Browsing by Subject "Multi-agent systems."
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Item Design and implementation of a multi-agent optimized control system for a large-scale fossil-fuel electrical power unit.(2011-12-19) Williams, Craig S. (Craig Stevens); Lee, Kwang Y.; Engineering.; Baylor University. Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering.The problem facing the United Sates electric power industry today can be attributed to society’s ever increasing demand for energy, environmental concerns with reliance on fossil fuels, and uncertainty about an aging infrastructure’s ability to cope with increasing demand for energy. Existing control systems for power plants are rigid and lack the capability to provide optimal operation with increasing amounts of requirements placed on the power plants, prompting the need for a more adaptive, robust control system. The object of this thesis aims to develop and present an optimized control system based on the concept of Multi-Agent Systems (MASs), which have been applied to other complex problems in the power industry. This thesis applies a MAS distributed control methodology to a large-scale power plant optimized control system, improving the overall flexibility, autonomy, and robustness of the control system, which in turn increases the efficiency and operation of the power plant.Item Development and implementation of a multi-agent system for intelligent optimized power plant control.(2012-08-08) Head, Jason D.; Lee, Kwang Y.; Engineering.; Baylor University. Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering.As the demand for electric power grows and regulations on power plant operation become stricter, the size, and therefore complexity, of new power plant units is increasing while the intricacies of the multiple simultaneous processes that take place to generate electricity require tighter control. In order to provide a solution to some of the associated operational challenges arising from this situation, control techniques have been developed to allow optimized power plant control while considering non-fixed operating goals. Each of these techniques is computationally intensive, requiring a distributed, parallel control framework to implement each technique simultaneously in distributed subsystem environments. For these reasons, previous research has studied multi-agent systems as a means to implement such a control system. Therefore, the goal of this thesis is to fully develop a multi-agent system to coordinate and implement these techniques to control a third order fossil fuel power plant model.Item Optimizing multi-agent dynamics for underwater tactical applications.(2011-05-12T15:55:02Z) Yu, Albert R.; Marks, Robert J.; Engineering.; Baylor University. Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering.Large groups of autonomous agents, or swarms, can exhibit complex emergent behaviors that are difficult to predict and characterize from their low-level interactions. These emergent behaviors can have hidden implications for the performance of the swarm should the operational theater be perturbed. Thus, designing the optimal rules of operation for coordinating these multi-agent systems in order to accomplish a given task often requires simulations or expensive implementations. This thesis project examines swarm dynamics and the use of inversion to optimize the rules of operation of a large group of autonomous agents in order to accomplish missions of tactical relevance: specifically missions concerning underwater frequency-based standing patrols and point-defense between two competing swarms. Modified genetic algorithms and particle swarm optimization are utilized in the inversion process, producing various competing tactical responses and patrol behaviors. Swarm inversion is shown to yield effective and often creative solutions for guiding swarms of autonomous agents.