EAPSI:Developing a Novel Simulator for Testing Smart Power Grid Optimization Techniques

建立更高效的发电厂，引进太阳能和风能等替代能源，在降低电力成本方面取得了巨大进展，但这些都忽视了当前电网的两个主要问题：峰值耗电量过高和输电线故障。为了解决这些问题，研究人员一直在开发？智能电网?-使用传感器监控电网运行状况，并向消费者和供应商提供有关电力使用和成本的更细粒度信息的电网。与这些发展并行，许多研究人员正在研究自动化电网控制的新技术，以减少峰值消耗和处理可能发生故障的情况（由于自然灾害等）。不幸的是，对于一类可以为智能电网问题建模的问题，即分布式约束优化问题（DCOP），只有一个用于测试算法的模拟器，而且它只支持不随时间变化的问题。因此，该项目的目的是开发一个支持动态问题的模拟器，以便研究人员可以在更现实的环境中测试他们的算法。这项研究将与日本福冈九州大学的Makoto Yokoo博士合作进行。Yokoo博士是众所周知的DCOP领域的创始人，他在DCOP算法方面的专业知识对这个项目来说是不可或缺的。FRODO 2模拟器是测试DCOP算法的事实上的标准。它支持XML格式的问题配置，并为开发新算法提供了可扩展的平台。然而，FRODO 2只是为静态问题而设计的。不会随时间改变的问题。此外，由于过度使用接口和Java的反射API， FRODO 2的扩展可能会很麻烦。这个项目的目的是开发一个DCOP模拟器，它支持动态问题（主要用例是智能电网问题），并且具有更简洁的设计。此外，我们希望设计这个模拟器来支持真正的分布式模拟。FRODO 2只支持局部、非并行模拟。NSF EAPSI奖是与日本科学促进会合作资助的。

Creating more efficient power plants and introducing alternative energies like solar and wind are making great headway in reducing the cost of electricity, but these ignore two major problems with current power grids: excessive peak power consumption and power line failures. To address these, researchers have been developing the ?Smart Grid? - a power grid that uses sensors to monitor grid health and provide more fine-grained information about power usage and cost to consumers and providers. Parallel to these developments, many researchers are investigating new techniques for automated grid control to reduce peak consumption and handle situations where failures may occur (due to natural disasters, etc). Unfortunately, for a class of problems that can model smart grid problems, known as Distributed Constraint Optimization Problems (DCOP), there is only one simulator for testing algorithms, and it only supports problems that do not change over time. Thus, the purpose of this project is to develop a simulator that does support dynamic problems so that researchers can test their algorithms in a more realistic setting. This research will be conducted in collaboration with Dr. Makoto Yokoo at Kyushu University in Fukuoka, Japan. Dr. Yokoo is well known as the founder of the DCOP field, and his expertise in DCOP algorithms will prove indispensable for this project.The FRODO 2 simulator is the de facto standard for testing DCOP algorithms. It supports an XML formatted problem configuration and offers an extensible platform for developing new algorithms. However, FRODO 2 is designed only for static problems ? problems that do not change over time. Furthermore, FRODO 2 can be cumbersome to extend due to over-use of interfaces and Java's Reflection API. This project's purpose is to develop a DCOP simulator that supports dynamic problems (with the main use-case being Smart Grid problems) and has a cleaner design. Furthermore, we hope to design this simulator to support true distributed simulations ? FRODO 2 only supports local, non-parallel simulations. This NSF EAPSI award is funded in collaboration with the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.