Demand Response Management in Smart Grid Networks: a Two-Stage Game-Theoretic Learning-Based Approach

In this diploma thesis, the combined problem of power company selection and Demand Response Management in a Smart Grid Network consisting of multiple power companies and multiple customers is studied via adopting a distributed learning and game-theoretic technique. Each power company is characterized by its reputation and competitiveness. The customers who act as learning automata select the most appropriate power company to be served, in terms of price and electricity needs’ fulfillment, via a distributed learning based mechanism. Given customers\u27 power company selection, the Demand Response Management problem is formulated as a two-stage game theoretic optimization framework, where at the first stage the optimal customers\u27 electricity consumption is determined and at the second stage the optimal power companies’ pricing is calculated. The output of the Demand Response Management problem feeds the learning system in order to build knowledge and conclude to the optimal power company selection. A two-stage Power Company learning selection and Demand Response Management (PC-DRM) iterative algorithm is proposed in order to realize the distributed learning power company selection and the two-stage distributed Demand Response Management framework. The performance of the proposed approach is evaluated via modeling and simulation and its superiority against other state of the art approaches is illustrated

ESCAPE: Evacuation Strategy through Clustering and Autonomous Operation in Public Safety Systems

Natural disasters and terrorist attacks pose a significant threat to human society, and have stressed an urgent need for the development of comprehensive and efficient evacuation strategies. In this paper, a novel evacuation-planning mechanism is introduced to support the distributed and autonomous evacuation process within the operation of a public safety system, where the evacuees exploit the capabilities of the proposed ESCAPE service, towards making the most beneficial actions for themselves. The ESCAPE service was developed based on the principles of reinforcement learning and game theory, and is executed at two decision-making layers. Initially, evacuees are modeled as stochastic learning automata that select an evacuation route that they want to go based on its physical characteristics and past decisions during the current evacuation. Consequently, a cluster of evacuees is created per evacuation route, and the evacuees decide if they will finally evacuate through the specific evacuation route at the current time slot or not. The evacuees’ competitive behavior is modeled as a non-co-operative minority game per each specific evacuation route. A distributed and low-complexity evacuation-planning algorithm (i.e., ESCAPE) is introduced to implement both the aforementioned evacuee decision-making layers. Finally, the proposed framework is evaluated through modeling and simulation under several scenarios, and its superiority and benefits are revealed and demonstrated

Intelligent Dynamic Data Offloading in a Competitive Mobile Edge Computing Market

Software Defined Networks (SDN) and Mobile Edge Computing (MEC), capable of dynamically managing and satisfying the end-users computing demands, have emerged as key enabling technologies of 5G networks. In this paper, the joint problem of MEC server selection by the end-users and their optimal data offloading, as well as the optimal price setting by the MEC servers is studied in a multiple MEC servers and multiple end-users environment. The flexibility and programmability offered by the SDN technology enables the realistic implementation of the proposed framework. Initially, an SDN controller executes a reinforcement learning framework based on the theory of stochastic learning automata towards enabling the end-users to select a MEC server to offload their data. The discount offered by the MEC server, its congestion and its penetration in terms of serving end-users’ computing tasks, and its announced pricing for its computing services are considered in the overall MEC selection process. To determine the end-users’ data offloading portion to the selected MEC server, a non-cooperative game among the end-users of each server is formulated and the existence and uniqueness of the corresponding Nash Equilibrium is shown. An optimization problem of maximizing the MEC servers’ profit is formulated and solved to determine the MEC servers’ optimal pricing with respect to their offered computing services and the received offloaded data. To realize the proposed framework, an iterative and low-complexity algorithm is introduced and designed. The performance of the proposed approach was evaluated through modeling and simulation under several scenarios, with both homogeneous and heterogeneous end-users