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Tag Archives: Distributed Artificial Intelligence
The LIINES is moving to Dartmouth
- commits to three research areas; two of which include complex systems and energy.
- organizes itself as a single school of engineering rather than departments; thus enabling research and teaching in engineering systems.
- maintains a strong commitment to teaching; ranking first nationally for five out of the last 6 years.
- maintains a healthy relationship with the social sciences within the larger liberal arts university; thus situating today’s engineering systems challenges within their social context
- emphasizes the role of entrepreneurial innovation in engineering; truly embracing the “empowering your network” ethos.
LIINES Website: http://amfarid.scripts.mit.edu
Journal Paper Accepted at the Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing: Measures of reconfigurability and its key characteristics in intelligent manufacturing systems
The LIINES is pleased to announce that the Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing has accepted our paper entitled: “Measures of reconfigurability and its key characteristics in intelligent manufacturing systems”. The paper is authored by Amro M. Farid and was published in October 2014.
Many manufacturing challenges arise with the global trend of increased competition in the marketplace. Production processes must deal with shorter product lifecycles and mass-customization. Consequently, production systems need to be quickly and incrementally adjusted to meet the ever-changing products. Reconfigurable manufacturing systems have been proposed as a solution that facilitates changing production processes for highly automated production facilities.
Much research has been done in the field of reconfigurable manufacturing systems. Topics include: modular machine tools and material handlers, distributed automation, artificially intelligent paradigms, and holonic manufacturing systems. While these technological advances have demonstrated robust operation and been qualitatively successful in achieving reconfigurability, there has been comparatively little attention devoted to quantitative design methodologies of these reconfigurable manufacturing systems and their ultimate industrial adoption remains limited.
Measuring reconfigurability of manufacturing systems quantitatively has been a major challenge in the past, since a quantitative reconfigurability measurement process was non-existent. Earlier work developed a measurement method that extracts measurables from the production shop floor. When this was established, basic measures of reconfiguration potential and reconfiguration ease were developed, based on axiomatic design for large flexible engineering systems and the design structure matrix respectively.
Reconfiguration of a production process can be split up in four steps: Decide which configuration, Decouple, Reorganize, and Recouple. The larger the number of elements in the system, the more configurations are made possible. This is measured using the reconfiguration potential measure, based on axiomatic design for large flexible engineering systems.
Production processes contain multiple interfaces within themselves. Multiple layers of control can be distinguished, that have to work together to coordinate the physical components. These interfaces are the main determinants for the reconfiguration ease measure.
This paper combines these techniques to define a quantitative measure for reconfigurability and its key characteristics of integrability, convertibility and customization. The intention behind this research contribution is that it may be integrated in the future into quantitative design methodologies for reconfigurable manufacturing systems, which may be easily adopted by industrial automation and production companies.
About the author: Wester Schoonenberg completed his B.Sc. in Systems Engineering and Policy Analysis Management at Delft University of Technology in 2014. After his bachelors’ degree, Wester started his M.Sc. at Masdar Institute of Science & Technology. Currently, Wester is working on the integrated operation of electrical grids and production systems with a special interest in the demand side management of industrial facilities.
LIINES Website: http://amfarid.scripts.mit.edu
Duke Energy on Analytics and the Internet of Things
It’s been a long time since 2003 when the concept of the Internet of Things was first proposed by U. of Cambridge Auto-ID Laboratory. At the time, Dr. Amro M. Farid, now head of the Laboratory for Intelligent Integrated Networks of Engineering Systems, was a doctoral student investigating how RFID technology enabled intelligent products within reconfigurable manufacturing systems. The Internet of Things was being applied primarily in the manufacturing and supply chain domain.
Since then, the Internet of Things concept has taken hold not just in manufacturing systems and supply chains but nearly every industrial system domain including energy. Every “thing” or “device” has the potential to be connected via an intelligent sensor so as to make decisions — be they centralized within an operations control center — or distributed amongst artificially intelligent multi-agent systems. The Internet of Things concept has the potential to fundamentally transform industrial systems.
Have a look at Duke Energy’s take on the Internet of Things:
The LIINES is proud to have been working in this area since its inception and continue to do so. More information on our research can be found on the LIINES website.
LIINES Website: http://amfarid.scripts.mit.edu
Prof. Amro M. Farid gives invited lecture at MIT Transportation Seminar Series
On December 5, 2014, Prof. Amro M. Farid gave an invited lecture at the MIT Transportation Seminar Series (Cambridge, MA, USA). The presentation entitled: “Intelligent Transportation-Energy Systems for Future Large Scale Deployment of Electrified Transportation” featured the LIINES’ latest research in transportation electrification.
The presentation advocates an integrated approach to transportation and energy management. At its core, the intelligent transportation energy system (ITES) requires a new transportation electrification assessment methodology that draws upon microscopic traffic simulation, power grid dynamics, and Big Data-Driven use case modeling. Such an ITES would come to include coupled operations management decisions including: vehicle dispatching, vehicle routing, charging queue management, coordinated charging, and vehicle-to-grid ancillary services. The presentation also featured the results from the first full scale electric vehicle integration study which was recently conducted for a taxi-fleet use case in Abu Dhabi. The study suggests a close collaboration between the Abu Dhabi Department of Transportation and the Abu Dhabi Water and Electricity Authority in future large scale deployments of electrified transportation.
The presentation draws heavily from several LIINES publications including the UAE State of Energy Report, the UAE State of the Green Economy Report, the first hybrid dynamic model for transportation electrification. The results of this first full-scale study were first presented publicly at the 2nd IEEE International Conference on Connected Vehicles & Expo held December 2-6, 2013 in Las Vegas, NV, USA, and the Gulf Traffic Conference held December 9-10 2013 in Dubai, UAE. These presentations demonstrated a successful collaborative project between Masdar Institute, the Abu Dhabi Department of Transportation, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
In depth materials on LIINES research on transportation electrification can be found on the LIINES publication page: http://amfarid.scripts.mit.edu
LIINES Website: http://amfarid.scripts.mit.edu
Hybrid Dynamic Model for Transportation Electrification Published at the 2014 American Control Conference
In depth materials on LIINES research on transportation electrification can be found on the LIINES publication page: http://amfarid.scripts.mit.edu
LIINES Website: http://amfarid.scripts.mit.edu
Dr. Amro M. Farid contributes to Published 2015 UAE State of Energy Report
Following on the heals of the 2015 UAE State of the Green Economy Report, we, at the LIINES, are happy to announce the release of the 2015 UAE State of Energy Report. It is the premier benchmark publication for the nation’s energy sector. This annual report is published by the UAE Ministry of Energy, and is created in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Dubai Carbon. The work opens with states from his highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan President of the United Arab Emirates, his highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates and Ruler of Dubai, his excellency Ban Ki-Moon Secretary-General of the United Nations, his excellency Dr. Sultan Al Jaber UAE Minister of State and Chairman of Masdar, his excellency Dr. Rashid Ahmad bin Fahad Minister of Environment and Water, his excellency Saeed Mohammed al Tayer Vice Chairman of the Dubai Supreme Council of Energy, his excellency Dr. Matar Hamed Al Neyadi Undersecretary of the UAE Ministry of Energy. Also in the report, Dr. Amro M. Farid has authored “Key Technical Challenges to Electric Vehicle Adoption in the UAE”. It summarizes many of the conclusions from our transportation electrification research and mentioned in our previous post. The report also includes the work of LIINES alumna Reshma Francy. She has co-authored two articles. “What are GHG Emission Estimation Methodologies?” and “Energy Planning, Analysis and Policy Making around GHG Emissions”. For further information on how the LIINES continues to produce energy research relevant to the UAE landscape can be found on the LIINES publication page: http://amfarid.scripts.mit.edu LIINES Website: http://amfarid.scripts.mit.edu
Dr. Amro M. Farid Contributes to Published 2015 UAE State of the Green Economy Report
We, at the the LIINES, are happy to announce that the 2015 UAE State of the Green Economy Report has not only been published but has also gone viral! #stateofgreeneconomy.
The Dubai Carbon Center of Excellence coordinated the publication of the UN-backed document which describes opportunities and challenges for the green economy in the global market; focusing on the leadership of the United Arab Emirates.
The work features the commitments and support of his highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates and Ruler of Dubai, his highness Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Chairman of the Dubai Supreme Council of Energy, his excellency Ban Ki-Moon Secretary-General of the United Nations, His Excellency Mohammed Al Gergawi, Minister of Cabinet Affairs in the Federal Government, his excellency Dr. Rashid bin Fahad, Minister of Environment and Water, his excellency Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Dubai Water & Electricity Authority, and her excellency Helen Clark Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme.
Also in the report, Dr. Amro M. Farid has authored “Electric Vehicles: Energising the Adoption of Electrified Transportation in a Smart City”. It summarizes many of the conclusions from our transportation electrification research. The include five key considerations to energy the adoption of electrified transportation in the Dubai Smart City:
- Getting the electric transportation use case right
- Getting the charging infrastructure right
- Strengthening the existing power infrastructure
- Coordinating the planning of transportation and energy infrastructure
- Coordinating the operation of transportation and power infrastructure
In depth materis on LIINES research on transportation electrification can be found on the LIINES publication page: http://amfarid.scripts.mit.edu
LIINES Website: http://amfarid.scripts.mit.edu
Turkish Electric Car w/ 500km Driving Range Hits Roads
At the LIINES, we have been conducting research on Transportation Electrification for quite some time.
At heart of the research is the electric vehicle, and its challenge is that it is both a transportation artifact that exists on our everyday roads as well as an electrical artifact that must connect to the power grid. In the first full-scale case study of its kind, we have shown in Abu Dhabi that managing this dual nature means ensuring vehicle availability through charging while not imposing overly heavy demands on the grid.
One main challenge of electric vehicles is their driving range. Many commercially available EVs only have a range of 150km — thus requiring charging once or twice a day. With charging times of several hours, this means that a typical driver has to think very carefully how and when this EV will be practically used.
In contrast, a recent Turkish Electric Car developed at Istanbul University has demonstrated a 500km driving range in a tour from Istanbul to Ankara. The “T-1” as the vehicle is called weighs a mere 500 kilograms and has a top speed of 120 kilometers per hour. And while the vehicle looks sporty sleek, it has not neglected practicality with four seats and enough room for luggage.
With the T-1, the development team builds upon earlier successes including their 8th place finish in the 2009 global electric car competition held in Australia.
LIINES Website: http://amfarid.scripts.mit.edu
Abu Dhabi Department of Transportation, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries & Masdar Institute Joint Workshop
Following on the heals of their back-to-back conferences, Reem Al Junaibi and Prof. Amro M. Farid presented the results of their Abu Dhabi Electric Vehicle Technical Feasibility study in a joint workshop including participants from the Abu Dhabi Department of Transportation and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. They were joined by Mohammad Al-Hadrami and Prof. Sgouris Sgouridis who also investigated the socio-economic barriers to electric vehicle adoption. The workshop was held on the Masdar Institute campus on December 17th 2013 and marked the official end to what has been a tremendously successful project demonstrating collaboration between public, private, and academic entities.
After the day-long workshop, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries hosted Masdar Institute and the Abu Dhabi Department of Transportation in a two-day workshop in Malaga, Spain on December 19-20 2013. Malaga, Spain proudly marks itself as one of Europe’s leading smart cities. The Zem2All project, with the largest deployment of Electric Vehicles, is a testament to this achievement.
Prof. Farid continues to advocate Intelligent Transportation-Energy Systems. In other words, the intelligent system consisting of monitoring, decision-making and dispatching functionality should have a transportation as well as energy management function. Efforts are currently underway at the LIINES to develop models and control solutions which may be directly integrated into Intelligent Transportation-Energy Systems. A full reference list of energy-transportation nexus research at the LIINES can be found on the LIINES publication page: http://amfarid.scripts.mit.edu
LIINES Website: http://amfarid.scripts.mit.edu
Reem Al Junaibi & Prof. Amro M. Farid present results of Abu Dhabi Electric Vehicle Technical Feasibility Study
In back-to-back conferences, Reem Al Junaibi and Prof. Amro M. Farid presented the results of their Abu Dhabi Electric Vehicle Technical Feasibility study. Ms. Al Junaibi attended the 2nd IEEE International Conference on Connected Vehicles & Expo held December 2-6, 2013 in Las Vegas, NV, USA. There, she presented the first published results of the study in the paper entitled: “Technical Feasibility Assessment of Electric Vehicles : An Abu Dhabi Example”. Meanwhile, Prof. Farid was invited to speak at the Gulf Traffic Conference held December 9-10 2013 in Dubai, UAE.
Both presentations revolved around the same theme. The true success and feasibility of electric vehicles depends not just on the vehicle itself but also how it interacts with three large scale infrastructure systems: the road transportation system, the power grid, and the intelligent transportation system.
Ms. Al Junaibi specifically presented some of the results of the study. It considered twelve potential scenarios in which EV taxis were rolled out at a penetration of 3, 5 and 10% of road traffic with four possible charging system designs. The results showed that if EV Taxi are to be deployed then their dispatching, queue management, charging and vehicle-2-grid stabilization activities must be simultaneously considered. The ramifications of not doing so would be either degraded vehicle availability or high variable loads on the electric power grid or both.
Prof. Farid consequently argued that given the rapid push to transportation electrification and connected vehicles, intelligent transportation systems would better be considered as Intelligent Transportation-Energy Systems. In other words, the intelligent system consisting of monitoring, decision-making and dispatching functionality should have a transportation as well as energy management function.
Efforts are currently underway at the LIINES are currently underway to develop models and control solutions which may be directly integrated into Intelligent Transportation-Energy Systems. A full reference list of energy-transportation nexus research at LIINES can be found on the LIINES publication page: http://amfarid.scripts.mit.edu
LIINES Website: http://amfarid.scripts.mit.edu
