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As more distributed energy resources become part of the demand-side infrastructure, it is important to quantify the energy flexibility they provide on a community scale, particularly to understand the impact of geographic, climatic, and occupant behavioral differences on their effectiveness, as well as identify the best control strategies to accelerate their real-world adoption. CityLearn provides an environment for benchmarking simple and advanced distributed energy resource control algorithms including rule-based, model-predictive, and reinforcement learning control. CityLearn v2 presented here extends CityLearn v1 by providing a simulation environment that leverages the End-Use Load Profiles for the U.S. Building Stock dataset to create virtual grid-interactive communities for resilient, multi-agent distributed energy resources and objective control with dynamic occupant feedback. This work details the v2 environment design and provides application examples that utilize reinforcement learning to manage battery energy storage system charging/discharging cycles, vehicle-to-grid control, and thermal comfort during heat pump power modulation.

Intelligent energy management strategies, such as Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) and Grid-to-Vehicle (G2V) emerge as a potential solution to the Electric Vehicles' (EVs) integration into the energy grid. These strategies promise enhanced grid resilience and economic benefits for both vehicle owners and grid operators. Despite the announced prospective, the adoption of these strategies is still hindered by an array of operational problems. Key among these is the lack of a simulation platform that allows to validate and refine V2G and G2V strategies. Including the development, training, and testing in the context of Energy Communities (ECs) incorporating multiple flexible energy assets. Addressing this gap, first we introduce the EVLearn, a simulation module for researching in both V2G and G2V energy management strategies, that models EVs, their charging infrastructure and associated energy flexibility dynamics; second, this paper integrates EVLearn with the existing CityLearn framework, providing V2G and G2V simulation capabilities into the study of broader energy management strategies. Results validated EVLearn and its integration into CityLearn, where the impact of these strategies is highlighted through a comparative simulation scenario., Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, 3 tables, 11 equations

This paper investigates the increasing roles of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) and Electric Vehicles (EVs). While indicating a new era of sustainable energy, these also introduce complex challenges, including the need to balance supply and demand and smooth peak consumptions amidst rising EV adoption rates. Addressing these challenges requires innovative solutions such as Demand Response (DR), energy flexibility management, Renewable Energy Communities (RECs), and more specifically for EVs, Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G). However, existing V2G approaches often fall short in real-world adaptability, global REC optimization with other flexible assets, scalability, and user engagement. To bridge this gap, this paper introduces EnergAIze, a Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning (MARL) energy management framework, leveraging the Multi-Agent Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (MADDPG) algorithm. EnergAIze enables user-centric and multi-objective energy management by allowing each prosumer to select from a range of personal management objectives, thus encouraging engagement. Additionally, it architects' data protection and ownership through decentralized computing, where each prosumer can situate an energy management optimization node directly at their own dwelling. The local node not only manages local energy assets but also fosters REC wide optimization. The efficacy of EnergAIze was evaluated through case studies employing the CityLearn simulation framework. These simulations were instrumental in demonstrating EnergAIze's adeptness at implementing V2G technology within a REC and other energy assets. The results show reduction in peak loads, ramping, carbon emissions, and electricity costs at the REC level while optimizing for individual prosumers objectives., Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables

The increasing complexity of recent Wi-Fi amendments is making the use of traditional algorithms and heuristics unfeasible to address the Rate Adaptation (RA) problem. This is due to the large combination of configuration parameters along with the high variability of the wireless channel. Recently, several works have proposed the usage of Reinforcement Learning (RL) techniques to address the problem. However, the proposed solutions lack sufficient technical explanation. Also, the lack of standard frameworks enabling the reproducibility of results and the limited availability of source code, makes the fair comparison with state of the art approaches a challenge. This paper proposes a framework, named RateRL, that integrates state of the art libraries with the well-known Network Simulator 3 (ns-3) to enable the implementation and evaluation of RL-based RA algorithms. To the best of our knowledge, RateRL is the first tool available to assist researchers during the implementation, validation and evaluation phases of RL-based RA algorithms and enable the fair comparison between competing algorithms.

Billions of interconnected Internet of Things (IoT) sensors and devices collect tremendous amounts of data from real-world scenarios. Big data is generating increasing interest in a wide range of industries. Once data is analyzed through compute-intensive Machine Learning (ML) methods, it can derive critical business value for organizations. Powerfulplatforms are essential to handle and process such massive collections of information cost-effectively and conveniently. This work introduces a distributed and scalable platform architecture that can be deployed for efficient real-world big data collection and analytics. The proposed system was tested with a case study for Predictive Maintenance of Home Appliances, where current and vibration sensors with high acquisition frequency were connected to washing machines and refrigerators. The introduced platform was used to collect, store, and analyze the data. The experimental results demonstrated that the presented system could be advantageous for tackling real-world IoT scenarios in a cost-effective and local approach., Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, IECON 2022

In this paper, particle-hopping cellular automaton (CA) models of elastic demand are used to investigate the value added to plug-in electric vehicles (PEV) aggregators by adopting vehicle-to-grid (V2G) responsive services. CA models used earlier to study load-sifting responses are modified to capture discharge/ recharge capabilities of V2G. Results on ramping responses from CA are then analysed to discuss the small contribution to system controllability added by V2G responsive services., Comment: 3 pages, 4 figures

Modern organizations face numerous physical security threats, from fire hazards to more intricate concerns regarding surveillance and unauthorized personnel. Conventional standalone fire and intrusion detection solutions must be installed and maintained independently, which leads to high capital and operational costs. Nonetheless, due to recent developments in smart sensors, computer vision techniques, and wireless communication technologies, these solutions can be integrated in a modular and low-cost manner. This work introduces Integrated Physical Security System (IP2S), a multi-agent system capable of coordinating diverse Internet of Things (IoT) sensors and actuators for an efficient mitigation of multiple physical security events. The proposed system was tested in a live case study that combined fire and intrusion detection in an industrial shop floor environment with four different sectors, two surveillance cameras, and a firefighting robot. The experimental results demonstrate that the integration of several events in a single automated system can be advantageous for the security of smart buildings, reducing false alarms and delays., Comment: 10 pages, 2 tables, 3 figures, ICCCN 2022 conference

We introduce a novel quadratic unconstrained binary optimization (QUBO) formulation for a classical problem in electrical engineering -- the optimal reconfiguration of distribution grids. For a given graph representing the grid infrastructure and known nodal loads, the problem consists in finding the spanning tree that minimizes the total link ohmic losses. A set of constraints is initially defined to impose topologically valid solutions. These constraints are then converted to a QUBO model as penalty terms. The electrical losses terms are finally added to the model as the objective function to minimize. In order to maximize the performance of solution searching with classical solvers, with hybrid quantum-classical solvers and with quantum annealers, our QUBO formulation has the goal of being very efficient in terms of variables usage. A standard 33-node test network is used as an illustrative example of our general formulation. Model metrics for this example are presented and discussed. Finally, the optimal solution for this example was obtained and validated through comparison with the optimal solution from an independent method., Comment: 21 pages, 9 figures. v2: Added new sections on model scaling and validation. Minor editorial changes

In this paper, we proceed as suggested in the final section of arXiv:1812.03874v2 and prove a lower bound for the spectral gap of the conjugate Kac process with 3 interacting particles. This bound turns out to be around $0.02$, which is already physically meaningful, and we perform Monte Carlo simulations to provide a better empirical estimate for this value via entropy production inequalities. This finishes a complete quantitative estimate of the spectral gap of the Kac process.