Dr. Sherif Fahkry Mohamed Abd-el-Naby, President of the Egyptian Russian University (ERU), announced that, within the framework of the university’s pursuit of excellence in scientific research and scientific dissertations, and as per its commitment to providing innovative research that contributes to serving different fields at both local and international levels, two members of the “Department of Mechatronics and Robotics Engineering” at the Faculty of Engineering at the university received the Best Dissertation Award from Ain Shams University. Dr./ Mohamed Fawzy Al-Khateeb, Lecturer at the department, won the Best PhD Thesis Award in Mechatronics Engineering for the academic year 2023/2024, while Engineer/ Al-Sayed Atef Al-Sayed Aynar, Assistant Lecturer at the same department, won the Best Master’s Thesis Award in the same specialization from the same university.

     The ERU President pointed out that this achievement comes under the patronage of Dr. Mohamed Kamal Mustafa, Chairman of the University’s Board of Trustees, as part of the university’s strategy to enhance the academic and research competence of faculty members.

     In the same context, Dr. Alaa Mohamed Al-Batsh, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at the ERU, explained that the researchers were honored during the annual scientific conference of the Faculty of Engineering at Ain Shams University in recognition of their winning the Best Doctoral Thesis and Best Master’s Thesis awards in the aforementioned specializations for the academic year 2023/2024.

     The Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at the ERU added that the two researchers are among the academic competencies at the Faculty’s Mechatronics and Robotics Engineering Department. Dr. Mohamed Fawzy Al-Khateeb graduated from the Mechatronics and Robotics Engineering Program at the ERU in 2014 as one of the top students in his class. So he was appointed as Teaching Assistant at the department. He then got a master’s degree from the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport, before completing his academic career with a doctorate from Ain Shams University, with his distinguished thesis. As for Engineer/ Sayed Atef Aynar, he also graduated from the Mechatronics and Robotics Engineering Program at the ERU, class of 2017, and was appointed as a Teaching Assistant at the Faculty, as he was one of the top students in his class.

     On his part, Dr. Mohamed Fawzy Al-Khateeb, Lecturer at the Department of Mechatronics and Robotics Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering at the ERU, mentioned that the title of his thesis is: “A proposal for an intelligent economic controller for extracting maximum power from photovoltaic cell systems to handle different types of loads.” The thesis was supervised by Dr. Mohamed Nabil Saad-el-Deen Sabry, Professor at the Faculty of Engineering at Ain Shams University, Dr. Mohamed Ibrahim Abu-el-Sebah, Assistant Professor at The Electronics Research Institute, and Dr. Shady Ahmed Maged, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University. The thesis addressed a design of an independent photovoltaic system to power multiple types of loads, such as an independent charging station for electric vehicles and a solar water pumping system to serve rural areas. He added that the study included a detailed analysis of the system’s components and modeling, with a focus on improving efficiency through maximizing energy extraction from solar cells and effectively meeting the needs of various loads.

     The Lecturer at the Department of Mechatronics and Robotics Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering illustrated that the most innovative aspects of the thesis include:

1- Designing an independent photovoltaic system which serves multiple applications such as charging electric vehicles and pumping water at remote areas.

2- Improving the system efficiency by maximizing energy extraction from solar cells.

3- Developing two new smart controllers for the first time: a simplified universal intelligent solar-cell-power extraction controller (SUI-PID) and a multi-degree-of-freedom fuzzy controller (MDOF-FLC).

     A comprehensive comparison was made with other intelligent control techniques such as ANN, FNN, PSO-FLC, and FLC to evaluate the proposed systems. The comparison showed that the proposed controllers outperformed the simplified universal intelligent controllers SUI-PID in terms of efficiency, stability, and ease of application. The theoretical results were supported by practical experiments in order to verify their feasibility.

     Within the same vein, the researcher, Engineer/ Al-Sayed Atef Al-Sayed Aynar, Assistant Professor at the Department of Mechatronics and Robotics Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering at the ERU, stated that his thesis was titled: “Investigating the Effect of Different Control Methods on the Performance of a Flexible Robot Arm.” The supervisory committee included: Dr. Mohamed Ibrahim Mohamed Awad, Head of the Mechatronics Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering at Ain Shams University, and Dr. Omar Mahmoud Mohamed Shehata, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Engineering at Ain Shams University. The thesis addressed the development of high-precision control strategies for a flexible sensor-like robotic arm which is capable of bending and performing complex tasks accurately in diverse environments. He highlighted that the thesis depended on a dynamic model that was constructed by using the Euler–Lagrange model to study the interaction of various forces affecting the arm’s movement.

     Atef Aynar indicated that the thesis excels in two complementary aspects: the combination of advanced dynamic modeling and intelligent optimization of system parameters. A dynamic simulation and visualization platform was constructed using MATLAB/Simulink, which facilitates the testing and developing of control systems in semi-realistic environments, paving the way for promising applications in important areas such as microsurgery, search and rescue, and underwater exploration.