Proposal

Narrative

The objective of this project is to acquire a cyber-physical smart grid testbed (see attached Testbed_Overview) that enables the testing of novel technologies being developed by the PI and its collaborators for power and energy security, resilience, and sustainability education. The electrical grid that delivers energy from resources to load demand in coastal areas faces multiple challenges, such as 1) Renewable Energy Harvesting and Grid Integration; 2) Cyber-Physical Security and Resilience; 3) Interdependent Infrastructure Systems. The acquired equipment will facilitate a variety of energy resilience and sustainability education that contributes to the population in Southern Florida, where coastal events often negatively impact critical power infrastructures. This project will ensure a more efficient, reliable, and sustainable energy future. The requested instrument will serve as a hands-on teaching and training platform for graduate and undergraduate courses involving energy security, resilience, and sustainability. Examples include EEL4216-Electric Power Systems, EEL6935- Smart Grid, and EGN4732-Fundamentals of Energy Engineering (see attached Teaching_Courses). This platform will serve as a tie to connect FAU faculty with external collaborators and establish a regional/national team for future exploration. Developed technologies in this project will facilitate the training of current and future engineers at FAU. The platform expects to contribute to the development of a diverse group of future skilled workforce. Investigators will add new materials and lab curricula to advance relevant courses and provide frontier research and educational knowledge to both graduate and undergraduate students. Particularly, this platform will enhance the ``Energy Resilience Certificate" – a newly developed certificate program at FAU to prepare students for future power and energy careers in South Florida and beyond.

Facilities

No facilities renovations or upgrades will be needed.

Hardware Requirements

The instrument being requested in the proposal is a smart grid testbed that includes PC/FPGA-based power grid real-time simulators and software from OPAL-RT Technologies. These components, together with customized software and interface, will enable a real-time simulation of a smart grid with cyber and physical layers. A detailed quote is attached to this proposal (see attached Equipment_Quote), and a brief description and justification of the critical components are given below (see attached Equipment_List). Power Grid Phasor-Domain Simulator: We adopt ePHASORSIM, a commonly used real-time environment in which energy management and phasor measurement unit (PMU) applications are run, for phasor-domain simulation environment of power transmission and distribution networks. Networks can be designed based on an excel file or imported from PSS/E. Cyber-Physical Smart Grid Security Simulator: This system includes 100 communication nodes, fully integrated with HYPERSIM. This function enables the mapping between the power system simulation and the communication network simulation. EXata-CPS is basically a combination of EXata and of its cyber library, integrated into OPAL-RT hardware. It is a very detailed communication network simulation tool, with advanced settings for attacks, vulnerabilities, configurations, etc. Intelligent Transportation Simulator: Orchestra is the backbone of intelligent transportation system applications. It allows us to link the real-time simulation to external environments that are based on Simulink or C-code, such as CarMaker, PreScan, SCANeR, Dymola, etc. We could use this module to simulate independent Simulink models, each representing different components of a vehicle. Note that the attached equipment quote is for a many-year project while this Tech Fee proposal will cover the first-year budget.

Software Requirements

Licenses are purchased together with the hardware equipment. See attached Equipment_Quote.

Personnel Costs

There are no personnel costs.

Other Costs

The project will generate one conference paper and one journal paper. $2,000 is budgeted for the conference registration and travel to present the work. $1,500 is budgeted for the journal paper publication fee. The papers will be focused on student hands-on training and education using state-of-the-art hardware and software systems.

Timeline

01/01/2023 - 01/31/2023: contact OPAL-RT Technologies for an updated quote with specific new system requirements. 02/01/2023 - 03/31/2023: waiting for equipment shipment and meanwhile setting the testbed hosting space. 04/01/2023 - 5/31/2023: set up the software and hardware of the testbed. 06/01/2023 - 08/31/2023: carry out experiments on the testbed, collect data, design course modules, and run k-12 summer camps using the testbed as a demonstration platform. 09/01/2023 - 10/31/2023: Write a paper for a top-tier conference in the field, such as the IEEE Power and Energy Society General Meeting. 11/01/2023 - 12/31/2023: write a journal paper for peer review, such as the IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid.

Sustainability

The usage and management of the equipment are summarized in the attached Management_Plan. The proposed equipment will be installed in the I-SENSE Laboratory located in FAU Boca Raton campus Engineering East Building, a five-story facility that houses the Computer Science, Electrical, and Computer Engineering programs, and consists of electrical instrumentation labs, computer and circuitry labs, specialized research labs and a cloud computing infrastructure. FAU’s research pillar I-SENSE and EECS will be responsible for the installation and maintenance of the requested equipment. Space has also been reserved for the installation of the PC/FPGA real-time simulators and necessary power outlets. The PI is working closely with the full-time engineers at I-SENSE and SNMREC, where PI Tang is an affiliated Research Fellow of I-SENSE. To enable the remote connection, this testbed will also connect to FAU's high-performance computing infrastructure and major computing facilities through a 10GB campus network, enabled by FAU’s Office of Information Technology (OIT) and the Technical Support group (TSG) of the FAU College of Engineering and Computer Science. OPAL-RT Technologies will provide 2 x 5 days of on-site training for the maintenance and operation of the equipment. In addition, FAU will purchase 5 years of academic software maintenance and support on software products. I-SENSE will be the point of contact for the user to coordinate testbed resource utilization and immediate support and will also coordinate maintenance and support with OPAL-RT Technologies after the system is deployed. Both OIT and TSG will jointly support the maintenance of the equipment. Technical issues will be first resolved by I-SENSE and EECS engineers, and further reported to the TSG and OIT, through the ticket help system whenever needed, for troubleshooting, maintenance, and updating.

Resource Matching

FAU’s research pillar I-SENSE and the department of EECS will provide help for the installation and maintenance of the requested equipment. PI Tang is an affiliated Research Fellow of I-SENSE and will work closely with the full-time engineers at I-SENSE and SNMREC to ensure a successful project.

Implementing Organization

I-SENSE and EECS.