The transformation of the energy sector into a cyber-physical system of systems, driven by the integration of renewable energy sources and digitalization, demands new engineering and validation methodologies. Traditional monolithic approaches lack the flexibility, interoperability, and collaborative capabilities required for modern power system automation applications. This work introduces the PowerTeams approach, a cloud-native, service-oriented platform designed to support collaborative engineering across the entire lifecycle of power system automation applications. The platform integrates both collaboration and engineering services, supports dynamic service registration, and employs a microservice architecture with container-based deployment to ensure scalability and flexibility. A validation scenario involving the development and deployment of a power plant controller for a photovoltaic system demonstrates the platform’s capabilities. Initial evaluations with external users confirm the feasibility and benefits of the approach, highlighting its potential for real-world power and energy system projects.

Biogas plants have been the subject of modeling and research in recent years. Such a plant is a system consisting of several components, the most important of which are the combined heat and power (CHP) unit that produces electricity and heat, the organic feed receiving area, the digester and the gas storage. All of these components have separate and detailed models developed for different purposes. A missing system approach that provides a sufficient level of detail and correlation between feeding, biogas production rate, storage level and CHP output was identified. Therefore, this work presents the concept of an approach that uses a deeper system understanding combined with processing of big amount of data rather than the popular fully machine learning based models. It outlines the methodology for establishing a relationship between CHP power and gas storage level in both forward and backward coupling. Possible physics based models are presented, which should serve as a predictor between the storage level of the biogas power plant and the feedstock. Finally, the individual steps are linked to a system-level approach that captures the fact that the power generated affects the state of the system and vice versa. The models presented are under development and use a sophisticated mix of statistical, data-driven and physical modelling methods. As input, they require recorded data that is minimally in detail and generally available for all biogas power plants. Together with the presented approach, the developed model should be able to serve as a digital twin of an arbitrary power plant that can be integrated into energy system models. Additionally, it should deliver quality indicators for the biogas produced at the respective plant. As such, the proposed methodology offers added value over existing approaches, which are often unidirectional or focused solely on individual components.

As more novel devices are integrated into the electricity grid due to the changes taking place in the energy system, ways of detecting deviations from the intended settings are needed. If misconfigurations of, for example, reactive power control curves of inverters go unnoticed, the safe and reliable operation of the power grid can no longer be ensured due to possible voltage violations or overloadings. Therefore, methods of detection of misconfigurations of said inverters using operational data at transformers are presented and compared. These methods include preprocessing by dimensionality reduction as well as detection by supervised learning approaches. The data used is of high reliability as it was collected in a lab setting reenacting typical and relevant grid operation situations. Furthermore, this data was recreated by simulation to validate the simulation data, which could also potentially be used for detection applications on a bigger scale. The results for both data sources were compared and conclusions drawn about applicability and usability for grid operators.

While the past 50 years have been dominated by the so-called communication revolution, today, we are at the dawn of the energy revolution. The entire economy is energy driven, being electricity its most important energy vector. By the end of 2040, electricity is expected to contribute up to 40% of the increase in final energy consumption, and concepts, such as smart grid or internet of energy, are now commonplaces in our lexicon. The Paris UN climate change conference agreement has imposed three major changes into the electrical grid paradigm: the need to reduce carbon emissions; the need to decentralize electrical energy production, and the need to increase transport electrification.

To achieve net-zero emissions economy, the transition to online entertainment and retail, aging populations, urban population growth, and pressures on public finance have created huge interests for human to run cities differently and smartly. A term titled smart city is created which is considered as an idealistic city, where the quality of life for citizens is greatly improved by utilizing information and communication technology (ICT), new services, and new city infrastructures to efficiently achieve the value, such as sustainable and resilient development. The eco-sustainable method has to be used in several aspects, such as energy, mobility, environment, and social services. Research and development in smart cities is expanding exponentially. SMC is one of the core sponsors of the IEEE Smart Cities.

Power and energy systems are lifeline infrastructures to civilization. Their stable operation and security of supply are essential for the daily life of the people. Typically, they are characterized by a central generation infrastructure using large-scale power plants. The electricity is transported via long-distance transmission lines on high-voltage levels and distributed via distribution grids to customers on medium and low-voltage levels.

Investigation of a concept for remote detection of malfunctioning grid supporting devices using minimal data is proposed in this work. The operation of future electricity grids highly depends on the behaviour of these devices and their support functions such as reactive power dispatch used for voltage control. Synthesising and utilizing operational data of a distribution grid, a functionality is being developed to enable better surveillance of grid connected devices ensuring security of supply and resiliency. In a first step, data driven approaches for anomaly detection are explored. They are applied to the operational data of the device to detect unwanted behaviour. Results show first indicators of applicability and possible obstacles.

The practice of testing power system equipment like converters usually involves simulation, laboratory and field testing in that sequence. Such an approach lacks smooth transition and wide coverage of new services which are being introduced by the smart grid concept. A systematic approach to sequentially test various functionalities may lead to reduced costs and speedup the process from concept to implementation. Testing chain is such an approach where specific capabilities of pure simulation, hardware-in-the-loop, laboratory and field testing are leveraged sequentially to cover wide aspects of the system under investigation. In this study, a test case is exemplary realized aiming to demonstrate the potential of a multi-site testing chain with varied testbeds for generating systematic improvements on the performance of power converter control functions.

The transition to the smart grid introduces complexity to the design and operation of electric power systems. This complexity has the potential to result in safety-related losses that are caused, for example, by unforeseen interactions between systems and cyber-attacks. Consequently, it is important to identify potential losses and their root causes, ideally during system design. This is non-trivial and requires a systematic approach. Furthermore, due to complexity, it may not possible to reason about the circumstances that could lead to a loss; in this case, experiments are required. In this work, we present how two complementary deductive approaches can be usefully integrated to address these concerns: Systems Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA) is a systems approach to identifying safety-related hazard scenarios; and the ERIGrid Holistic Test Description (HTD) provides a structured approach to refine and document experiments. The intention of combining these approaches is to enable a systematic approach to hazard analysis whose findings can be experimentally tested. We demonstrate the use of this approach with a reactive power voltage control case study for a low voltage distribution network.

As the landscape of devices that interact with the electrical grid expands, also the complexity of the scenarios that arise from these interactions increases. Validation methods and tools are typically domain specific and are designed to approach mainly component level testing. For this kind of applications, software and hardware-in-the-loop based simulations as well as lab experiments are all tools that allow testing with different degrees of accuracy at various stages in the development life-cycle. However, things are vastly different when analysing the tools and the methodology available for performing system-level validation. Until now there are no available well-defined approaches for testing complex use cases involving components from different domains. Smart grid applications would typically include a relatively large number of physical devices, software components, as well as communication technology, all working hand in hand. This paper explores the possibilities that are opened in terms of testing by the integration of a real-time simulator into co-simulation environments. Three practical implementations of such systems together with performance metrics are discussed. Two control-related examples are selected in order to show the capabilities of the proposed approach.

Due to the increasing power system complexity caused by a higher penetration of distributed energy resources, advanced engineering methods are required which can handle power system aspects together with information and communication technologies and new automation concepts. In order to handle such a complexity, various engineering concepts have been introduced by providing support such as guidelines, code generation, and reasoning for the development of smart grid use cases and applications in the last few years. Nevertheless, none of these approaches covers all phases in the engineering of smart grid solutions and the corresponding requirements. In this paper, two approaches-focusing on rapid development and on the identification of application inconsistencies-are selected and combined to cover a wider scope of the requirements for smart grid automation application engineering. The integration of the two approaches is shown using an example use case, where multiple functions for a battery energy management system are designed, implemented, and validated.

The expansion of renewable energy sources, as an effort to reduce global warming and to guarantee a sustainable energy supply, forces the electrical energy systems into enhanced complexity through new requirements, actors, technological approaches or business models. This complexity is also noticed in the smart grid engineering process, resulting in increasing effort and costs. By applying machine learning concepts on the engineering process it is possible to decrease the work-effort and minimize tedious and error prone manual tasks. This work introduces three machine learning concepts and shows how they can improve the smart grid engineering process by applying a clustering approach to give recommendations of standards that are useful for the developed use case. According to their implementation-feasibility an evaluation based on the state-of-the-art is pursued. Furthermore, a tool prototype indicates current and future application possibilities of machine learning in the smart grid engineering process.

The integration of industrial automation systems and software agents has been practiced for many years. However, such an integration is usually done by experts and there is no consistent way to assess these practices and to optimally select one for a specific system. Standards such as the ISO/IEC 25023 propose measures that could be used to obtain a quantification on the characteristics of such integration. In this work, the suitability of these characteristics and their proposed calculation for assessing the connection of industrial automation systems with software agents is discussed. Results show that although most of the measures are relevant for the integration of agents and industrial automation systems, some are not relevant in this context. Additionally, it was noticed that some measures, especially those of a more technical nature, were either very difficult to computed in the automation system integration, or did not provide sufficient guidance to identify a practice to be used.

Agent-based systems, an approach derived from distributed artificial intelligence, have been introduced for designing large complex systems. They are also suitable to solve challenging problems in industrial environments, being an appropriate technology for realizing cyber-physical systems. In such configuration, they need to interface with automation and control devices. However, until now there is no widely accepted practice nor pattern to interface the software agents with the automation functions. This work addresses this issue and introduces corresponding integration patterns in order to achieve full interoperability and reusability. This work, therefore, provides a methodology for mapping existing practices into a set of generic templates and also discusses the applicability of the proposed approach to different industrial application domains.

Advances in the domain of electronics and information and communication technology provide a tremendous set of new possibilities and services. The development of the Internet of Things concept where different sensors, actuators, and control devices are connected together and where functions are provided to the Internet, is on the way to be used also in various industrial domains. A new age of intelligence in such industrial systems is being formed. Hence, the aim of this work is to provide an overview about ongoing research and technology developments related to the digitalization of industrial systems applying the IoT approach. This review covers the domain of manufacturing, as an example for discrete systems, and the power and energy domain, as an example for continuous systems. Important domain standards and future research directions are identified and discussed also.

Agent-technologies have been used for higher-level decision making in addition to carrying out lower-level automation and control functions in industrial systems. Recent research has identified a number of architectural patterns for the use of agents in industrial automation systems but these practices vary in several ways, including how closely agents are coupled with physical systems and their control functions. Such practices may play a pivotal role in the Cyber-Physical System integration and interaction. Hence, there is a clear need for a common set of criteria for assessing available practices and identifying a bestfit practice for a given industrial use case. Unfortunately, no such common criteria exist currently. This work proposes an assessment criteria approach as well as a methodology to enable the use case based selection of a best practice for integrating agents and industrial systems. The software product quality model proposed by the ISO/IEC 25010 family of standards is used as starting point and is put in the industrial automation context. Subsequently, the proposed methodology is applied, and a survey of experts in the domain is carried out, in order to reveal some insights on the key characteristics of the subject matter.

At the dawn of the 4thindustrial revolution, the use of software agents, service-oriented architectures and related technologies as primary constructs of Cyber-Physical Industrial systems is of high relevance. Current developments in this area have been consistently supported by an active community of researchers and practitioners in the past decades. Most of the main actors in the area are members of the IEEE IES Technical Community on Industrial Agents (TCIA). This work analyzes the evolution of this research and development network. It does so by identifying and investigating specialized sub-communities within the larger umbrella of Industrial Agents, their research interests and directions. In total of 7430 documents from 8045 authors were collected from the Google Scholar profiles of the TCIA members. The analysis reveals different research trends, transitions over the years and the emergence of application and domain foci, that are critically discussed.

The Standards Group of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society (IES) has been active in standards for industrial electronics in recent years, focusing on sensors and sensors networks, real-time industrial communications and industrial agents in the automation fields. It has also participated and collaborated with other IEEE societies such as the Instrumentation and Measurement Society (IMS) in the IEEE 1451 sensor networks standards family, and with government entities such as the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). This paper gives a brief synopsis of IES standards activities and the trends it sees in industrial electronics standardization in the coming emerging technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT)/Industrial IoT (IIoT), 5G communications, industrial wireless and possibly transportation electrification. All these technologies are expected to be disruptive to the industry in the coming years and standards must be generated to be effective and beneficial to industry and society. The IES Standards Group anticipates more contributions to the IEEE 1451 standards family, industrial agents, industrial wireless applications with NIST, and possibly with standards activities within Industry 4.0 in the coming years.

Industrial agent technologies have been integrated in key elements coupling industrial systems and software logic, which is an important issue in the design of cyber-physical systems. Although several efforts have been tried out over the last decades to integrate software agents with physical hardware devices, and some commonalities can be observed among the existing practices, there is no uniform way overall. This work presents an empirical survey of existing practices in three application area, namely factory automation, power & energy systems and building automation. It identifies pertaining common issues and discusses how they integrate low level automation functions by utilizing industrial agents. The surveyed practices reveal high diversity, customized traditional integration focusing mostly on I/O functions, without security, and an overall approach that is mostly coupled rather than embedded.

The ever increasing integration of renewable energy resources into the electric energy system gives rise to new challenges on a large scale. New and extended information technology is necessary for controlling the corresponding power grids and their components. The need for advanced control functions and ancillary services provided by distributed energy resources is also increasing. As a response to this trend, this paper addresses the concept of an open and interoperable information technology solution specifically designed for the integration of renewable energy sources into smart grid systems. The concept addresses remote programmable and flexible functions used in resource constrained, distributed energy resources controllers. A generic communication infrastructure as well as an accompanying formal modeling and engineering method for distributed energy applications are introduced. The usage of the proposed concept is illustrated via a representative example.

Renewable energy sources and further electrification of energy consumption are key enablers to decrease greenhouse gas emissions, but they also introduce increased complexity to the electric power system. The increased availability of automation, information and communication technology, and intelligent solutions for system operation have transformed the power system into a smart grid. To support the development process of smart grid solutions on system level they have to be tested in a holistic manner covering the multi-domain aspect of a such complex systems. This paper introduces the concept of holistic power system testing and discuss first steps towards a corresponding methodology that is being developed in the European ERIGrid research infrastructure project.

In the past, various communication infrastructures and networks, network technologies and topologies, and protocols have been discussed to intelligently interconnect nodes across electric power distribution networks forming a smart grid. Similarly, attempts to esteem bandwidth requirements of smart grid applications under different assumptions were made, by applying models such as the queuing theory. The present paper aims at presenting a conceptual model allowing for the generation and simulation of characteristic communication networks, as part of the communication infrastructure of electric power distribution grids. Feasible input parameters are discussed and fields, where simulation can be used, are presented.

For upcoming smart grid information and communication architectures, security is an indispensable requirement in order to ensure security of supply, to prevent damages to the electricity supply, loss or manipulation of personal or accounting information, etc. This must be taken into account throughout all developmental phases when creating such a framework, i.e., from the design phase on. Therefore, a Security-by-Design (SbD) approach has to be used which is able to address all potential harms to the envisioned system. Especially through the integration of distributed energy resources, new stakeholders (who may have low awareness of potential security risks) have to be considered, e.g., private households with photovoltaic/battery systems. Through the usage of the Internet for the exchange of sensitive data, intrusions from malicious attackers are facilitated. To cope with this, distributed energy resources have to include a comprehensive security subsystem. In this paper, an exemplary solution for the consideration of these issues in highly distributed infrastructures is given.

The IEC 61499 reference model provides an international standard developed specifically for supporting the creation of distributed event-based automation systems. Functionality is abstracted into function blocks which can be coded graphically as well as via a text-based method. As one of the design goals was the ability to support distributed control applications, communication plays a central role in the IEC 61499 specification. In order to enable the deployment of functionality to distributed platforms, these platforms need to exchange data in a variety of protocols. IEC 61499 realizes the support of these protocols via “Service Interface Function Blocks” (SIFBs). In the context of smart grids and energy applications, IEC 61499 could play an important role, as these applications require coordinating several distributed control logics. Yet, the support of grid-related protocols is a pre-condition for a wide-spread utilization of IEC 61499. The eXtensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) on the other hand is a well-established protocol for messaging, which has recently been adopted for smart grid communication. Thus, SIFBs for XMPP facilitate distributed control applications, which use XMPP for exchanging all control relevant data, being realized with the help of IEC 61499. This paper introduces the idea of integrating XMPP into SIFBs, demonstrates the prototypical implementation in an open source IEC 61499 platform and provides an evaluation of the feasibility of the result.

There has been an increase of domestic energy storage system installations during the last years. Those systems provide only local/self-consumption. The implementation of other grid- or market-related services such as frequency and voltage control would allow for a tighter system integration and a possible improvement of the economic feasibility. Providing multiple service in one system leads to interoperability, flexibility, complexity (overlapping of functions) issues. In order to cope with those issues a framework for rapid prototyping of control applications focused on energy storage systems is proposed. In this context, it can be a useful tool to aid component manufacturers in the development of novel storage applications. Also smart grid system integrators and energy utilities can profit using this kind of tool-support. The proposed approach uses model-driven engineering together with well-known smart grid and industrial related standards (i.e., IEC 61850, CIM, and IEC 61499). Its applicability is demonstrated on an illustrative example.

In order to handle the increasing complexity of smart grid systems, detailed use case and requirements engineering has become indispensable. For this purpose the Smart Grid Reference Architecture Model (SGAM) has emerged as the major methodology. This paper presents a textual Domain Specific Language (DSL) based on SGAM, optimized for rapid prototyping of smart grid applications using a model-driven engineering approach with automatic code generation. The goal of this approach is to support the development process of smart Grid applications, from use case description to implementation. The paper presents a use case described by the DSL and shows how an IEC 61499 control application and an IEC 61850 communication configuration can be automatically generated.

The realization of a sustainable energy system for the future requires intelligent automation approaches and operational concepts, in addition to the usage of renewable sources. This paper analyzes the usage of the holonic-control principle as an open, scalable, and interoperable automation solution for setting up a local energy market in the context of smart buildings and energy-efficient neighborhoods. The necessary requirements, the corresponding automation architecture and validation through a co-simulation based proof-of-concept are discussed in this work.

Future industrial systems can be realized using the cyber-physical systems (CPSs) that advocate the coexistence of cyber and physical counterparts in a network structure to perform the system's functions in a collaborative manner. Multiagent systems share common ground with CPSs and can empower them with a multitude of capabilities in their efforts to achieve complexity management, decentralization, intelligence, modularity, flexibility, robustness, adaptation, and responsiveness. This work surveys and analyzes the current state of the industrial application of agent technology in CPSs, and provides a vision on the way agents can effectively enable emerging CPS challenges.

State estimation and control approaches in electric distribution grids rely on precise electric models that may be inaccurate. This work presents a novel method of estimating distribution line parameters using only root mean square voltage and power measurements under consideration of measurement tolerances, noise, and asynchronous timestamps. A measurement tolerance compensation model and an alternative representation of the power flow equations without voltage phase angles are introduced. The line parameters are obtained using numeric methods. The simulation demonstrates in case of the series conductance that the absolute compensated error is -1.05% and -1.07% for both representations, as opposed to the expected uncompensated error of -79.68%. Identification of a laboratory distribution line using real measurement data grid yields a deviation of 6.75% and 4.00%, respectively, from a calculation based on the manufacturer's cable specifications and estimated line length. The transformed power flow equations deliver similar results despite the reduced problem complexity.

Cyber-attacks against Smart Grids have been found in the real world. Malware such as Havex and BlackEnergy have been found targeting industrial control systems (ICS) and researchers have shown that cyber-attacks can exploit vulnerabilities in widely used Smart Grid communication standards. This paper addresses a deep investigation of attacks against the manufacturing message specification of IEC 61850, which is expected to become one of the most widely used communication services in Smart Grids. We investigate how an attacker can build a custom tool to execute man-in-the-middle attacks, manipulate data, and affect the physical system. Attack capabilities are demonstrated based on NESCOR scenarios to make it possible to thoroughly test these scenarios in a real system. The goal is to help understand the potential for such attacks, and to aid the development and testing of cyber security solutions. An attack use-case is presented that focuses on the standard for power utility automation, IEC 61850 in the context of inverter-based distributed energy resource devices; especially photovoltaics (PV) generators.

For robust testing of new technologies used in future, intelligent power and energy systems, realistic testing environments are needed. Due to the dimensions of a real-world environment a field-based installation is often not viable. More efficient instead of a local installation is to connect existing and highly sophisticated labs with different focus of specialization. Today's experimental setups for the Smart Grid domain are very time-consuming solutions or specific implementations for a single project. To overcome this challenge, an innovative concept for a novel approach for large-scale co-simulation across locations (different labs) is presented in this paper.

The complexity of energy systems is increasing continuously. The main driver for this is the number of components and systems that are involved in grid operation, optimization, and protection. Moreover, various interconnections among different components exist so that the behavior of one has impacts on many. This raises the requirement to thoroughly test and validate components and systems to be integrated in the overall infrastructure. In order to address the dependencies it is not sufficient to apply stand-alone approaches but to follow co-simulation. Furthermore, hard- and software have to be combined to large-scale simulation scenarios. Thus, real laboratory components have to be connected and integrated with software-based simulations. In this paper the authors present a low-cost and standard-compliant co-simulation approach that integrates controllers for real hardware devices with software simulators through the mosaik framework.

During the last years the increasing installation of distributed energy resources, electric vehicles bus also energy storage systems has lead to new challenges in terms of power system planning and operation. New intelligent approaches turning power distribution grids into Smart Grids are necessary. For their realization standardized automation, control and communication systems are essential. Moreover, an integrated engineering approach for the development of Smart Grid applications using these standards is equally required. Model-driven engineering methods well known from computer science together with implementation methods from automation domain have the potential to provide the basis for such a required integrated engineering concept. The main aim of this paper therefore is to facilitate the integration of legacy Smart Grid applications into a model-driven engineering approach. It introduces transformation rules for the conversion of applications implemented with textual programming languages into the IEC 61499 reference model. A brief overview of existing model-driven approaches applied in industrial environments is provided and their applicability for Smart Grid application development is discussed. The special requirements of the Smart Grid domain is taken into account by the proposed transformation approach and provided examples.

The large-scale roll out of renewables in several regions in the world has led to changes in the planning and operation of the power systems. They are becoming visible nowadays on all voltage levels in distribution and partly also in transmission grids. This creates additional challenges to energy utilities due to their stochastic generation behavior. Sophisticated component design methods, intelligent information and communication architectures, control concepts as well as proper standards are necessary in order to manage the higher complexity of future intelligent power systems. Due to the considerable higher complexity of such Smart Grids powerful research infrastructures are necessary to design and validate future developments. The main aim of this paper therefore is to provide an overview of available Austrian laboratories, their possibilities as well as various scenarios on the example of the SmartEST lab from the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology as well as the Hybrid Energy Lab from the University of Applied Sciences Technikum Vienna.

The nine papers in this special section cover a wide range of interesting smart grid topics related to the integration of distributed energy resources and grid components as well as to virtual power plants.

The increasing installation of distributed energy resources results in massive challenges related to the planning and operation of the power systems. Through intelligent control on system but also on component level with advanced functions the existing electricity supply infrastructure can be more efficiently used without the need to install additional distribution lines. Such a Smart Gird allows a higher penetration level of distributed generators but needs inverter-based devices with remote control possibilities. The design, development as well as validation of such smart inverter systems becomes more complex and time consuming. An integrated development approach covering the inverter hardware, advanced control functions and the necessary communication interface is missing up to now. The main aim of this paper therefore is to present and discuss a rapid prototyping approach for distributed energy resource device design addressing these issues. A corresponding work flow is suggested as well as a possible tool framework introduced which is validated on a selected example.

Technologies, concepts and architectures for renewable energy are currently in the thick of engineering researches. Technological application examples are sustainable electric supplies and emission-free buildings where infrastructures of power systems such as Smart Grid Systems (SGSs) play a key role. They are actually pushing their self-governing capabilities beyond limits by being required to deal with more and more challenging operational situations (topological reconfiguration, fault tolerance, etc.). Additionally, support of automatic adaptation is needed in order to provide resilience and sustainment. This paper analyzes different use cases of SGSs with the main goal of identifying potential applications for the implementation of physiologically-inspired concepts and algorithms to support self-management. The survey presented recaps the state of the art of SGSs with a particular focus on automation problems and solutions as well as physiologically-inspired adaptation in other domains. It also presents the foundations for a physio-logically-inspired self-management approach, and challenging research issues when applying it to SGSs. Concluding remarks and future research directions are discussed as well.

The intention of this paper is to provide an overview of using agent and service-oriented technologies in intelligent energy systems. It focuses mainly on ongoing research and development activities related to smart grids. Key challenges as a result of the massive deployment of distributed energy resources are discussed, such as aggregation, supply-demand balancing, electricity markets, as well as fault handling and diagnostics. Concepts and technologies like multiagent systems or service-oriented architectures are able to deal with future requirements supporting a flexible, intelligent, and active power grid management. This work monitors major achievements in the field and provides a brief overview of large-scale smart grid projects using agent and service-oriented principles. In addition, future trends in the digitalization of power grids are discussed covering the deployment of resource constrained devices and appropriate communication protocols. The employment of ontologies ensuring semantic interoperability as well as the improvement of security issues related to smart grids is also discussed.

This special issue - organized by the IEEE SMC TC on Distributed Intelligent Systems - targets recent research results, trends, and practical developments of distributed intelligent systems that accomplish advanced tasks in the industrial areas of manufacturing, power and energy, and logistics. Five high-quality contributions to this special issue have been selected in a strict peer review process supported by reputed international experts. Three submissions focus mainly on technical aspects related to the design, development and validation process of distributed, intelligent automation systems, whereas the other two papers treat application-related topics.

Currently, the electric energy system is experiencing major changes. Higher penetration of Distributed Generation (DG) create problems and challenges which have not been reported in the past. New and advanced Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) as well as innovative control concepts are often seen as key enablers to manage and optimize the future electric energy infrastructure. This applies also to the development of corresponding standards and information models. However, until now the focus was mostly towards the unification of communication and modeling standards, e.g., power utility automation addressed by IEC 61850 and Common Information Model (CIM). This paper focuses on the first steps towards a common modeling approach for automation concepts in Smart Grids. It proposes an automation model based on the IEC 61499 reference model for distributed automation highly integrated with the well accepted IEC 61850 interoperability approach.

The provision of ancillary services by generators connected to distribution networks has been addressed in several international and national standards and guidelines in the last few years. Several testing procedures have been defined, however comprehensive tests for certain requirements are still missing. This paper addresses this gap by introducing testing procedures for specific requirements, but also for promising functionalities that are not yet thoroughly defined in standards. The status of current testing procedures concerning ancillary services is discussed. Several advanced open-loop testing procedures are proposed, that have not been sufficiently defined in current standards-guidelines. The procedures concern steady-state voltage support (such as Q(U) control) and frequency control (such as droop control and provision of inertia). In addition, procedures for Power-Hardware-in the Loop testing are proposed that show the added-value of this promising approach compared to conventional testing.

The large-scale integration of distributed energy resources into a complex cyber-physical system demands proper automation platforms for monitoring, control, optimization and reconfiguration, addressing intelligent energy systems. This paper discusses the use of multi-agent systems as a suitable solution to address this challenge by analyzing their benefits when applying them to the field of Smart Grids and surveying existing works and initiatives. The principles and use cases established in the MASGrid project illustrate the application of multi-agent technology in active power distribution systems.

Todays power system is in a transformation phase towards a Smart Grid due to the integration of renewables and availability of advanced information technologies allowing it to be controlled in a more optimized way. The design, implementation, and validation of corresponding applications and functions can be a very complex task. The usage of common rules and domain standards can support this process but a formalized design approach is missing today. Therefore, the main aim of this paper is to analyze and discuss the current state of practice in designing Smart Grids applications and to identify open gaps. Moreover, important requirements for the definition of a common application modeling language are discussed and a first formalized approach is presented.

A higher flexibility and adaptability in industrial automation systems is an important requirement which has to be addressed in industrial systems today. New software architectures for the corresponding control environments allowing to develop modular and reusable code, are necessary. The IEC 61499 standard was especially developed for distributed industrial automation systems addressing such needs but its realization and the provision of corresponding software tools can be cost intensive. Using open source developments can provide helpful benefits. This paper therefore investigates the usage of the IEC 61499 compliant open source environment 4DIAC for developing modular and reusable control code. Moreover, future improvements are identified in order to enhance its usability for industrial automation applications.

The future energy system has to satisfy a continuously growing demand for electricity and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Fulfilling such diverse needs requires the integration of renewable energy resources on a large scale. However, the existing information and communication infrastructure controlling the corresponding power grids and components is not directly designed to master the ever increasing complexity. An upcoming requirement is the need for the functional adaption of the control systems during operation. The main aim of this article is to discuss and analyze requirements as well as to introduce a standard-compliant concept for a reconfigurable software architecture used in intelligent electronic devices for distributed and renewable energy resources. A simulation case study shows the applicability of this approach. A secure adaptation of the functional structure and the corresponding algorithms in device controllers can substantially contribute to a more efficient energy system, while at the same time responding to future needs.

Reusability of control code is crucial for future industrial automation in order to allow the development of high quality control systems in less time and with less cost. A key stopper for automation software reuse is the current intertwining of control logic with hardware specific code. Existing approaches that tackled such a problem could lead to improvements but will not sufficiently solve this issue. In this work we investigate a concept based on a logical grouping of I/Os to so called Instrumentation- and Control-Points and decoupling them from the control application by applying IEC 61499's adapter concept. In two industrial motivated application examples we show that this concept fulfills the requirements for increasing the reusability of control code by separating control logic from hardware specific code. Moreover, it leads to a better application software structure which is easier to maintain and to understand.

Modern automation and control systems used in industrial large-scale applications are characterized by its distributed nature in the areas of power and energy systems, manufacturing, building automation, and logistics. In order to cope with different communication needs and changing requirements in such large-scale scenarios over its life-time, the main aim of this paper is to propose a programmable and (re-)configurable communication gateway device compliant to domain standards. This approach is therefore based on the IEC 61499 reference model for distributed and reconfigurable automation and uses the service interface function block concept and highlevel communication patterns to achieve a hardware-independent access to communication services. Moreover, the utilization of the IEC 61499 management model supports the possibility of the online-reconfiguration of communication links and therefore provides a very flexible structure and implementation for an industrial automation gateway device.

This work is giving an approach of comparison between different commonly used methods to evaluate investigations of generation units in electrical grids. State-of-the-art simulation tools are utilized for pure numerical simulation, while physical laboratory tests are conducted as a data reference and validation. Introducing the established Power Hardware in the Loop (PHIL) method, all results are compared one to each other. This composite simulation technique (PHIL) features advantages in terms of setup and simulation flexibility, while its overall validation is up for discussions. This validation is heavily dependent on the quality of the used equipment conjoined with the chosen experiment of interest. Profound know-how in the field of control technique, system theory and measuring method is necessary to obtain clean, useful results out of a valid PHIL simulation. While every method has its advantages in use, time, costs and applicability, it is of importance to know when to use which domain (software or hardware) in order to get the intended answers to arising questions. As a validating case study, a low voltage grid with different grid impedances and two small scale generators connected to two different nodes each is simulated. Thereby, the reactive power control is under examination and the results of the different methods are compared one to each other.

The Power-Hardware-in-the-Loop simulation approach constitutes a complicated integration of a classical, physical system/device test (hardware) in combination with a pure computer simulation (software). This paper presents a new interface topology that takes advantage of modern real-time system capabilities in order to increase stability and accuracy. Basic requirements are stated in a powerful real-time computing system, in a suitable power amplification stage, as well as in an adequate measurement system. In general, the performance of the used devices in the simulation setup is of crucial importance for the quality of simulation results and conclusions based on the executed tests. Furthermore, a first implementation of the proposed new interface topology is discussed. Actual areas of applications for this work can be found in the industrial research and development area as well as for the research of electric energy systems and electric drives and in modern power electronics.

The electric energy system is changing more and more into a Smart Grid. A key technology in order to transform the actual grid is the information and communication technology. This means that advanced management, automation, control and communication concepts and systems have to be developed in order to cope with changing and challenging future requirements in the intelligent grid; especially the large-scale integration of distributed energy systems and electric vehicles. As a result of this trend, the future grid will consist of a huge number of intelligent electronic devices in order to manage the distributed and complex nature of Smart Girds. In order to guarantee a high level of interoperability, which is a major requirement for Smart Grids and its related components and devices, the International Electrotechnical Commission has introduced the IEC 61850 standard for power utility automation. Since it covers only interoperability and communication issues, a proper design, modeling and implementation approach is required. The main aim of this paper therefore is to discuss the usage of IEC 61850 together with the IEC 61499 reference model for distributed automation and the development of a related IEC 61499 Compliance Profile for Smart Grids.

Over the past decade, a clear trend toward distributed automation in industrial systems was observable. This means that applications are executed at heterogeneous control devices and communication networks. One of the main drivers of this development was the availability of cheap computing and communication resources. Moreover, a strong market demand for operation and adaptation of automation and control services with no downtime is also often requested. As a result, appropriate approaches recovering and (re)configuring automation and control devices as well as even their services and functions during full operation are needed. The relatively new standard IEC 61499 “Function Blocks” provides a reference model for the development and implementation of distributed industrial process measurement and control systems (IPMCSs). It provides a scalable and open architecture to model distributed automation and control applications. The high-level goals of IEC 61499 can be summarized as interoperability, (re)configurability, and portability of distributed applications for IPMCS. Therefore, it provides a very good basis for dynamic (re)configuration and recovery of applications and status information in heterogeneous IPMCS and may master some of the shortcomings of present-day systems. The main purpose of this paper is to present and discuss a general concept for autonomous recovery of applications within the context of distributed automation and control systems which has been implemented using the IEC 61499 reference model.

A trend towards the usage of distributed approaches in industrial automation can be observed during the last decade. The IEC 61499 standard was especially developed for such distributed applications in Industrial Process Measurement and Control Systems (IPMCS). Moreover, Industrial Ethernet becoming more and more popular and replacing step-by-step conventional field bus technology in IPMCS. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to describe the integration of Ethernet POWER-LINK (EPL) accessing decentralized I/Os via IEC 61499 control applications using open source software.

The standard IEC 61499 claims to be a standard for a distributed control environment consisting of a set of heterogeneous control devices from different vendors. Previous work on the implementation of IEC 61499 pointed out ambiguities in the standard, resulting in different execution behavior of IEC 61499 elements on different control devices. One of the key deficiencies is the lack of a definition for execution models of the device, the resource, and the function blocks. This paper discusses different design and execution issues related to the aforementioned problems for IEC 61499 distributed automation and control systems.

Adaptive manufacturing is one of the most important objectives of the MANUFUTURE technology platform. To realize the vision of zero downtime, automation and control systems that react robust on system faults and changes by reconfiguration need improvements, mainly on the control and software level. A reconfigurable manufacturing system has the ability to easily and repeatedly change its structure by adding or removing hardware and/or software components in order to optimally adapt to fast changes in product requirements. This paper presents an adaptive and reconfigurable control framework which enables production systems to react more flexible on changes in the product demands. Concepts and requirements that will be needed for such a framework will be highlighted. Furthermore, a first approach for a control framework will be presented.

The aim of this paper is to describe a research roadmap for a multi-domain model-driven embedded systems design approach and the corresponding meta-model which is applicable to the domain of complex Industrial Automation and Control Systems (IACS). The special requirements of the industrial automation sector are taken into account by this novel approach, utilizing existing model-driven techniques. This approach is currently being developed in the Framework Seven (FP7) Embedded Systems Design project MEDEIA funded by the European Commission.

In this paper a concept for modeling flexible mechatronical based assembly systems will be described. For the development of such assembly systems, modular mechatronic components are being applied. To test the requirements and behavior of the various components required in an assembly system, a library of these mechatronical components is developed. These components are being programmed using a distributed control approach. The work discussed here is being applied in the FP6 Integrated Project PISA funded by the European Commission.

The aim of this paper is to describe a multi-domain model-driven embedded systems design approach which is applicable to the domain of complex Industrial Automation and Control Systems (IACS). The special requirements of the industrial automation sector are taken into account by this novel approach, utilizing existing model-driven techniques. This is currently being developed in the FP7 Embedded Systems Design project MEDEIA funded by the European Commission.

The automation of plants and machines is becoming more and more complex due to the extensive usage of intelligent field devices as for instance programmable actuators and sensors. The graphical programming languages used are typically for the automation domain, and control applications tend to be become increasingly complex which results in higher engineering costs for establishment and maintenance. The new IEC 61499 standard for distributed control systems provides an interesting engineering concept called subapplications. This concept has, in principle, the potential to provide a cost-effective solution for industrial automation applications, but is currently only being used in a few instances. The goal of this paper is to introduce a simpler, more effective, engineering approach to structure large scale distributed control programs based on a hierarchical plant structure model together with IEC 61499 subapplications.

Over the last decade the automation industry has experienced a huge growth worldwide but the major automation markets are still in Europe and the USA with the highest absolute growth as some recently published studies show. In order to better determine the future technologies the European automation industry attempt to adopt in the next years, we conduced 2005 a trend study with the name "Trend Study for the Identification of Application Domains for Distributed Automation". Main propose of this survey was the identification of applications, key product and services requirements which can provide a basis for our future research issues in our core technology the distributed intelligent automation. The study has shown that the European automation industry has a big interest in distributed intelligence in automation technology particularly in the modular systems and machines applications and logistic system applications. But for the success of this technology following requirements should be fulfilled: (1) it has to lead to a major customer cost benefit and (2) advanced engineering tools are necessary to hide the complexity of distributed systems. In general this segment of European automation market waits for a sign from a global player.

This paper presents a methodology for the characterization of an IEC 61499 runtime environment by use of a benchmarking procedure. Due to the usage of IEC 61499 for low-level control as well as the paradigm of application centered engineering1, it is necessary to describe the capability to execute IEC 61499 function block networks. There are two most characteristic items that need to be taken into consideration: the execution of a basic function block and the execution of function block network structures. The adaptability of the presented methodology is demonstrated on two different runtime implementations.

In today's globalized markets the manufacturing industry in traditional high-wage countries highly depends on flexible and automated manufacturing systems to remain competitive. State-of-the-art industrial control and automation systems do not sufficiently solve the problem of downtimeless reconfiguration of control applications. This paper presents an approach for structured modeling of controlled reconfigurations of control applications based on IEC 61499. The reconfiguration process itself with this paper defined as evolution allows close interaction with applications or physical processes while modeling knowledge from control engineering is reused for evolution engineering. An example points out the evolution engineering process as well as the benefits of this new approach.