CPS: Medium: Collaborative Research: Information and Computation Hierarchy for Smart Grids
Lead PI:
WenZhan Song
Abstract
The electric grid in the United States has evolved over the past century from a series of small independent community-based systems to one of the largest and most complex cyber-physical systems today. However, the established conditions that made the electric grid an engineering marvel are being challenged by major changes, the most important being a worldwide effort to mitigate climate change by reducing carbon emissions. This research investigates key aspects of a computation and information foundation for future cyber-physical energy systems?the smart grids. The overall project objective is to support high penetrations of renewable energy sources, community based micro-grids, and the widespread use of electric cars and smart appliances. The research has three interconnected components that, collectively, address issues of computation architecture, information hierarchy, and experimental modeling and validation. On computation architecture, the framework based on cloud computing is investigated for the scalable, consistent, and secure operations of smart grids. The research aims to quantify fundamental design tradeoffs among scalability, data consistency, security, and trustworthiness for emerging applications of smart grids. On information hierarchy, temporal and spatial characteristics of information hierarchy are investigated with the goal of gaining a foundational understanding on how information should be partitioned, collected, distributed, compressed, and aggregated. The research also develops an open and scalable experimental platform (SmartGridLab) for empirical investigations and testing of algorithms and concepts developed in this project. SmartGridLab integrates the hardware testbed with a software simulator so that software virtual nodes can interact with physical nodes in the testbed. This research also includes a significant education component aimed at integrating frontier research with undergraduate and graduate curricula.
WenZhan Song

Dr. WenZhan Song is Georgia Power Mickey A. Brown Professor of Engineering and Founding Director of the Center for Cyber-Physical Systems at the University of Georgia. Dr. Song’s research focus on smart sensing, networking, computing and security technologies and has made significant impact in health, energy and environment systems. He is a world leading expert on IoT/CPS data analytics & security and has a strong tracking record on leading large multidisciplinary research projects with numerous grant support from broad government agencies (NSF, NASA, DOE, DOD, NIH, USDA) and industry. His research was featured in MIT Technology Review, Network World, Scientific America, New Scientist, National Geographic, etc. Dr. Song received numerous awards from his university and professional society, such as NSF CAREER Award, Outstanding Research Contribution Award, Chancellor Research Excellence Award, Mark Weiser Best Paper Award. Dr. Song serves as editor, chair or TPC member in premium IEEE conferences (such as IEEE PERCOM, IEEE INFOCOM) and journals (such as IEEE Internet of Things, ACM Transaction on Sensor Networks). Dr. Song holds the faculty courtesy appointment in UGA computer science and statistics department.

Performance Period: 09/15/2011 - 08/31/2016
Institution: Georgia State University Research Foundation, Inc.
Sponsor: National Science Foundation
Award Number: 1135814