Integrated Control of Wind Farms, Facts Devices and the Power Network Using Neural Networks and Adaptive Critic Designs

智力优势：在早期小型系统成功的基础上，该团队将开发通用集成控制系统，使用类似大脑的设计原则来处理比过去使用此类原则控制的更大更复杂的系统。他们将整合自适应动态规划（有时称为“强化学习”或“自适应批评”），循环神经网络（提供近似非线性动态系统的独特能力），学习和适应以及粒子群优化技术的使用。他们将在管理一个由部分观察到的连续变量、非线性和随机干扰主导的大型复杂真实系统（最初在计算机模拟中，然后在实验室中）的背景下开发这种集成。更广泛的好处：被控制的试验台代表了使用最先进、最经济、最高效（但难以管理）的风力涡轮机系统和电子电力控制硬件（“FACTS”）的大型风力发电场。以低成本实现这种可靠的控制和效率的能力，对于风能供应全球20%电力的目标至关重要。在一个合理的市场体系中，这对于提高风能等间歇性能源对电网的价值至关重要，因此更值得电网向风力发电机支付更多的费用。该小组还与非洲和巴西建立了积极的伙伴关系，它们可以提供取得成功所需的一些先进的低成本fact技术——也许还可以提供一些额外的试验台。这个项目可能是将智能自适应电网的理想带入现实世界的关键一步。

Intellectual Merit: Building on earlier success with smaller systems, this team will develop general-purpose integrated control systems using brain-like design principles to handle larger and more complex systems than have been ever been controlled in the past using such principles. They will be integrating together the use of adaptive dynamic programming (sometimes called "reinforcement learning" or "adaptive critics"), recurrent neural networks (which provide unique capabilities in approximating nonlinear dynamical systems), learning and adaptation, and particle swarm optimization techniques. They will be developing this integration in the context of managing a large complex real system (initially in computer simulation, and then in the laboratory) dominated by partially observed continuous variables, nonlinearity and random disturbances.Broader benefits: The testbed to be controlled represents large windfarms using the most advanced, affordable and efficient (but hard to manage) systems of wind turbines and electronic power control hardware ("FACTS"). The ability to achieve such reliable control and efficiency, at low cost, will be crucial to the goal of supplying 20 percent of the world's electrical energy by wind. It will be crucial to making intermittent power like wind more valuable to the grid - and hence more deserving of larger payments from the grid to wind generators, in a rational market system. The team also has active partnerships with Africa and with Brazil, which can supply some of the advanced low-cost FACTS technology needed to achieve success - and perhaps also some additional testbeds. This project may be a crucial step in bring the ideals of an intelligent adaptive power grid into the real world.