Ammar Zakaria
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Preferred name
Ammar Zakaria
Official Name
Ammar, Zakaria
Alternative Name
Zakaria, Ammar
Zakaria, A.
Main Affiliation
Scopus Author ID
36560557700
Researcher ID
D-2902-2015

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  • Publication
    Measurement of rice moisture content based on quantitative analysis from radio tomography images
    ( 2024-05-01)
    Nurul Amira Mohd Ramli
    ;
    Mohd Hafiz Fazalul Rahiman
    ;
    Ruslinda A. Rahim
    ;
    Latifah Munirah Kamarudin
    ;
    Latifah Mohamed
    ;
    Moqbel Abdullah M.S.
    ;
    Ammar Zakaria
    Inefficient storage of paddy and rice grains can lead to grain deterioration, resulting in post-harvest losses ranging from 10% to 30%. The quality of grains cannot be improved throughout the storage period. Therefore, following the mechanisation of agricultural industries, air dryers have been developed to control the crops’ moisture level by blowing ambient or heated air into the silo to improve the aeration and allow the grains to be preserved with minimal loss of quality until the appropriate time for managing and marketing processes. However, the conventional sampling method used to measure the moisture level is inefficient because it is very localised and only represents part of the moisture distribution inside the bulk grains. Additionally, incorporating advanced technologies can be a significant cost limitation for small-scale industries. Thus, to address the issue, this research study developed a radio tomographic imaging (RTI) system in a silo-scale prototype using 20 sensor nodes operating at 2.4 GHz to localise and monitor the moisture level constructively. The RTI system reconstructs the cross-sectional images across the rice silo by measuring radio frequency attenuation, in terms of received signal strength (RSS) quality, caused by the rice moisture phantoms within the wireless sensor network (WSN) area. A total of five phantoms’ profiles having a percentage of moisture content (MC)of 15%, 20% and 25% were reconstructed using four image reconstruction algorithms,Linear Back Projection (LBP), Filtered Back Projection (FBP), Newton’s One-step ErrorReconstruction (NOSER) and Tikhonov Regularisation. Then, an image quality assessment,Mean Structural Similarity Index (MSSIM), was utilised to evaluate the performance of thereconstructed images. Lastly, a numerical method based on the first-order linear regressionmodel was introduced as a preliminary approach toward the method’s establishment. In summary, the experimental results demonstrated average image quality scores for all MClevels (15%, 20% and 25%), where the range scores are 0.2776 – 0.4755. Based on thenumerical analysis, the results support the possibility of engaging the proposed techniqueto monitor the moisture level inside a rice silo with the highest and lowest correlationcoefficients of 0.7218 and 0.5442, respectively.
  • Publication
    Design and deployment of LoRaWAN smart streetlight for smart city
    ( 2024-02-08)
    Zakaria S.M.M.S.
    ;
    Ammar Zakaria
    ;
    Latifah Munirah Kamarudin
    ;
    Visvanathan R.
    ;
    Rahim Y.A.
    ;
    Kamarudin K.
    ;
    Azmi N.
    ;
    Mohammad N.S.
    Streetlights are one of the major contributors of a city's energy usage, creating a large carbon footprint especially for highly populated areas. Current streetlights are turned on and off based on fixed schedule or by light sensors. Previous works have suggested the dimming of streetlights during zero traffic conditions to reduce energy consumption. This requires a reliable and economical communication backbone to ensure minimal service disruption. This work presents the design and performance evaluation of LoRa-based smart streetlight controllers in an urban environment. The deployment was designed to provide stress test, simulate communication connectivity, maintenance routine, firmware test and environmental conditions. The setup may also be used for staff training purposes and demonstration. The results of this work may be used achieve the effective control method for power saving, system stability, robustness and long-term performance. The deployed system includes test controllers, nodes, application server, database, gateway server and visualization dashboard. The system design demonstrated low packet error rates of approximately 1% and command response time of less than 3s in real world conditions.
  • Publication
    A new method of rice moisture content determination using voxel weighting-based from radio tomography images
    ( 2021-06-01)
    Ramli N.A.M.
    ;
    Mohd Hafiz Fazalul Rahiman
    ;
    Latifah Munirah Kamarudin
    ;
    Latifah Mohamed
    ;
    Ammar Zakaria
    ;
    Anita Ahmad
    ;
    Rahim R.A.
    This manuscript presents a new method to monitor and localize the moisture distribution in a rice silo based on tomography images. Because the rice grain is naturally hygroscopic, the stored grains’ quality depends on their level of moisture content. Higher moisture content leads to fibre degradation, making the grains too frail and possibly milled. If the moisture is too low, the grains become brittle and are susceptible to higher breakage. At present, the single-point measurement method is unreliable because the moisture build-up inside the silo might be distributed unevenly. In addition, this method mostly applies gravimetric analysis, which is destructive. Thus, we proposed a radio tomographic imaging (RTI) system to address these problems. Four simulated phantom profiles at different percentages of moisture content were reconstructed using Newton’s One-Step Error Reconstruction and Tikhonov Regularization algorithms. This simulation study utilized the relationship between the maximum voxel weighting of the reconstructed RTI image and the percentage of moisture content. The outcomes demonstrated promising results, in which the weighting voxel linearly increased with the percentage of moisture content, with a correlation coefficient higher than 0.95 was obtained. Therefore, the results support the possibility of using the RTI approach for monitoring and localizing the moisture distribution inside the rice silo.
  • Publication
    Non-Contact breathing monitoring using Sleep Breathing Detection Algorithm (SBDA) based on UWB radar sensors
    ( 2022)
    Muhammad Husaini
    ;
    Latifah Munirah Kamarudin
    ;
    Ammar Zakaria
    ;
    Intan Kartika Kamarudin
    ;
    Muhammad Amin Ibrahim
    ;
    Hiromitsu Nishizaki
    ;
    Masahiro Toyoura
    ;
    Xiaoyang Mao
    Ultra-wideband radar application for sleep breathing monitoring is hampered by the difficulty of obtaining breathing signals for non-stationary subjects. This occurs due to imprecise signal clutter removal and poor body movement removal algorithms for extracting accurate breathing signals. Therefore, this paper proposed a Sleep Breathing Detection Algorithm (SBDA) to address this challenge. First, SBDA introduces the combination of variance feature with Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) to tackle the issue of clutter signals. This method used Daubechies wavelets with five levels of decomposition to satisfy the signal-to-noise ratio in the signal. Second, SBDA implements a curve fit based sinusoidal pattern algorithm for detecting periodic motion. The measurement was taken by comparing the R-square value to differentiate between chest and body movements. Last but not least, SBDA applied the Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition (EEMD) method for extracting breathing signals before transforming the signal to the frequency domain using Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) to obtain breathing rate. The analysis was conducted on 15 subjects with normal and abnormal ratings for sleep monitoring. All results were compared with two existing methods obtained from previous literature with Polysomnography (PSG) devices. The result found that SBDA effectively monitors breathing using IR-UWB as it has the lowest average percentage error with only 6.12% compared to the other two existing methods from past research implemented in this dataset.
  • Publication
    Improved classification of orthosiphon stamineus by data fusion of electronic nose and tongue sensors
    ( 2010)
    Ammar Zakaria
    ;
    Ali Yeon Md Shakaff
    ;
    Abdul Hamid Adom
    ;
    Mohd Noor Ahmad
    ;
    Masnan, Maz Jamilah
    ;
    Abdul Hallis Abdul Aziz
    ;
    Nazifah Ahmad Fikri
    ;
    Abu Hassan Abdullah
    ;
    Latifah Munirah Kamarudin
    An improved classification of Orthosiphon stamineus using a data fusion technique is presented. Five different commercial sources along with freshly prepared samples were discriminated using an electronic nose (e-nose) and an electronic tongue (e-tongue). Samples from the different commercial brands were evaluated by the e-tongue and then followed by the e-nose. Applying Principal Component Analysis (PCA) separately on the respective e-tongue and e-nose data, only five distinct groups were projected. However, by employing a low level data fusion technique, six distinct groupings were achieved. Hence, this technique can enhance the ability of PCA to analyze the complex samples of Orthosiphon stamineus. Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) was then used to further validate and classify the samples. It was found that the LDA performance was also improved when the responses from the e-nose and e-tongue were fused together.
  • Publication
    Human Location Classification for Outdoor Environment
    ( 2019-12-03)
    Talib M.T.M.
    ;
    Mohd Hafiz Fazalul Rahiman
    ;
    Latifah Munirah Kamarudin
    ;
    Nishizaki H.
    ;
    Ammar Zakaria
    Outdoor localisation can offer great capabilities in security and perimeter surveillance applications. The localisation of people become more challenges when involving with the nonlinear environment. GPS and CCTV are two localisation techniques usually use to localise human in an outdoor environment. However, they have weaknesses which result in low localisation accuracy. Therefore, the application of Device-free localisation (DFL), together with the Internet of things (IoT) is more appropriate due to their capability to detect the human body in all environmental conditions, and there is no problem losing signals as faced by GPS. This system offers excellent potential in humans localisation because humans can be detected wirelessly without any tracking device attached. In developing the DFL system, the main concern is the localisation accuracy. Although the existing DFL system gives significant result to the localisation, the accuracy is still low due to the large variation in RSSI values. Hence, a Radio Tomographic Imaging-based ANN classification (RTI-ANN) approach is proposed to increase the localisation accuracy. This Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is designed to learn the Radio Tomography imaging (RTI) input for classification purpose. Even though the RTI gives a good result to the localisation, however, it suffers from smearing effect. To eliminates this smearing area and background noise, pre-processing of the RTI image is required. Thus, extracting the valuable information technique from the RTI image has been proposed. By extracting the valuable information data from the RTI image, about 61% to 66% of the smearing noise is removed depending on the size of the RTI image. Only data directly associated with human attenuation used for training and learning of ANN. The experimental results show ANN system can localise human in the right zone for a given dataset.
  • Publication
    Inline 3D Volumetric Measurement of Moisture Content in Rice Using Regression-Based ML of RF Tomographic Imaging
    ( 2022-01-01)
    Almaleeh A.A.
    ;
    Ammar Zakaria
    ;
    Latifah Munirah Kamarudin
    ;
    Mohd Hafiz Fazalul Rahiman
    ;
    Ndzi D.L.
    ;
    Ismail I.
    The moisture content of stored rice is dependent on the surrounding and environmental factors which in turn affect the quality and economic value of the grains. Therefore, the moisture content of grains needs to be measured frequently to ensure that optimum conditions that preserve their quality are maintained. The current state of the art for moisture measurement of rice in a silo is based on grab sampling or relies on single rod sensors placed randomly into the grain. The sensors that are currently used are very localized and are, therefore, unable to provide continuous measurement of the moisture distribution in the silo. To the authors’ knowledge, there is no commercially available 3D volumetric measurement system for rice moisture content in a silo. Hence, this paper presents results of work carried out using low-cost wireless devices that can be placed around the silo to measure changes in the moisture content of rice. This paper proposes a novel technique based on radio frequency tomographic imaging using low-cost wireless devices and regression-based machine learning to provide contactless non-destructive 3D volumetric moisture content distribution in stored rice grain. This proposed technique can detect multiple levels of localized moisture distributions in the silo with accuracies greater than or equal to 83.7%, depending on the size and shape of the sample under test. Unlike other approaches proposed in open literature or employed in the sector, the proposed system can be deployed to provide continuous monitoring of the moisture distribution in silos.
  • Publication
    A review of traditional and deep learning approaches for RGB-D face recognition
    ( 2021-07-21)
    Shunmugam P.
    ;
    Kamarulzaman Kamarudin
    ;
    Latifah Munirah Kamarudin
    ;
    Ammar Zakaria
    ;
    Abdullah A.N.
    One of the popularly explored topics for the past few decades in the field of artificial intelligence is face recognition. RGB-D picture-based face recognition has attracted numerous researcher's interest as it has more benefits compared with two-dimensional face recognitions. This review paper gives a brief review of RGB-D face recognition researches. First, this paper reviewed some of the RGB-D sensors available in the market and its specifications. After that, description and scope of face databases which are utilized to test the accuracy of these face recognition techniques are explored. Finally, this paper presents a summary of traditional techniques and deep learning techniques on RGB-D face recognitions.
      1
  • Publication
    Improved Classification of Orthosiphon stamineus by Data Fusion of Electronic Nose and Tongue Sensors
    ( 2010)
    Ammar Zakaria
    ;
    Ali Yeon Md Shakaff
    ;
    Abdul Hamid Adom
    ;
    Mohd Noor Ahmad
    ;
    Masnan, Maz Jamilah
    ;
    Abdul Hallis Abdul Aziz
    ;
    Nazifah Ahmad Fikri
    ;
    Abu Hassan Abdullah
    ;
    Latifah Munirah Kamarudin
    An improved classification of Orthosiphon stamineus using a data fusion technique is presented. Five different commercial sources along with freshly prepared samples were discriminated using an electronic nose (e-nose) and an electronic tongue (e-tongue). Samples from the different commercial brands were evaluated by the e-tongue and then followed by the e-nose. Applying Principal Component Analysis (PCA) separately on the respective e-tongue and e-nose data, only five distinct groups were projected. However, by employing a low level data fusion technique, six distinct groupings were achieved. Hence, this technique can enhance the ability of PCA to analyze the complex samples of Orthosiphon stamineus. Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) was then used to further validate and classify the samples. It was found that the LDA performance was also improved when the responses from the e-nose and e-tongue were fused together.
      3  46
  • Publication
    A new method of rice moisture content determination using voxel weighting-based from radio tomography images
    ( 2021)
    Nurul Amira Mohd Ramli
    ;
    Mohd Hafiz Fazalul Rahiman
    ;
    Latifah Munirah Kamarudin
    ;
    Latifah Mohamed
    ;
    Ammar Zakaria
    ;
    Anita Ahmad
    ;
    Ruzairi Abdul Rahim
    This manuscript presents a new method to monitor and localize the moisture distribution in a rice silo based on tomography images. Because the rice grain is naturally hygroscopic, the stored grains’ quality depends on their level of moisture content. Higher moisture content leads to fibre degradation, making the grains too frail and possibly milled. If the moisture is too low, the grains become brittle and are susceptible to higher breakage. At present, the single-point measurement method is unreliable because the moisture build-up inside the silo might be distributed unevenly. In addition, this method mostly applies gravimetric analysis, which is destructive. Thus, we proposed a radio tomographic imaging (RTI) system to address these problems. Four simulated phantom profiles at different percentages of moisture content were reconstructed using Newton’s One-Step Error Reconstruction and Tikhonov Regularization algorithms. This simulation study utilized the relationship between the maximum voxel weighting of the reconstructed RTI image and the percentage of moisture content. The outcomes demonstrated promising results, in which the weighting voxel linearly increased with the percentage of moisture content, with a correlation coefficient higher than 0.95 was obtained. Therefore, the results support the possibility of using the RTI approach for monitoring and localizing the moisture distribution inside the rice silo.
      4  6