Nicholas Percarpio Awarded Best Undergraduate Student Paper at the North American IEOM Conference
Senior industrial and systems engineering (ISE) major Nicholas Percarpio won the best undergraduate student paper award at the 9th North American Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management (IEOM) held in June in Washington, DC. His research received support as part of the National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates (NSF REU) program.
While he was the lead author of “Detection of Soiling Events in Solar Photovoltaic Systems Using In-situ Optical Sensing and Machine Learning,” he was advised by co-author Assistant Professor Aziz Ezzat.
“The award reminds me that my hard work with Dr. Ezzat has not gone unnoticed, and that I’ve made a meaningful contribution to solar panel sustainability research,” he says. “I could apply the technical skills the ISE department has provided me with in a way that can make a real-world impact – something few undergraduates get to do so early in their careers.”
According to Percarpio, his paper presents a machine learning model he developed that is able to detect soiling – the accumulation of materials such as dust on solar panels.
“Soiling poses a key challenge for solar operators as it can compromise the performance and reliability of solar energy systems,” he explains. “We utilized a new optical sensor set up on the solar test bed at the Rutgers Energy Lab to measure the soiling ratio under normal and abnormal conditions.”
Percarpio predicts that the integration of machine learning and optical soiling measurement technology will offer solar farm operators an innovative solution for reducing costs and optimizing operations and maintenance (O&M) decisions.
Visit https://index.ieomsociety.org/index.cfm/article/view/ID/16425 to see his conference-published paper.
