A Viva Voce of the PhD thesis titled “Hybrid Energy Harvesting System Design and Optimization for Seismic Network.” by Dr Duncan Dauda was held on the 5th May 2022. The inaugural PhD candidate in the department of electrical, computer and telecommunications engineering discussed how remote seismic nodes frequently experience failure because of the short lifecycle of lead–acid batteries. Dr Dauda then developed an energy harvesting system with hybrid energy storage characterised by optimized constraints to enable the creation and maintenance of a sustained remote seismic node database.

The student adopted a single-diode model of the solar cell and photovoltaic module and used fundamental equations to develop programs in MATLAB, Simulink, and PSIM. The output observations of voltage, current, and power were measured, compared, and presented in several graphs and tables. It is envisioned that the results of the study would contribute to near real-time monitoring of the seismic activity of an area and subsequently to the prediction of earthquakes.

The novelty of this research is its delivery of two power solutions at the remote seismic node, namely, low computational effort having a low-cost algorithm, and a hybrid of lead–acid battery and super capacitor with a synchronous buck converter. Mr Dauda’s work is  good quality research that generated new knowledge that has been published in five (5) reputable high-impact journals and presented at international conferences.