SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “Control and communication architecture”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

SourceResearch connectionFrom yearThrough year

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 19 records

All sources NASA NTRS DOE OSTI

DOE OSTI2021

Peer-to-peer Communication Control Architecture for Engaging Ubiquitous DERs to Support Distribution System Resiliency

In this project, we developed a leader-follower consensus (LFC) control architecture to coordinate between GFM and GFL inverters with the former being leaders and the latter being followers. The objective is to simultaneously achieve a fast frequency and voltage regulation along with accurate real power and var sharing among all inverters under various disturbances. The distinction of our work is that we consider both GFM and GFL inveters for frequency and voltage regulations. In addition, rather than a standard consensus algorithm, our work utilized a leader-follower consensus algorithm which exploits the physical characteristics of GFM-GFL inverters: (i) the GFM inverters directly control frequency and voltage, and hence, serve as leaders, (ii) the GFL inverters measure frequency/voltage to modulate their outputs, and hence, they should serve as followers. The effectiveness of the proposed LFC coordination was tested on a networked microgrid test system under different disturbances and communication degradation events. We demonstrated that the proposed fully coordinated control is robust to disturbances, while outperforming uncoordinated and GFM-only coordinated approaches. Overall, this work emphasized the necessity and benefits of the GFMGFL coordination in the secondary control of microgrids.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

DOE OSTI2022

Power and Communications Hardware-in-the-Loop CPS Architecture and Platform for DER Monitoring and Control Applications: Preprint

The rapid growth of distributed energy resources (DERs) has prompted increasing interest in the monitoring and control of DERs through hybrid smart grid communications. The deployment of communications and computation has transformed the traditional physical power grid into a smart cyber-physical system (CPS). To fully understand the interdependency between physical grid and cyber netowrks, this study designed a power and communications hardware-in-the-loop (PCommHIL) CPS architecture, which enables the flexible verification of DER monitoring and control with hybrid communications architectures and Internet protocols. Design, development and case study of a PCommHIL testbed for the DER coordination are discussed in detail, and the proposed platform integrates DER devices, Advanced Metering Infrastructures (AMIs), and a suite of hybrid communications networks for distribution automation applications. Case study on DER situational awareness and Volt-Var control validates the efficacy of this proposed PCommHIL platform with hybrid communications designs. Results show that the HAN communication technologies play a critical role in hybrid designs and it is the bottleneck for DER applications. High performance communication technologies are highly recommended to be applied in the HAN for enhanced monitoring and real-time control of DERs.

AMIs↗

DOE OSTI2016

Networked Microgrids Scoping Study

While the utilization of a microgrid for local power reliability during grid outage and emergencies is a well-known benefit, the integration of microgrids with the broader electrical distribution system will allow for seamless interaction with distribution system operations, contributing to resource and economic optimization, enhanced reliability and resiliency, and improved power quality. By virtue of integration with the distribution system, multiple microgrids should be networked and collectively known as networked microgrids. As a follow-up to the work conducted by Oak Ridge National Laboratory on a microgrid controller [the Complete System-level Efficient and Interoperable Solution for Microgrid Integrated Controls (CSEISMIC)], the main goal of this work is to identify the next steps for bringing microgrid research to the utility industry, particularly as a resource for enhancing efficiency, reliability, and resilience. Various R&D needs for the integration of microgrids into the distribution system have been proposed, including interconnection types, communications, control architectures, quantification of benefits, functional requirements, and various operational issues.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

NASA NTRS2009

NASA Global Hawk: A New Tool for Earth Science Research

This slide presentation reviews the Global Hawk, a unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that NASA plans to use for Earth Sciences research. The Global Hawk is the world's first fully autonomous high-altitude, long-endurance aircraft, and is capable of conducting long duration missions. Plans are being made for the use of the aircraft on missions in the Arctic, Pacific and Western Atlantic Oceans. There are slides showing the Global Hawk Operations Center (GHOC), Flight Control and Air Traffic Control Communications Architecture, and Payload Integration and Accommodations on the Global Hawk. The first science campaign, planned for a study of the Pacific Ocean, is reviewed.

Hall, Phill↗

NASA NTRS1981

Integrated command, control, communications and computation system functional architecture

The functional architecture for an integrated command, control, communications, and computation system applicable to the command and control portion of the NASA End-to-End Data. System is described including the downlink data processing and analysis functions required to support the uplink processes. The functional architecture is composed of four elements: (1) the functional hierarchy which provides the decomposition and allocation of the command and control functions to the system elements; (2) the key system features which summarize the major system capabilities; (3) the operational activity threads which illustrate the interrelationahip between the system elements; and (4) the interfaces which illustrate those elements that originate or generate data and those elements that use the data. The interfaces also provide a description of the data and the data utilization and access techniques.

Cooley, C. G.↗

DOE OSTI2018

Impact Studies and Cooperative Voltage Control for High PV Penetration

The drastically increasing penetration of photovoltaic (PV) has posed tremendous challenges in operation, control, and protection in distribution networks. The over-voltage issue is one of major concerns for extremely high PV penetration (e.g. 100%). It is critical to identify the most sensitive locations to high PV penetration and apply effective methods to mitigate the over-voltage issue. This paper introduced a novel greedy search algorithm to locate worst-case scenarios of over-voltage in both distributed and centralized PV configurations, as well as a cooperative voltage control method to mitigate over-voltage. The search algorithm has the computational advantage over existing stochastic approach and provides more insights in impact studies. The cooperative control method relies upon reactive power compensation to converge system voltage to a predefined value within standard limits. Moreover, a clustering strategy is applied to divide the network into several clusters, within which all nodes share information with neighboring nodes following a scalable communication architecture. The control algorithms and communication hierarchies presented in this paper have been implemented into OpenDSS to form the Multi Agent (MA) OpenDSS package, which has been made available to the reader. The effectiveness of developed methods are demonstrated through simulation studies on the IEEE 123-node test feeder under four different load levels.

Cooperative control↗

NASA NTRS2004

Selection of a Data Acquisition and Controls System Communications and Software Architecture for Johnson Space Center's Space Environment Simulation Laboratory Thermal and Vacuum Test Facilities

Upgrade of data acquisition and controls systems software at Johnson Space Center's Space Environment Simulation Laboratory (SESL) involved the definition, evaluation and selection of a system communication architecture and software components. A brief discussion of the background of the SESL and its data acquisition and controls systems provides a context for discussion of the requirements for each selection. Further framework is provided as upgrades to these systems accomplished in the 1990s and in 2003 are compared to demonstrate the role that technological advances have had in their improvement. Both of the selections were similar in their three phases; 1) definition of requirements, 2) identification of candidate products and their evaluation and testing and 3) selection by comparison of requirement fulfillment. The candidates for the communication architecture selection embraced several different methodologies which are explained and contrasted. Requirements for this selection are presented and the selection process is described. Several candidates for the software component of the data acquisition and controls system are identified, requirements for evaluation and selection are presented, and the evaluation process is described.

Jordan, Eric A.↗

NASA NTRS2007

Constellation's Command, Control, Communications and Information (C3I) Architecture

Operations concepts are highly effective for: 1) Developing consensus; 2) Discovering stakeholder needs, goals, objectives; 3) Defining behavior of system components (especially emergent behaviors). An interoperability standard can provide an excellent lever to define the capabilities needed for system evolution. Two categories of architectures are needed in a program of this size are: 1) Generic - Needed for planning, design and construction standards; 2) Specific - Needed for detailed requirement allocations, interface specs. A wide variety of architectural views are needed to address stakeholder concerns, including: 1) Physical; 2) Information (structure, flow, evolution); 3) Processes (design, manufacturing, operations); 4) Performance; 5) Risk.

constellation↗

DOE OSTI2018

Nested Microgrids for Increased Grid Resiliency

The article presents a control and communication architecture for interconnecting multiple microgrids by leveraging IEC 61850 data models with distributed energy resources (DER) extensions, IEC Common Information Model (CIM) and Open Field Message Bus (OpenFMB) frameworks. An example use case for planned islanding in the nested microgrid scenario is also provided.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

DOE OSTI2022

A MW scale charging architecture for supporting extreme fast charging of heavy-duty electric vehicles

Extreme fast charging of electric vehicles technologies is coming. Heavy duty electric vehicles (HD-EVs) are in development and are expected to have multipliers bigger in battery capacity compared to the light duty counterparts. To meet short charging times, MW charging will be necessary. This paper presents a MW scale extreme DC fast charger with a communication and control architecture for HD-EVs. The system is validated in a controller hardware in the loop platform.

Starke, Michael↗

DOE OSTI2021

On Distributed Model-Free Reinforcement Learning Control with Stability Guarantee

Distributed learning can enable scalable and effective decision making in numerous complex cyber-physical systems such as smart transportation, robotics swarm, power systems, etc. However, the stability of the system is usually not guaranteed in most existing learning paradigms; and this limitation can hinder the wide deployment of machine learning in decision making of safety-critical systems. This paper presents a stability guaranteed distributed reinforcement learning (SGDRL) framework for interconnected linear subsystems, without knowing the subsystem models. While the learning process requires data from a peer-to-peer (p2p) communication architecture, the control implementation of each subsystem is only based on its local state. The stability of the interconnected subsystems will be ensured by a diagonally dominant eigenvalue condition, which will then be used in a model-free RL algorithm to learn the feedback control gains. The RL algorithm structure follows an off-policy iterative framework, with interleaved policy evaluation and policy update steps. We numerically validate our theoretical results by performing simulations on four interconnected sub-systems.

Mukherjee, Sayak↗

DOE OSTI2022

An Intelligent Power Electronic System for Secondary Use Batteries

This paper presents a plug-and-play power electronic system for integration of multiple energy storage system technologies. The system uses a communication and control architecture with individual developed modules to support scaling to larger systems for the electric grid. An optimization framework is also presented to demonstrate the functionality of the system. This system is shown to work in hardware with a constructed testbed to demonstrate different use cases and systems. Results are presented for a full efficiency cycle test.

Starke, Michael↗

DOE OSTI2021

A Low Voltage DC Power Electronic Hub to Support Buildings

This paper presents the communication, control, and architecture, for a low voltage (nominal 480V) hybrid AC/DC microgrid for supporting small commercial buildings with critical data center loads. The proposed system is based on a dc-power electronic hub (PEH) that seamlessly integrates renewable energy resources, energy storage, and back-up generation to support commercial building economical energy management and reliability. This PEH concept provides a parallelization of critical power to the commercial and industrial buildings leading to increased efficiency and reliability compared to traditional uninterruptable power supplies. The demonstration of the proposed PEH architecture and controls is conducted through a controller hardware in the loop validation.

Starke, Michael↗

DOE OSTI2021

A Review of Current Research Trends in Power-Electronic Innovations in Cyber–Physical Systems

Here, in this article, a broad overview of the current research trends in power-electronic innovations in cyber–physical systems (CPSs) is presented. The recent advances in semiconductor device technologies, control architectures, and communication methodologies have enabled researchers to develop integrated smart CPSs that can cater to the emerging requirements of smart grids, renewable energy, electric vehicles, trains, ships, the Internet of Things (IoT), and so on. The topics presented in this article include novel power-distribution architectures, protection techniques considering large renewable integration in smart grids, wireless charging in electric vehicles, simultaneous power and information transmission, multihop network-based coordination, power technologies for renewable energy and smart transformer, CPS reliability, transactive smart railway grid, and real-time simulation of shipboard power systems. It is anticipated that the research trends presented in this article will provide a timely and useful overview to the power-electronics researchers with broad applications in CPSs.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

DOE OSTI2016

On the Path to SunShot. Emerging Issues and Challenges in Integrating Solar with the Distribution System

This report analyzes distribution-integration challenges, solutions, and research needs in the context of distributed generation from PV (DGPV) deployment to date and the much higher levels of deployment expected with achievement of the U.S. Department of Energy's SunShot targets. Recent analyses have improved estimates of the DGPV hosting capacities of distribution systems. This report uses these results to statistically estimate the minimum DGPV hosting capacity for the contiguous United States using traditional inverters of approximately 170 GW without distribution system modifications. This hosting capacity roughly doubles if advanced inverters are used to manage local voltage and additional minor, low-cost changes could further increase these levels substantially. Key to achieving these deployment levels at minimum cost is siting DGPV based on local hosting capacities, suggesting opportunities for regulatory, incentive, and interconnection innovation. Already, pre-computed hosting capacity is beginning to expedite DGPV interconnection requests and installations in select regions; however, realizing SunShot-scale deployment will require further improvements to DGPV interconnection processes, standards and codes, and compensation mechanisms so they embrace the contributions of DGPV to system-wide operations. SunShot-scale DGPV deployment will also require unprecedented coordination of the distribution and transmission systems. This includes harnessing DGPV's ability to relieve congestion and reduce system losses by generating closer to loads; minimizing system operating costs and reserve deployments through improved DGPV visibility; developing communication and control architectures that incorporate DGPV into system operations; providing frequency response, transient stability, and synthesized inertia with DGPV in the event of large-scale system disturbances; and potentially managing reactive power requirements due to large-scale deployment of advanced inverter functions. Finally, additional local and system-level value could be provided by integrating DGPV with energy storage and 'virtual storage,' which exploits improved management of electric vehicle charging, building energy systems, and other large loads. Together, continued innovation across this rich distribution landscape can enable the very-high deployment levels envisioned by SunShot.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2021

Centralized and Decentralized Optimal Control of Variable Speed Heat Pumps

Utility service providers are often challenged with the synchronization of thermostatically controlled loads. Load synchronization, as a result of naturally occurring and demand-response events, has the potential to damage power distribution equipment. Because thermostatically controlled loads constitute most of the power consumed by the grid at any given time, the proper control of such devices can lead to significant energy savings and improved grid stability. The contribution of this paper is the development of an optimal control algorithm for commonly used variable speed heat pumps. By means of selective peer-to-peer communication, our control architecture allows for the regulation of home temperatures while simultaneously minimizing aggregate power consumption, and aggregate load volatility. An optimal centralized controller is also explored and compared against its decentralized counterpart.

30 DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSION↗

DOE OSTI2019

Multi-layered Resilient Microgrid Networks

Distribution grid resilience, especially when the grid is under high penetration of Distributed Energy Resources (DER), e.g. PV and energy storage, is essential to ensure the quality of electric power services. The resiliency aspect is particularly important for critical loads that typically include hospitals, police/fire stations, and national security facilities. Networks of multiple interconnected reconfigurable microgrids help to increase renewable energy penetration and may be used as basic building blocks for implementing future resilient power grids. However, this integration requires additional layers of communications, both horizontal and vertical, which may substantially increase the potential cyber attack surfaces as well as escalate risks for wide-spread malfunctions of automation systems. The Mulit-layered Resilient Microgrid Networks project is an industry-academic collaboration between ABB, Duke Energy and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) that has developed and demonstrated a cyber-physical resilient control and communication architecture for deployment of multiple microgrid networks, as well as retrofitting the existing distribution grids by increasing DER penetration levels.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

DOE OSTI2020

Cyber-physical Resilient Interoperable Microgrid Networks

The paper presents the results of an industry-academic collaboration between ABB, Duke Energy and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) that has developed and demonstrated a cyberphysical resilient control and communication architecture for deployment of multiple microgrid networks, as well as retrofitting the existing distribution grids by increasing DER penetration levels.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗