1,169,936 research outputs found
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Photovoltaic and Behind-the-Meter Battery Storage: Advanced Smart Inverter Controls and Field Demonstration
Contrasting Views of Complexity and Their Implications For Network-Centric Infrastructures
There exists a widely recognized need to better understand
and manage complex “systems of systems,” ranging from
biology, ecology, and medicine to network-centric technologies.
This is motivating the search for universal laws of highly evolved
systems and driving demand for new mathematics and methods
that are consistent, integrative, and predictive. However, the theoretical
frameworks available today are not merely fragmented
but sometimes contradictory and incompatible. We argue that
complexity arises in highly evolved biological and technological
systems primarily to provide mechanisms to create robustness.
However, this complexity itself can be a source of new fragility,
leading to “robust yet fragile” tradeoffs in system design. We
focus on the role of robustness and architecture in networked
infrastructures, and we highlight recent advances in the theory
of distributed control driven by network technologies. This view
of complexity in highly organized technological and biological systems
is fundamentally different from the dominant perspective in
the mainstream sciences, which downplays function, constraints,
and tradeoffs, and tends to minimize the role of organization and
design
Technology assessment of advanced automation for space missions
Six general classes of technology requirements derived during the mission definition phase of the study were identified as having maximum importance and urgency, including autonomous world model based information systems, learning and hypothesis formation, natural language and other man-machine communication, space manufacturing, teleoperators and robot systems, and computer science and technology
Conceptual design study for heat exhaust management in the ARC fusion pilot plant
The ARC pilot plant conceptual design study has been extended beyond its
initial scope [B. N. Sorbom et al., FED 100 (2015) 378] to explore options for
managing ~525 MW of fusion power generated in a compact, high field (B_0 = 9.2
T) tokamak that is approximately the size of JET (R_0 = 3.3 m). Taking
advantage of ARC's novel design - demountable high temperature superconductor
toroidal field (TF) magnets, poloidal magnetic field coils located inside the
TF, and vacuum vessel (VV) immersed in molten salt FLiBe blanket - this
follow-on study has identified innovative and potentially robust power exhaust
management solutions.Comment: Accepted by Fusion Engineering and Desig
From Social Simulation to Integrative System Design
As the recent financial crisis showed, today there is a strong need to gain
"ecological perspective" of all relevant interactions in
socio-economic-techno-environmental systems. For this, we suggested to set-up a
network of Centers for integrative systems design, which shall be able to run
all potentially relevant scenarios, identify causality chains, explore feedback
and cascading effects for a number of model variants, and determine the
reliability of their implications (given the validity of the underlying
models). They will be able to detect possible negative side effect of policy
decisions, before they occur. The Centers belonging to this network of
Integrative Systems Design Centers would be focused on a particular field, but
they would be part of an attempt to eventually cover all relevant areas of
society and economy and integrate them within a "Living Earth Simulator". The
results of all research activities of such Centers would be turned into
informative input for political Decision Arenas. For example, Crisis
Observatories (for financial instabilities, shortages of resources,
environmental change, conflict, spreading of diseases, etc.) would be connected
with such Decision Arenas for the purpose of visualization, in order to make
complex interdependencies understandable to scientists, decision-makers, and
the general public.Comment: 34 pages, Visioneer White Paper, see http://www.visioneer.ethz.c
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High-Performance Integrated Window and Façade Solutions for California
The researchers developed a new generation of high-performance façade systems and supporting design and management tools to support industry in meeting California’s greenhouse gas reduction targets, reduce energy consumption, and enable an adaptable response to minimize real-time demands on the electricity grid. The project resulted in five outcomes: (1) The research team developed an R-5, 1-inch thick, triplepane, insulating glass unit with a novel low-conductance aluminum frame. This technology can help significantly reduce residential cooling and heating loads, particularly during the evening. (2) The team developed a prototype of a windowintegrated local ventilation and energy recovery device that provides clean, dry fresh air through the façade with minimal energy requirements. (3) A daylight-redirecting louver system was prototyped to redirect sunlight 15–40 feet from the window. Simulations estimated that lighting energy use could be reduced by 35–54 percent without glare. (4) A control system incorporating physics-based equations and a mathematical solver was prototyped and field tested to demonstrate feasibility. Simulations estimated that total electricity costs could be reduced by 9-28 percent on sunny summer days through adaptive control of operable shading and daylighting components and the thermostat compared to state-of-the-art automatic façade controls in commercial building perimeter zones. (5) Supporting models and tools needed by industry for technology R&D and market transformation activities were validated. Attaining California’s clean energy goals require making a fundamental shift from today’s ad-hoc assemblages of static components to turnkey, intelligent, responsive, integrated building façade systems. These systems offered significant reductions in energy use, peak demand, and operating cost in California
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FABRIC: A National-Scale Programmable Experimental Network Infrastructure
FABRIC is a unique national research infrastructure to enable cutting-edge and exploratory research at-scale in networking, cybersecurity, distributed computing and storage systems, machine learning, and science applications. It is an everywhere-programmable nationwide instrument comprised of novel extensible network elements equipped with large amounts of compute and storage, interconnected by high speed, dedicated optical links. It will connect a number of specialized testbeds for cloud research (NSF Cloud testbeds CloudLab and Chameleon), for research beyond 5G technologies (Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research or PAWR), as well as production high-performance computing facilities and science instruments to create a rich fabric for a wide variety of experimental activities
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