Genetic programming (GP) is an evolutionary algorithm used to produce high-quality solutions to various problems. It has seen few claims in circuitry and the development of antenna designs. The application of GP in the model of embedded digital systems on multi-channel antenna arrays of subsurface imaging equipment has not yet been investigated. Th...

Electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) has been seen as an appropriate instrument in several works to monitor and aid in the control of seawater intrusion (SWI) in coastal groundwater systems. This study seeks to discuss the synthesis of a digital twin that couples information between the physical space through ERT as a monitoring sensor and the d...

Grapes are prone to Pseudocercospora vitis fungus which causes Isariopsis leaf speck disease to the crop’s leaves, flower, and most importantly the fruit. Typical manual inspection of vineyard farmers is normally ineffective, destructive, and laborious. To address this, the use of integrated computer vision, machine learning, and computational inte...

Land surveying has been one of the core operations in performing underground imaging. It is known that dynamic and continuous resistivity readings were employed through this technique using the array of capacitive electrodes being towed with a light vehicle. However, the main challenge in doing subsurface surveying is the change in speed of the sys...

In performing underground imaging surveying, applying a coating in the antenna dipole plates with robust and durable material to stay protected against rough road features is vital to consider. By doing this, the mechanical properties of the metallic antenna dipole can be improved and be shielded from deterioration. With that, this study has develo...

The health condition of poultry significantly affects egg production, meat quality, and reproduction. Behavioral activities such as feeding patterns can be indicators of their current welfare. However, assessing through on-site observation is tedious, time-consuming, possibly biased, and can induce stress to the birds. Hence, employment of an auton...

Stroke is one of the primary causes of aphasia in the world. This deficit doesn't include their ability to think but, their lack of way to communicate degrades an aphasic patient's personhood. Speech-language therapy is the known treatment for aphasia. The different levels of severity and personal acceptance of patients greatly contribute to the co...

Underground utility detection technology contributes significantly to the planning and repair of various infrastructures for it saves a significant amount of money on utility damages, human life risk, and operation time. With that, this study has optimized a towed equatorial dipole-dipole antenna system which was 3D-modeled in Altair CAD FEKO to pr...

Root system architecture (RSA) phenotyping is essential in formulating suitable organic fertilizers, irrigation, and protective regiments concerning its functional role in resource acquisition for plant growth. However, Ground Penetrating Radar, and Magnetic Resonance, Positron Emission, and X-Ray Micro Computed Tomography Scanning have high power...

Urban farming is becoming more popular in recent years as the community began to focus more on the product's quality that is now being consumed. Aeroponics is one of the new urban farming techniques that is more effective than traditional farming since it involves growing plants without soil using nutrient solutions sprayed into the roots. However,...

Utilities such as pipelines are vital for the urban community. The most used material for pipelines is metal and plastic that may have different size and shape depending on its use. Due to stress, heat, and pressure overtime, underground pipelines may encounter breakage that may lead to problems such as road cracks and pipe leakage. Subsurface moni...

Electromagnetic shielding has been a well-known mechanism to protect electronic circuits and antennas against unnecessary noise and signals in the system. Thus, this paper has introduced a shielding for very low-frequency subsurface imaging in the form of an antenna enclosure that will help in efficient power transfer and redirection of the signal....

Water quality is crucial for maintaining a sustainable living environment in aquaculture. Limnological parameters affects the fish physiology, growth rate, and feed efficiency and may lead to high mortality rate under extreme conditions. The development of an adaptive aquaculture monitoring system for water quality using fuzzy logic will address th...

Poultry, like quails, is sensitive to stressful environments. Too much stress can adversely affect birds’ health, causing meat quality, egg production, and reproduction to degrade. Posture and behavioral activities can be indicators of poultry wellness and health condition. Animal welfare is one of the aims of precision livestock farming. Computer...

Due to the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Philippine government encouraged enterprises and businesses to utilize flexible work arrangements such as work-from-home (WFH) or telecommuting setup. Nowadays, the key components necessary for a telecommuting include a WiFi-enabled IT equipment, secured work environment, and reliable internet connect...

Identification of fungi infecting Zea mays leaves and sub-classifying them to have correct course management in the earlier stages is lucrative. To develop a nondestructive and low-cost classification model of corn leaves infected by Setosphaeria turcica (ST), Cercospora zeae-maydis (CZM), and Puccinia sorghi (PS) fungi using image filtering and tr...

Route recommendation continues to manifest noteworthy contributions to the intelligent transportation system field of research as it evolves through time. Early related studies helped passengers and tourists experience a more convenient travel. At the same time, these helped transport planners analyze people’s trip preferences and its correlation w...

Analysis of root images is a significant part of root studies for gathering data on key traits of root systems. Better understanding of plant roots and its interactions are beneficial to the agricultural sector. These allow for better designing of cultivation systems and techniques that optimize the resource use efficiency of crops. Studying root s...

Philippines is one of the top producers and exporters of coconut sugar around the world. Coconut sugar is a healthy and low glycemic index alternative sweetener produced from freshly harvested coconut sap. The quality of the sap as the raw material is an important determinant of coconut sugar quality and can be obtained by tapping unopened mature c...

Because of the mobile nature of Capacitive Resistivity Imaging (CRI) towed arrays for subsurface surveys, the positions of its channels should be accurately recorded, as this is needed during the inversion process to create accurate resistivity maps. While CRI equipment that uses GPS to determine the positions is common and easy to implement, it is...

Features extracted from contrast-limited adaptive histogram equalization (CLAHE) and Contrast-Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization (GLCM) and histogram-based features/non-GLCM are used as inputs for an Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS)-based classifier for brain magnetic resonance images (MRI).

Sustainability in controlled-environment agriculture (CEA) can be achieved through improved productivity and optimized use of resources. Water evaporation and plant transpiration causes loss of water from vegetation and known as evapotranspiration (ET). ET is a crop attribute that can be controlled by light intensity and radiation to improve plant...

This study developed deep learning models to perform the inversion of capacitive resistivity imaging (CRI) data to acquire 2D subsurface resistivity maps. Inversion of resistivity data using deep learning models had been applied in previous works where it addresses the time-consuming process and inaccurate generation of maps obtained from the conve...

Massive data are generated and processed every day. Insights from this big data make significant difference in one's way of living. But insight is one thing and intelligence is another. To draw out an intelligence, one must be able to discern patterns and deeper relationships among data. Intelligence on the road comes in various forms and applies i...

Root studies like propagation and morphological traits unlock a higher-level understanding of plants to better the growth of agricultural crops and maximize farm yields. As they are located underground, there is an additional challenge in elucidating their structure and behavior. Root imaging allows for real-time observations and there are several...

Lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO 4 ) has become the top choice battery chemical in photovoltaic (PV) system nowadays due to numerous advantages as compared to lead acid batteries. However, LiFePO 4 needs a battery management system to optimize energy utilization. State of charge (SoC), state of health (SoH), cell balancing, remaining useful life are...

The safety and security of an individual is important in our society. Bombing attacks can cause significant destruction and death. Energy efficient and compact bomb removal robots are challenging to develop because these typically involved a large array of sensors individually acquiring gas data. This study addresses this challenge by developing a...

Real-time water quality index (WQI) monitoring – a simplified single variable indication of water quality (WQ) – is vital in attaining a sustainable future in precision aquaculture. Although several monitoring systems for water quality parameters (WQP) use IoT, there is no existing WQI IoT monitoring for Oreochromis niloticus because the current WQ...

The understanding of vision-based data acquisition and processing aids in developing predictive frameworks and decision support systems for efficient aquaculture monitoring and management. However, this emerging field is confronted by a lack of high-quality underwater visual data, whether from public or local setups and high cost of development. In...

Coating the metallic antenna dipole can improve its mechanical qualities. However, there is a need to determine a new way to test material rigidity that is quick, minimally destructive, and eliminates costly rework. To address this emerging challenge, this study has developed a flexure indentation rigidity measurement network (FIRMnet) using soft c...

Logic gates are electronic components used to build digital circuits. In this project, it is significant to know the process involved in making the biometric wardrobe with its logic gate circuit mechanism and its equivalent Complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) circuit and stick diagram. The use of Multisim Simulation Software was maximize...

Fragaria ananassa, a member of the rose family's flowering plants, commonly recognized as strawberry, is prone to Diplocarpon earlianum infection that causes leaf scorch. Assessment via visual inspection of strawberries by farmers is normally ineffective, destructive, and laborious. To address this challenge, the use of integrated computer vision a...

Potassium chloride (KCl)-induced stress has been predominantly tested on higher crops such as cotton, rice, and wheat. What open agriculture needs now is the extended understanding of possible contributions and detrimental effects of KCl dynamics to tomato as this is one of the major crops consumed worldwide. In this study, the impacts of KCl on th...

Non-destructive mapping of underground utilities is one of the fundamental concepts of subsurface imaging technology that has a great contribution to the improvement of many infrastructure concerns. It is incorporated with electrical resistivity measurement of various ground conditions through electrodes with functional geometric configuration. Due...

Capacitive resistivity subsurface imaging of roads operating at very low frequency is susceptible to antenna characteristic capacitance dynamics that may cause unwanted signal reflection, coupling, and unfavorable effect on reception sensitivity. Antennas are conventionally modeled using a complex and repetitive default mathematical method that is...

COVID-19 has caused countless deaths across the globe. In developing countries like the Philippines, limited access to health services like ICU beds and PCR tests contributed more to COVID-19 related deaths. It is for this reason that the researchers developed a simple COVID-19 diagnostic tool using basic logic gates to determine whether one has CO...

It has been predicted by the United Nations that the world population will increase to 9.8 billion in 2050. This causes agricultural development areas to be transformed into urban areas. This urbanization and increase in population density cause food insecurity. Urban agriculture using precision farming becomes a feasible solution to meet the growi...

This work presents a comparative study of the state-of-the-art Electrical Resistivity Tomography applications in the context of underground imaging and object detection. Parameters such as data acquisition or mapping, array protocol, inversion model, geological site description, and number of profiles are used to compare each application. In additi...

The utilizing electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) in land surveying, one approach is using trailers to locate fluid or underground utilities in large-scale subsurface constructions. It is known that welding is an ideal manufacturing process to incorporate a well-assembled finished product such as a trailer system used in subsurface imaging. How...

Permaculture is a land management and regenerative agriculture that is the integration of technological advancement and the natural agricultural ecosystems. It is usually manifested in green architecture and balcony gardens in an urban area. However, peri-urban geographical regions are those situated in between urban and rural areas that are experi...

In response to the challenges in providing real-time extraction of crop biophysical signatures, computer vision in computational crop phenotyping highlights the opportunities of computational intelligence solutions. Shadow and angular brightness due to the presence of photosynthetic light unevenly illuminate crop canopy. In this study, a novel vege...

Clustering of multipath components (MPC) simplifies the analysis of the wireless environment to produce the channel impulse response which leads to an effective channel model. Automatic clustering of the MPC has been utilized as a replacement to the traditional manual approach. The arbitrary nature of MPC that interacts with the surrounding environ...

Fish feeding management is one of the most crucial considerations in aquaculture production. The traditional feeding method such as table-based and scheduled automated feeding schemes are inaccurate. In contrast, the automated on-demand feeding system has reduced the inaccuracies of the older feeding schemes. However, existing on-demand systems hav...

Excess nitrate concentration leads to excessive algal growth that reduces dissolved oxygen for aquatic animals. A significant strategy to preserve the water quality of aquatic systems is through nitrate level assessment. However, use of nitrate sensors and existing laboratory approach is costly and requires a huge effort. This study investigated th...

Invasive genetic and chemical-based laboratory techniques are very limited for in situ and in vivo applications especially in classifying leaf species in the wild. Out of 41 recorded Salvia species, 25 are endemic to the Central Asian region. In this study, a non-destructive model for profiling and identifying Salvia species (SalviaNet) was develop...

Chlorophyll content is an imperative indicator of lettuce (Lactuca Sativa) health status. Through computational intelligence, this paper bestowed a noninvasive, accurate, cost-effective ensemble of machine learning algorithms for chlorophyll-b concentration prediction. A total of 107 images of loose-leaf lettuce var. Altima from an aquaponic farm s...

One of the potential applications of computer vision and deep learning is object detection. Faster R-CNN was utilized in this work to create a fish detector that locates occurrences of fish in a frame. The performance of the developed model was evaluated using accuracy, root mean square error (RMSE) and intersection over union (IoU). After training...

The aquaculture management system will be significantly improved with the adoption of recent technological advances. This study introduces the development of a fish tank monitoring system using the Internet of Things (IoT) modules with four subsystems—water quality monitoring, video surveillance of the fish tank, on-demand feeding machine, and Clou...

Stereo matching is one of the primary determining factors of 3D reconstruction accuracy. This study proposes a modified k-d tree algorithm to match the detected centroids of the fish in 527 pairs of stereo images. The primary purpose of the modified k-d tree is to eliminate the matching errors caused by the close proximities of the fish as measured...

Plant diseases are the major cause of agricultural production losses. Visual leaf assessment based on human capability is the traditional diagnostic approach but leads to errors that contribute to losses. As a response, the analysis of rice (Oryza sativa) leaf quality through the development of a diagnostic method based on computational imaging was...

Chloride is an important micronutrient for crop plant life. Excess chloride dehydrates the plant system and accumulates salt-like residue in leaves causing them to undergo chlorosis and necrosis. Micronutrient stress through potassium chloride that is used as fertilizers to common and industrial farms was not yet comprehensively explored concerning...

Photobioreactors (PBR) support the production of algal biomass which is a known resource in producing biofuel. Different LED system configurations, however, affect the growth of algae. This study aims to do a literature review on the different light utilization trends of photobioreactors used for cultivating algae. This study also seeks to fill in...

Permaculture is a land management and regenerative agriculture that is the integration of technological advancement and the natural agricultural ecosystems. It is usually manifested in green architecture and balcony gardens in an urban area. However, peri-urban geographical regions are those situated in between urban and rural areas that are experi...

Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) and milkfish (Chanos chanos) are the highly consumed and the most commercially important fishes in the Philippines. Due to the industrialization of the country, numerous natural sites intended for rearing these fishes are affected by environmental emissions on top of climate change and the possibility of having an ef...

A food production system does not end in harvesting crops rather it extends up to the postharvest phases like storage, transporting, marketing, and consumption. Diamante Max F1, a hybrid tomato, is resistive to most diseases but it is one of the most highly perishable tomatoes because of its high moisture content and thin skin that can be easily af...

Drying is an essential step needed to improve the extraction of lipids and other valuable compounds in the algae for biodiesel production. However, there is a limited amount of information available regarding its drying kinetics. Previous studies have used computational intelligence e.g., artificial neural networks (ANN) and deep neural networks (D...

The Philippines has a tropical and maritime climate that inhibits the agricultural lands from continuous production. Because industrial crops are sensitive to electrotropism, stimulating them may break the germination dormancy and improve the growth and quality but the amount of effective electric field depends on each genotype. In this study, thre...

Nitrate concentration contained in the aquaponic water has a crucial effect that influences the growth of lettuce crops. However, most of the existing methods of testing its presence remain mostly destructive, expensive, utilize multiple sensors. To address this issue, a hybrid method of indirectly identifying the nitrate concentration present in a...

Underground imaging technology has been functional in the detection of utilities in the subsurface through land surveying. One way to ensure the quality gathering of data is to identify the best material that can be used for its trailer as it will undergo chaotic movements when used in uneven terrain. Material selection is a vital part of any desig...

Moisture content is an imperative indicator of biofuel lipid content in microalgae. This paper developed a reliable, computationally cost-effective combination of artificial neurons and an optimization tool for moisture content concentration prediction using computational intelligence. A total of 83 data of microalgae var. Chlorella vulgaris moistu...

Biofuel production serves as a viable alternative to conventional energy production systems which primarily relies on fossil fuels. Because of its increased protein and lipid accumulation properties, algal biomass has been deemed a feasible source for biofuel generation among the many types of biomass materials. Microalgal drying process, a prelimi...

This study constructed a system of interconnected devices (Rescue Strap, Local Interface, Access Point, Base station integrated with PC program and a mobile application) that utilizes RuBee-Based technology. The prototype provides a hefty improvement on real-time tracking, in terms of communication blackout during rescue operations. In times of dis...

Agricultural production system does not end with the actual harvesting of crops rather it extends to the postharvest system which primarily consists of crop storing, marketing, and transportation. However, temperature and humidity directly affect the quality of stored agricultural products. In a tropical country like the Philippines, tomato, lettuc...

Necrosis and chlorosis are some of the leaf conditions that contribute to losses in crop production, which is the browning and yellowing of leaves caused by improper irrigation and fertigation. A rotating aquaponics, crop cultivation conceptualized initially by NASA to save space and grow their food on space stations is the inspiration of applicati...

Autonomous vehicles (AV) are technologies that are continuously developing in the past years. Systems are currently under development to make driverless cars a possibility. This paper presents the technologies that are adapted in developing autonomous vehicles as well as the hindrances and challenges of this innovation. The electronic design of AVs...

The Philippines has been one of the countries that commit to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This agenda encloses the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of the United Nations that provide a holistic framework for global transformation by taking actions to end various issues and concerns around the world. Among the 17 goals, this pa...

This paper presents a data monitoring and control for transfer switch of Solar Power System. The system is designed to solve lacking charge indicator and transfer switch mechanism for setups with photovoltaic solar cells and lead acid battery bank. Actuation system is also designed for automatic switching in the time of acquisition. LabView designi...