Engineering And Technology

Development of a power system operator model for short-term variable renewable energy forecasting

South Africa exhibits one of the most carbon-intensive electricity supply systems in the world and is currently in a transition towards one which is less carbon-intensive. During the last several years South Africa has developed 3.8 GW of combined wind power, solar photovoltaic (PV) and concentra...

Smart Trucks: Cost reduction all-round while maintaining competitive advantage

The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has commissioned five more Performance-Based Standards (PBS) trucks (Smart Trucks) to AB InBev, as part of the national Smart Trucks pilot programme, bringing the total number of operational smart trucks in South Africa to more than 270. T...

Computer vision

Computer vision is the study of methods that seek to understand digital images in an attempt to extract useful information. Common computer vision tasks include scene reconstruction, video tracking, object recognition and pose estimation, motion estimation and image restoration. The CSIR undertak...

Titanium powders produced at the CSIR explored for downstream processing

The CSIR has overcome significant technical challenges to produce titanium metal powder for various applications at its semi-batch pilot processing plant. The CSIR produced high purity Ti-6Al-4V alloy powders (Grade 5) suitable for the aerospace industry and large aircraft manufacturers. The tita...

An unmanned survey and inspection device to improve rail safety

Defects and obstacles on and around train tracks cause delays and deadly accidents and cost the railway industry millions every year. The CSIR has developed a rail inspection device that travels ahead of locomotives and warns train drivers of dangers ahead, allowing them sufficient time to stop t...