Engineering Commons^™

Ict-Enabled Control And Energy Management Of Community Microgrids For Resilient Smart Grid Operation, Mahmoud Saleh

Dissertations and Theses

Our research has focused on developing novel controllers and algorithms to enhance the resilience of the power grid and increase its readiness level against major disturbances.

The U.S. power grid currently encounters two main challenges: (1) the massive and extended blackouts caused by natural disasters, such as hurricane Sandy. These blackouts have raised a national call to explore innovative approaches for enhanced grid resiliency. Scrutinizing how previous blackouts initiated and propagated throughout the power grid, the major reasons are lack of situational awareness, lack of real-time monitoring and control, underdeveloped controllers at both the transmission and distribution levels, and lack …

Single-Degree-Of-Freedom Experiments Demonstrating Electromagnetic Formation Flying For Small Satellite Swarms Using Piecewise-Sinusoidal Controls, Ajin Sunny

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical Engineering

This thesis presents a decentralized electromagnetic formation flying (EMFF) control method using frequency-multiplexed sinusoidal control signals. We demonstrate the EMFF control approach in open-loop and closed-loop control experiments using a single-degree-of-freedom testbed with an electromagnetic actuation system (EAS). The EAS sense the relative position and velocity between satellites and implement a frequency-multiplexed sinusoidal control signal. We use a laser-rangefinder device to capture the relative position and an ARM-based microcontroller to implement the closed-loop control algorithm. We custom-design and build the EAS that implements the formation control in one dimension. The experimental results in this thesis demonstrate the feasibility of the …

Intelligent Transportation Systems, Hybrid Electric Vehicles, Powertrain Control, Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control, Model Predictive Control, Hadi Kazemi

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Information obtainable from Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) provides the possibility of improving the safety and efficiency of vehicles at different levels. In particular, such information has the potential to be utilized for prediction of driving conditions and traffic flow, which allows us to improve the performance of the control systems in different vehicular applications, such as Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs) powertrain control and Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC). In the first part of this work, we study the design of an MPC controller for a Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) system, which is an automated application that provides the drivers …

Application Of Droop Control And Synchronization For Single-Phase Inverters In Ac Microgrid Integration, Shuai Yang

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

With the increasing requirements on environment-friendly and sustainable clean energy [1], people have paid more attention to renewable energy around the world in the past few decades. As a result, power systems have undergone a paradigm shift from centralized generation to distributed generation. Smart grids, which are a combination of power systems and communication networks, were proposed to allow power systems to meet future challenges. In smart grids, especially in AC microgrids, converters play an important role in many areas including microgrid integration, uninterrupted power supply, and flexible alternating current transmission systems. The inverter is a power conversion device [2] …

Mathematical Programming Approach For The Design Of Satellite Power Systems, Allen Flath Iii

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

Satellite power systems can be understood as islanded dc microgrids supplied by specialized and coordinated solar cell arrays augmented by electrochemical battery systems to handle high-power loads and periods of eclipse. The periodic availability of power, the limited capacity of batteries, and the dependence of all mission service on power consumption create a unique situation in which temporal power and energy scarcity exist. A multi-period model of an orbital satellite power system’s performance over a mission’s duration can be constructed. A modular power system architecture is used to characterize the system’s constraints. Using mathematical programming, an optimization problem can be …

Improvement Of The Material’S Mechanical Characteristics Using Intelligent Real Time Control Interfaces In Hfc Hardening Process, Florentin Smarandache, Luige Vladareanu, Mihaiela Iliescu, Victor Vladareanu, Alexandru Gal, Octavian Melinte, Adrian Margean

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

The paper presents Intelligent Control (IC) Interfaces for real time control of mechatronic systems applied to Hardening Process Control (HPC) in order to improvement of the material’s mechanical characteristics. Implementation of IC laws in the intelligent real time control interfaces depends on the particular circumstances of the models characteristics used and the exact definition of optimization problem. The results led to the development of the IC interfaces in real time through Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and neural networks (NN) using off- line the regression methods.

Energy Optimization And Coordination Frameworks For Smart Homes Considering Incentives From Discomfort And Market Analysis, Priti Paudyal

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The electricity demand is increasing with the growing use of electricity-based appliances in today’s world. The residential sector’s electricity consumption share is also increasing. Demand response (DR) is a typical way to schedule consumers’ energy consumption and help utility to reduce the peak load demand. Residential demand management can contribute to reduce peak electric demand, decrease electricity costs, and maintain grid reliability. Though the demand management has benefits to the utility and the consumers, controlling the consumers electricity consumption provides inconvenience to the consumers. The challenge here is to properly address the customers’ inconvenience to encourage them to participate and …

Coordinated Smart Home Thermal And Energy Management System Using A Co-Simulation Framework, Prateek Munankarmi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The increasing demand for electricity especially during the peak hours threaten the grid reliability. Demand response (DR), changing the load pattern of the consumer in response to system conditions, can decrease energy consumption during periods of high wholesale market price and also maintain system reliability. Residential homes consume 38% of the total electric energy in the U.S., making them promising for DR participation. Consumers can be motivated to participate in DR programs by providing incentives (incentive-based DR), or by introducing a time-varying tariff for electricity consumption (price-based DR). A home energy management system (HEMS), an automated system which can alter …

Machine Learning For Load Profile Data Analytics And Short-Term Load Forecasting, Md. Rashedul Haq

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Short-term load forecasting (STLF) is a key issue for the operation and dispatch of day ahead energy market. It is a prerequisite for the economic operation of power systems and the basis of dispatching and making startup-shutdown plans, which plays a key role in the automatic control of power systems. Accurate power load forecasting not only help users choose a more appropriate electricity consumption scheme and reduces a lot of electric cost expenditure but also is conducive to optimizing the resources of power systems. This advantage helps while improving equipment utilization for reducing the production cost and improving the economic …

Effect Of Sensor Errors On Autonomous Steering Control And Application Of Sensor Fusion For Robust Navigation, Shuvodeep Bhattacharjya

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Autonomous steering control is one the most important features in autonomous vehicle navigation. The nature and tuning of the controller decides how well the vehicle follows a defined trajectory. A poorly tuned controller can cause the vehicle to oversteer or understeer at turns leading to deviation from a defined path. However, controller performance also depends on the state–feedback system. If the states used for controller input are noisy or has bias / systematic error, the navigation performance of the vehicle is affected irrespective of the control law and controller tuning. In this report, autonomous steering controller analysis is done for …

Networked Microgrid Optimization And Energy Management, Robert S. Jane

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Military vehicles possess attributes consistent with a microgrid, containing electrical energy generation, storage, government furnished equipment (GFE), and the ability to share these capabilities via interconnection. Many military vehicles have significant energy storage capacity to satisfy silent watch requirements, making them particularly well-suited to share their energy storage capabilities with stationary microgrids for more efficient energy management. Further, the energy generation capacity and the fuel consumption rate of the vehicles are comparable to standard diesel generators, for certain scenarios, the use of the vehicles could result in more efficient operation. Energy management of a microgrid is an open area of …

Cycle Assist, Tyler Matthews

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The senior engineering design project presented in the paper that succeeds this, outlines the steps taken to design and implement an electronic bicycle that is able to keep a user’s heart-rate in a selected “intensity zone” though the use of an electronic motor and custom control circuitry. My portion of this project was to allow for safe and consistent power delivery to the rest of the electronics. That is to say, I built a battery pack and battery management system (BMS) to safely supply sufficient power to the rest of the electronics that were required for this project. In order …

Dynamic Voltage Rail Audio Amplifier, Evan Von Duhn, Timothy Oshatiouk, Slavisa Tosanovic, Andrew Cantrell

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The goal of this project is to create a high-quality, power-efficient audio amplifier. Most modern audio amplifiers use a constant amount of power regardless of the signal that is being amplified. This means that both loud and quiet portions of the audio signal require the same amount of power to amplify. The idea for this high-quality, power-efficient audio amplifier is that the quieter portions of the audio signal can be amplified using less power. This will be achieved by first analyzing the audio signal and controlling the power source based on the signal’s needs. Therefore, louder parts of the audio …

Real-Time Path Planning In Constrained, Uncertain Environments, Randall Christensen, Robert C. Leishman

Faculty Publications

A key enabler of autonomous vehicles is the ability to plan the path of the vehicle to accomplish mission objectives. To be robust to realistic environments, path planners must account for uncertainty in the trajectory of the vehicle as well as uncertainty in the location of obstacles. The uncertainty in the trajectory of the vehicle is a difficult quantity to estimate, and is influenced by coupling between the vehicle dynamics, guidance, navigation, and control system as well as any disturbances acting on the vehicle. Monte Carlo analysis is the conventional approach to determine vehicle dispersion, while accounting for the coupled …

Online Learning Of The Spatial-Temporal Channel Variation In Underwater Acoustic Communication Networks, Wensheng Sun

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Influenced by environmental conditions, underwater acoustic (UWA) communication channels exhibit spatial and temporal variations, posing significant challenges for UWA networking and applications. This dissertation develops statistical signal processing approaches to model and predict variations of the channel and relevant environmental factors. Firstly, extensive field experiments are conducted in the Great Lakes region. Three types of the freshwater river/lake acoustic channels are characterized in the aspects of statistical channel variations and sound propagation loss, including stationary, mobile and under-ice acoustic channels. Statistical data analysis shows that relative to oceanic channels, freshwater river/lake channels have larger temporal coherence, higher correlation among densely …

Immunity-Based Framework For Autonomous Flight In Gps-Challenged Environment, Mohanad Al Nuaimi

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

In this research, the artificial immune system (AIS) paradigm is used for the development of a conceptual framework for autonomous flight when vehicle position and velocity are not available from direct sources such as the global navigation satellite systems or external landmarks and systems. The AIS is expected to provide corrections of velocity and position estimations that are only based on the outputs of onboard inertial measurement units (IMU). The AIS comprises sets of artificial memory cells that simulate the function of memory T- and B-cells in the biological immune system of vertebrates. The innate immune system uses information about …

Reinforcement Learning, Intelligent Control And Their Applications In Connected And Autonomous Vehicles, Adedapo O. Odekunle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Reinforcement learning (RL) has attracted large attention over the past few years. Recently, we developed a data-driven algorithm to solve predictive cruise control (PCC) and games output regulation problems. This work integrates our recent contributions to the application of RL in game theory, output regulation problems, robust control, small-gain theory and PCC. The algorithm was developed for $H_\infty$ adaptive optimal output regulation of uncertain linear systems, and uncertain partially linear systems to reject disturbance and also force the output of the systems to asymptotically track a reference. In the PCC problem, we determined the reference velocity for each autonomous vehicle …