https://hdl.handle.net/10646/1378 Wed, 15 Apr 2026 23:13:29 GMT 2026-04-15T23:13:29Z https://hdl.handle.net/10646/4217 Title: An investigation into the determinants of sanitation success in Sub-Saharan Africa. Authors: Munamati, Muchaneta Abstract: The importance of sanitation in promoting good health and socio-economic development is widely acknowledged. Despite the numerous efforts made towards improving the sanitation situation, access to improved sanitation remains very low especially in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), which failed to meet its 62% Millenium Development Goal (MDG) sanitation target. by 32 percentage points. While the findings from previous studies provide critical information that could help address the underlying causes of poor sanitation performance in SSA, the focus was mainly on economic, environmental, social and political factors without recognising the influence of technological factors. The previous studies also resulted in inconclusive and contradictory results due to differences in methods and sanitation success indicators. This study investigated the factors that determine sanitation success in SSA and developed a sanitation success index for assessing sanitation performance. The study focus was SSA, an African region located south of the Sahara Desert. Three aspects characterised the research strategy adopted in this study: quantitative, qualitative and composite index construction. The study concluded on four main points. Firstly, the results on the impact of sanitation monitoring approaches (government and Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) for Water Supply and Sanitation) on sanitation estimates for SSA countries showed that the government sanitation estimates were overestimated although no consistent bias of one approach versus the other was found. The overestimation of government sanitation estimates could not be attributed to the use of lenient definitions of ‘improved sanitation access’ only, an indicator used to differentiate between the government and JMP monitoring approaches. Secondly, through integrating multiple regression analysis, cluster analysis and key-informant interviews, this study demonstrated that sanitation success in SSA was associated with level of education, income level, population density, political stability, cultural beliefs and lack of technical capacity to develop innovative and affordable sanitation options. In addition, urbanisation, poverty, governance issues such as lack of proper sanitation regulatory controls, lack of implementation of policies and corruption were also demonstrated as influencing sanitation success. Thirdly, using two sanitation success indicators namely ‘proportion of the 2015 population that gained access to sanitation since 2000’ (GAINACC) and ‘access to improved sanitation as a percentage of the 2015 population’ (ACCSAN), the study demonstrated that sanitation success was influenced by access to flush toilets (flush/pour-flush toilets connected to septic tanks (FPST), flush/pour-flush toilets connected to piped sewer (FPPS), flush/pour-flush toilet connected to pit latrine (FPPL)) which in turn led to lower diarrhoeal mortality rates in countries which had high coverage of flush toilets. Fourthly, the application of Sanitation Success Index (SSI) developed to assess sanitation performance based on the primary functions of sanitation namely protecting human health and environmental protection showed its potential as a tool for assessing and comparing sanitation success across different countries at various levels of achievements in the selected indicators. It identified the relationship between a country’s sanitation success and GDP per capita, government effectiveness, political stability and level of education achieved by a country. Further research is required to refine the SSI as more high-quality data become available. Thu, 01 Oct 2020 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/10646/4217 2020-10-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/10646/4216 Title: Development of software tools for load analysis, feeder, substation design and SCADA monitoring and control system: A design for Chiadzwa Mine. Authors: Banda, Lesley Abstract: The project focuses on the development of two software tools for designing and monitoring. These include a software for design and the other one for monitoring electrical parameters for safe and adequate supply of power. Load forecasts is the predicting of electrical power required to meet the short term, medium term or long-term demand. Electrical feeder is a voltage power line transferring power from a distribution substation to the distribution transformers. Electrical substation is a subsidiary station of an electricity generation, transmission and distribution system where voltage is transformed from high to low or vice versa The first software focuses on load forecast, feeder and substation electrical design. The software is used to calculate various parameters which include cable/conductor sizing, transformer rating, receiving voltage, load demand etc. Currently in Zimbabwe there is no local documented software tool that has been developed to focus on these calculations. The second software tool focuses on the remote monitoring and control of substations within Chiadzwa area using Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) tool which I developed using processing 2.1. The monitored parameters include voltage, current, temperature, oil level, buchholz relay status. Currently in Zimbabwe there is no local documented software tool that has been developed to for SCADA operations and also SCADA remote monitoring has been applied at national level that is national grid. There is no organisation that has monitored its power draw trends and monitored its substations remotely. Wed, 01 Jul 2020 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/10646/4216 2020-07-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/10646/4215 Title: Energy optimization for flying base station. Authors: Chaibva, Kelvin Abstract: This thesis presents ambient energy harvesting techniques to enhance endurance of a flying base station mounted on an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) as well as to extend flight duration of the UAV mounted base station. Two techniques are presented here namely, harvesting ambient energy from flexible thin-film photovoltaic panels mounted on top of a Quadcopter fuselage. The other approach presents the use of piezoelectric generation wherein vibrations between the Quadcopter rotors and fuselage are transformed into electrical power and used to provide extra electric energy for the UAV established base station Quadcopters, also known as drones, are unmanned aerial automobiles which function without human intervention or loosely put, they are pilotless airplanes. They operate by and large in situations in which the presence of an on-board human pilot is both too risky and unnecessary hence the name UAV. Endurance for these machines is a major cause for concern in order to achieve their operational goals. Regardless of the on-board battery powering the high-power consuming motors and all equipment, the flight time is still fairly low. Either the Quadcopters need to fly to base at the end of each sortie or personnel need to follow the rotorcraft to exchange the batteries. This notably reduces overall performance and the range of operations. A lot of research is done on making Quadcopters as autonomous as possible, but to make them truly autonomous the energy problem needs to be solved.Most drones are electrically powered and there is a vital impediment on their size, weight and power hence they cannot carry enormous amount of load (i.e. payload). The energy sources are normally in the form of batteries and because of the above limitation (payload), the flight duration is commonly restrained to a few tens of minutes. The purpose of this thesis has been to deal with the energy trouble and make the Quadcopters self-sustainable over a longer time period. The proposed answer has been to use solar power to recharge the on-board batteries during flight in addition to out in the field. Unlike all known earlier attempts to use solar power for rotorcrafts, this is the first known project to modify an existing commercial quadcopter to use solar power for recharging. The results conclude that the idea of using solar power is proved to be viable for small commercially available rotorcrafts with limited or constrained available space for solar panels.The use of renewable energy sources is growing and will play an important role in the future power systems. A five parameter model of PV modules has been implemented in Simulink/Matlab. The parameters of the model are determined by an approximation method using available data sheet values. Inputs to the model include light intensity and ambient temperature. The outputs are any measurements of interests in addition to electrical power, cell temperature and voltage. Effects of varying the model parameters are demonstrated. A maximum power point tracking algorithm is used to keep the voltage at the maximum power point at all times. A battery model based on discharge curve fitting is implemented. The model is based on a fundamental battery cell which can be modified to construct many different module configurations. Power smoothing algorithms which average the input over a set time, are used to provide a power reference to the battery system. Sat, 01 Dec 2018 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/10646/4215 2018-12-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/10646/4214 Title: Design and implementation of an RF vehicle speed governor system in Zimbabwe. Authors: Chakufora, Victor Abstract: The proposed thesis is an attempt to address the problems of high fatalities as a result of over speeding in roads. Nowadays over speeding has become one of the major causes of most accidents in Zimbabwe. Generally, over speeding is the result of restlessness, bad behavior and negligence on the part of drivers. As the accident rates are increasing, it has become necessary to develop and implement a system which can automatically detect and control over speeding in vehicles. Nearly all major Zimbabwean roads are marked with speed limits, depending upon the size of moving vehicles and heaviness of traffic e.g. maximum speed for light vehicles is 120km/h and for heavy vehicles it is 80km/h, but some drivers habitually ignore these speed limits and results in serious fatal accidents. As an addition to other systems already in place, this research is making the use of the RF Technology to detect and control over speeding when so ever the subject vehicle exceeds the proposed speed limit on any or in most dangerous section of the roads. This project consists of two block units which are the transmitter unit and receiver units. The vehicle’s receiver unit will automatically reduce the vehicle’s speed accordingly once it receives a speed control signal from the transmitter. Tue, 01 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/10646/4214 2020-12-01T00:00:00Z