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The concept of cellular energy systems of the German Association for Electrical, Electronic & Information Technologies (VDE) proposes sector coupled energy networks for energy transition based on cellular structures. Its decentralized control approach radically differs from that of existing networks. Deeply integrated information and communications technologies (ICT) open opportunities for increased resilience and optimizations. The exploration of this concept requires a comprehensive simulation tool. In this paper, we investigate simulation techniques for cellular energy systems and present a concept based on co-simulation. We combine simulation tools developed for different domains. A classical tool for studying physical aspects of energy systems (Modelica, TransiEnt library) is fused with a state-of-the-art communication networks simulator (OMNeT++) via the standardized functional mock-up interface (FMI). New components, such as cell managers, aggregators, and markets, are integrated via remote procedure calls. A special feature of our concept is that the communication simulator coordinates the co-simulation as a master and integrates other components via a proxy concept. Model consistency across different domains is achieved by a common description of the energy system. Evaluation proves the feasibility of the concept and shows simulation speeds about 20 times faster than real time for a cell with 111 households.

Abstract The paper proposes a demand response scheme controlling many domestic electric water heaters (DEWHs) with a price function to consume electric power according to a target schedule. It discusses at length the design of an algorithm to calculate the price function from a target schedule. The price function is used by the control of each DEWH to automatically and optimally minimize its local heating costs. It is demonstrated that the resulting total power consumption approximates the target schedule. The algorithm was successfully validated by simulation with a realistic set of 50 DEWHs assuming perfect knowledge of parameters and water consumption. It is shown that the algorithm is also applicable to clusters of large numbers of DEWHs with statistical knowledge only. However, this leads to a slightly higher deviation from the target schedule.

Abstract Wireless mesh networks are a promising technology for connecting sensors and actuators with high flexibility and low investment costs. In industrial applications, however, reliability is essential. Therefore, two time-slotted medium access methods, DSME and TSCH, were added to the IEEE 802.15.4 standard. They allow collision-free communication in multi-hop networks and provide channel hopping for mitigating external interferences. The slot schedule used in these networks is of high importance for the network performance. This paper supports the development of efficient schedules by providing an analytical model for the assessment of such schedules, focused on TSCH. A Markov chain model for the finite queue on every node is introduced that takes the slot distribution into account. The models of all nodes are interconnected to calculate network metrics such as packet delivery ratio, end-to-end delay, and throughput. An evaluation compares the model with a simulation of the Orchestra schedule. The model is applied to Orchestra as well as to two simple distributed scheduling algorithms to demonstrate the importance of traffic-awareness for achieving high throughput.

The intermittent energy supply from distributed resources and the coupling of different energy and application sectors play an important role for future energy systems. Novel operational concepts require the use of widespread and reliable Information and Communication Technology (ICT). This paper presents the approach of a research project that focuses on the development of an innovative operational concept for a Smart Integrated Energy System (SIES), which consists of a physical architecture, ICT and energy management strategies. The cellular approach provides the architecture of the physical system in combination with Transactive Control (TC) as the system’s energy management framework. Independent dynamic models for each component, the physical and digital system, operational management and market are suggested and combined in a newly introduced co-simulation platform to create a holistic model of the integrated energy system. To verify the effectiveness of the operational concept, energy system scenarios are derived and evaluation criteria are suggested which can be employed to evaluate the future system operations.

6LoWPAN plays a major role within the protocol stack for the future Internet of Things. Its fragmentation mechanism enables transport of IPv6 datagrams with the required minimum MTU of 1280 bytes over 802.15.4-based networks. With the goal of a fully standardized WSN protocol stack currently necessitating a route-over approach, i.e., routing at the IP-layer, there are two main choices for any 6LoWPAN implementation with regard to datagram fragmentation: Hop-by-hop assembly or a cross-layered direct mode, which forwards individual 6LoWPAN fragments before the whole datagram has arrived. In addition to these two straightforward approaches, we propose enhancements based on adaptive rate-restriction for the direct forwarding and a retry control for both modes to reduce the number of losses of larger datagrams. An evaluation of these modes in a simulation environment and a hardware testbed indicate that the proposed enhancements can considerably improve PRR and latency within 6LoWPAN networks.

The analysis of self-stabilizing algorithms is often limited to the worst case stabilization time starting from an arbitrary state, i.e., a state resulting from a sequence of faults. Considering the fact that these algorithms are intended to provide fault tolerance in the long run, this is not the most relevant metric. A common situation is that a running system is an a legitimate state when hit by a single fault. This event has a much higher probability than multiple concurrent faults. Therefore, the worst case time to recover from a single fault is more relevant than the recovery time from a large number of faults. This paper presents techniques to derive upper bounds for the mean time to recover from a single fault for self-stabilizing algorithms based on Markov chains in combination with lumping. To illustrate the applicability of the techniques they are applied to a new self-stabilizing coloring algorithm.