Evaluating XMPP Communication in IEC 61499-based Distributed Energy Applications

The IEC 61499 reference model provides an international standard developed specifically for supporting the creation of distributed event-based automation systems. Functionality is abstracted into function blocks which can be coded graphically as well as via a text-based method. As one of the design goals was the ability to support distributed control applications, communication plays a central role in the IEC 61499 specification. In order to enable the deployment of functionality to distributed platforms, these platforms need to exchange data in a variety of protocols. IEC 61499 realizes the support of these protocols via "Service Interface Function Blocks" (SIFBs). In the context of smart grids and energy applications, IEC 61499 could play an important role, as these applications require coordinating several distributed control logics. Yet, the support of grid-related protocols is a pre-condition for a wide-spread utilization of IEC 61499. The eXtensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) on the other hand is a well-established protocol for messaging, which has recently been adopted for smart grid communication. Thus, SIFBs for XMPP facilitate distributed control applications, which use XMPP for exchanging all control relevant data, being realized with the help of IEC 61499. This paper introduces the idea of integrating XMPP into SIFBs, demonstrates the prototypical implementation in an open source IEC 61499 platform and provides an evaluation of the feasibility of the result.Comment: 2016 IEEE 21st International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation (ETFA

A Unified Data and Energy Model for Wireless Communication with Moving Senders and Fixed Receivers

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Evaluation of OSGi-based architectures for customer energy management systems

Abstract—The Smart Grids requires distributed components to control the demand side. These components have to fulfill various requirements from communication issues to graphical user interfaces for monitoring and controlling. In this paper, we define high level requirements to software architectures for Customer Energy Management Systems and evaluate some existing solutions based on Java and OSGi. The conclusion shows, that there are some promising solutions available, although none of the evaluated frameworks fulfills all requirements

Open Information Architecture for Seamless Integration of Renewable Energy Sources

Electric power systems are currently confronted with a fundamental paradigm change related to its planning and operation, mainly caused by the massive integration of renewables. To allow higher penetration of them within existing grid infrastructures, the “smart grid” makes more efficient use of existing resources by integrating appropriate information technologies. Utilising the benefits of such smart grids, it is necessary to develop new automation architectures and control strategies, as well as corresponding information and communication solutions. This makes it possible to effectively use and manage a large amount of dispersed generators and to utilise their “smart” capabilities. The scalability and openness of automation systems currently used by energy utilities have to be improved significantly for handling a high amount of distributed generators. This will be needed to meet the challenges of missing common and open interfaces, as well as the large number of different protocols. In the work at hand, these shortcomings have been tackled by a conceptual solution for open and interoperable information exchange and engineering of automation applications. The approach is characterised by remote controllable services, a generic communication concept, and a formal application modelling method for distributed energy resource components. Additionally, the specification of an access management scheme for distributed energy resources, taking into account different user roles in the smart grid, allowed for a fine-grained distinction of access rights for use cases and actors. As a concrete result of this work, a generic and open communication underlay for smart grid components was developed, providing a flexible and adaptable infrastructure and supporting future smart grid requirements and roll-out. A proof-of-concept validation of the remote controllable service concept based on this infrastructure has been conducted in appropriate laboratory environments to confirm the main benefits of this approach