Award Abstract # 1531099
US Ignite: Track 1: Collaborative Research: DISTINCT: A Distributed Multi-Loop Networked System for Wide-Area Control of Large Power Grids

NSF Org: CNS
Division Of Computer and Network Systems
Recipient: UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL
Initial Amendment Date: August 6, 2015
Latest Amendment Date: August 5, 2021
Award Number: 1531099
Award Instrument: Standard Grant
Program Manager: Bruce Kramer
CNS
 Division Of Computer and Network Systems
CSE
 Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering
Start Date: September 1, 2015
End Date: August 31, 2022 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $200,000.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $216,328.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2015 = $200,000.00
FY 2018 = $16,328.00
History of Investigator:
  • Yufeng Xin (Principal Investigator)
    yxin@renci.org
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
104 AIRPORT DR STE 2200
CHAPEL HILL
NC  US  27599-5023
(919)966-3411
Sponsor Congressional District: 04
Primary Place of Performance: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
104 Airport Dr, Ste 2200
Chapel Hill
NC  US  27599-1350
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:
04
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): D3LHU66KBLD5
Parent UEI: D3LHU66KBLD5
NSF Program(s): S&CC: Smart & Connected Commun,
CISE Research Resources
Primary Program Source: 01001516DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
01001819DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
Program Reference Code(s): 015Z, 022Z, 042Z, 155E, 5921
Program Element Code(s): 033Y00, 289000
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.070

ABSTRACT

Following the Northeast blackout of 2003 tremendous efforts have been made to modernize the electric power infrastructure of the United States by installing sophisticated, digital sensors called Phasor Measurement Units. These sensors continuously track the health of large, complex power grids with high accuracy. However, as the number of these sensors increases up into the thousands, grid operators are struggling to understand how the gigantic volumes of data can be efficiently communicated to control centers for taking timely control actions, especially in face of critical grid disturbances. Developing a reliable wide-area communication network that guarantees just-in-time data delivery is the greatest challenge. Unfortunately, neither the architecture of such networks nor the impacts of delays and data losses on control actions are well understood. This project will address this gap, and develop a highly resilient, fault-tolerant, and reliable distributed network control system for tomorrow's power grids using cutting-edge emerging technologies, such as cloud computing and software defined networks. Power systems are a critical infrastructural component in modern society. Therefore, results of this research will have a tremendous scientific impact on the smart grid and smart city research communities. The proposed multidisciplinary approach, test bed prototyping, and industry collaborations will help in educating next-generation workforce in the fields of smart grids and cyber-physical systems.

Overcoming network-induced latencies, data losses, and bandwidth limitations is the key for successful deployment of at-scale wide-area control of power systems. The merit of this research lies in the development of a distributed networked control system infrastructure that addresses all of these concerns. The approach encompasses multiple disciplines, ranging from power systems to control systems to advanced networking and cloud computing technologies. The proposed architecture will be realized via three interactive layers. Layer 1 will consist of physics-based controllers for power oscillation damping. Layer 2 will contain delay control rules for the communication network that work in tandem with the grid controllers. Layer 3 will consist of a supervisory controller realized through embedding and reconfiguration rules in a distributed cloud environment that continuously monitors the system status, and ensures fault-tolerance, resilience, and reliability of the overall closed-loop control system. The project team will also develop an integrated software and hardware testbed with open interfaces that can be used by other educational institutions.

PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH

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(Showing: 1 - 10 of 18)
Haoqi Ni, Aranya Chakrabortty, and Yufeng Xin "Online Tuning of Cloud-based Wide-Area Controllers with Variations in Network Traffic" 2019 IEEE Power & Energy Society General Meeting (PESGM), 2019 , 2019 10.1109/PESGM40551.2019.8973664
H. Ni, M. Rahouti, A. Chakrabortty, K. Xiong and Y. Xin "A Distributed Cloud-based Wide-Area Controller with SDN-Enabled Delay Optimization" 2018 IEEE Power & Energy Society General Meeting (PESGM) , 2018 10.1109/PESGM.2018.8586040
Mohamed Rahouti, Kaiqi Xiong, and Yufeng Xin "Prototyping an SDN Control Framework for QoS Guarantees" EAI TridentCom , 2020
Mohamed Rahouti, Kaiqi Xiong, and Yufeng Xin "Prototyping an SDN Control Framework for QoS Guarantees" International Conference on Testbeds and Research Infrastructures , 2020 10.1007/978-3-030-77428-8_1
Mohamed Rahouti, Kaiqi Xiong, and Yufeng Xin "QoSP: A Priority-Based Queueing Mechanism in Software-Defined Networking Environments" 2021 IEEE 18th Annual Consumer Communications & Networking Conference (CCNC) , 2021
Mohamed Rahouti, Kaiqi Xiong, and Yufeng Xin "Secure Software-Defined NetworkingCommunication Systems for Smart Cities: CurrentStatus, Challenges, and Trends" IEEE Access , 2020
Mohamed Rahouti, Kaiqi Xiong, Yufeng Xin, Nasir Ghani "LatencySmasher: A Software-Defined Networking-Based Framework for End-to-End Latency Optimization" 2019 IEEE 44th Conference on Local Computer Networks (LCN) , 2019 10.1109/LCN44214.2019.8990793
Mohamed Rahouti, Kaiqi Xiong, Yufeng Xin, Nasir Ghani "LatencySmasher: A Software-Defined Networking-Based Framework for End-to-End Latency Optimization" 2019 IEEE 44th Conference on Local Computer Networks (LCN) , 2019 10.1109/LCN44214.2019.8990793
M. Rahouti, K. Xiong, Y. Xin, N. Ghani "QoSP: A Priority-Based Queueing Mechanism in Software-Defined Networking Environments" 40th IEEE International Performance Computing and Communications Conference , 2021 10.1109/IPCCC51483.2021.9679409
M. Rahouti, K. Xiong, Y. Xin, N. Ghani "QoSP: A Priority-Based Queueing Mechanism in Software-Defined Networking Environments." 40th IEEE International Performance Computing and Communications Conference , 2021
Ni, H., Rahouti, M., Chakrabortty, A., Xiong, K., & Xin, Y. "A Distributed Cloud-based Wide-Area Controllerwith SDN-Enabled Delay Optimization" IEEE PES General Meeting , 2018
(Showing: 1 - 10 of 18)

PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT

Disclaimer

This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.

 

This project developed a Distributed Multi-Loop Networked System for Wide-Area Control of Large Power Grids (DISTINCT) framework along with a first-of-its-kind high-fidelity CPS testbed that integrates large-scale power grid emulation and monitoring, Cloud computing, and software defined networking (SDN) technologies.
The intellecture merit of this project lies in the distributed control and resource allocation models and algorithms developed in the DISTINCT framework that consists of three interactive closed-loop control layers to achieve cross-layer optimization of the targeted next-generation wide-area power grids. Layer 1 consists of distributed physics-based controllers for power oscillation damping control. Layer 2 controller enforces network latency control rules for the communication network that works in tandem with the grid controllers. The Layer 3 supervisory controller is realized through embedding and reconfiguration rules in a distributed Cloud environment to ensure fault-tolerance, resilience, and reliability of the overall closed-loop control system.
The project team also developed an integrated software and hardware testbed environment with open interfaces to validate the developed models. Since the testbed was built on top of the existing NSF ExoGENI Cloud and networking testbed and the power grid WAMS testbed, one outcome of this project was to help enhancing the capabilities of these two testbeds to support our needs in latency control and network reconfiguration needs.    
The broader impact of the project includes a series of testbed demos over more than seven years in technical events, publications, interdisciplinary and international collaborations, as well as graduate and undergraduate education across the boundary of power engineering, Cloud computing, and advanced networking. 

 


Last Modified: 12/28/2022
Modified by: Yufeng Xin

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