1016 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SYSTEMS, MAN, AND CYBERNETICS—PART C: APPLICATIONS AND REVIEWS, VOL. 37, NO.
5, SEPTEMBER 2007
Correspondence
A Multiagent-Based Algorithm for Ring-Structured
Shipboard Power System Reconfiguration
K. Huang, Student Member, IEEE, D. A. Cartes, Member, IEEE,
and S. K. Srivastava, Member, IEEE
Abstract—The shipboard power system (SPS) supplies energy to electric
equipment on ships. It is critical for the system to be reconfigurable for
the purpose of survivability and reliability. In earlier work, a decentralized
approach using agents for a radial SPS reconfiguration is successfully de-
veloped. Each agent in this system communicates only with its immediate
neighbors, which reduces the dependency on the system topology. However,
a ring structure in the system leads to the problem of redundant informa-
tion accumulation among the agents, making the information flow in the
system unstable. In this correspondence, the authors propose a method,
based on the use of the spanning tree algorithm in the IEEE 802.1d pro-
tocol, for an agent system to detect and break the ring structure in the
system. Then, an algorithm for calculating the information flow without
redundant information accumulation is put forward. Finally, the proposed
methodology is illustrated through a test case on a simplified SPS.
Index Terms—Distributed system, multiagent system (MAS), redundant
information accumulation (RIA), shipboard power system (SPS), spanning
tree protocol.
I. INTRODUCTION
Shipboard power systems (SPSs) provide energy to the electrical
loads on ships for navigation, communication, and so on. A major ob-
jective for the development of future SPS is to minimize the manpower
in system operation and maintenance. During an SPS operation, some
parts of the system may be unavailable because of fault or damage.
In this situation, it is very important to isolate the faulty part and re-
configure the system immediately. When the system is short of energy,
nonvital loads should be shed to guarantee the operation of the vital
loads. Furthermore, as systems become more complex, it is highly de-
sired that an SPS be reconfigured in an autonomous manner to enhance
response and avoid human faults during operation. A typical ac radial
SPS consists of various components such as generators, protective de-
vices, and cables [1]. The three phase generators are delta-connected in
a ring configuration using generator switchboards. Bus tie circuit break-
ers interconnect the generator switchboards that allow for the transfer
of power from one switchboard to another. Load centers and some
loads are supplied power from the generator switchboards. Further,
load centers supply power to some loads directly and to power-panels
to which some loads are connected. Feeders supplying power to load
centers, power panels, and loads are radial in nature, meaning that each
load is supplied by a single source at any given time.
In the literature, there are several methods to perform reconfigura-
tion of a terrestrial distribution system [2]–[7]. Venkatesh et al. [2] and
Schmidt et al. [3] put forward optimization algorithms for power sys-
tem reconfiguration. Expert-system-based methods are proposed in [4]
and [5]. A neural network is used for system reconfiguration in [6],
while a heuristic method is put forward in [7]. These methods are not
Manuscript received June 29, 2005; revised March 31, 2006. This work was
supported by the Office of Naval Research under Grant N000140210623. This
paper was recommended by Editor V. Marik.
The authors are with the Center for Advanced Power System, Florida
State University, Tallahassee, FL 32310 USA (e-mail: dave@caps.fsu.edu;
dave@eng.fsu.edu; sanjeev@caps.fsu.edu).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TSMCC.2007.900643
1094-6977/$25.00 © 2007 IEEE
suitable for performing reconfiguration of an SPS because of various
features of SPS that make it different from a terrestrial distribution
system. Significantly, SPS is a low-independence finite inertial power
system. In an SPS, large numbers of electrical components are packed
into a very small volume, which makes it very sensitive. A drop in
voltage due to a fault is seen by a large number of neighboring electri-
cal components and loads. Further, a large percentage of the loads in
an SPS are dynamic loads like motors. Also, unlike a terrestrial distri-
bution system, an SPS does not have any external generation support
in case of an emergency. Finally, the large numbers of certain electri-
cal components, which affect the reconfiguration process, are unique to
SPS such as automatic bus transfers (ABTs), main battle tanks (MBTs),
low voltage protection devices (LVPs), and low-voltage release devices
(LVRs).Therefore, methods that were developed for utility systems may
not be suitable and efficient for an SPS [8]. There is some work that
deals specifically with reconfiguration of an SPS. In [8] and [9], a
heuristic algorithm is proposed for radial power system reconfigura-
tion; and in [10], an optimization method is put forward to provide
the optimal solution for SPS reconfiguration. However, in [8]–[10],
global information is required for the reconfiguration procedure, and
the system works in a centralized manner. The biggest drawback of the
centralized approaches presented in these papers is that it can lead to
single point of failure, if there is no redundancy.
In recent years, the decentralized approach, such as a multiagent
system (MAS) technique, is increasingly applied for solving SPS re-
configuration problems [11]–[13]. However, all these approaches re-
quire some form of global system information for their functioning. For
example, in the approach presented in [13], a facilitator agent (FAG)
is used for restoration. The FAG has information of all agents in the
system, and allocates an agent where the restoration information flow
starts. It may lead to the single point of failure if the FAG fails. In [11],
directory facilitators (DFs) carry out registration and matchmaking of
agent capabilities. Each agent in the system registers its capabilities
with the DFs. So the DFs require some form of global knowledge of
the system.
The author’s earlier correspondences presented a MAS-based ap-
proach for SPS reconfiguration [14], [15], which focused on the radial
system and represented the beginning in an incremental and progres-
sive research area. In that agent system, agents were used to represent
major components in the SPS. Each agent had a list of its neighbors
and communicated with its neighbors directly. But the SPS used for
reconfiguration, in those papers, is assumed to be radial. The system ba-
sically consists of two layers. One is the power system layer, while the
other is the agent layer where the agents of MAS reside. Subsequently,
there are two kinds of flows in the system: one is the information flow
for communication among agents; the other is the power flow among
the electric components. The agents exchange system information and
make decisions, which are demanded of the electric components repre-
sented by the respective agents. Hence, agents control the power flow
in the SPS. In this correspondence, the authors have increased the com-
plexity to focus on a ring system. The ring system does not represent
the final necessary complexity for reconfiguration of a real SPS, but it
does pose a significant difficulty found in more complex SPS.
For an SPS with radial structure, it is easy to transfer information
among agents. However, in an SPS with ring or mesh network, some
problems may occur. One problem is the multiple request problem. In a
ring or a mesh system, there are always multiple routes between a load
agent and a generator agent. In some cases, a request from a load agent
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SYSTEMS, MAN, AND CYBERNETICS—PART C: APPLICATIONS AND REVIEWS, VOL. 37, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER 2007
can reach a generator agent more than once through different routes at
different time, which disturbs the information flow in the system, and
makes it hard for the MAS to reconfigure the system correctly. One
way to avoid this problem is to break the ring-structured MAS into
a tree and redefine information flow. Another problem is the problem
of request deadlock. It is possible that an agent can simultaneously
receive more than one request from other agents. In such cases, the
agent may not be able to decide on which request to act first, creating a
deadlock, and affecting agent’s ability to make a decision. One solution
to the request deadlock is that the agent can randomly choose a request
and act on it first, and then attend the other request(s). Yet, another
problem in a ring or a mesh system is that in such systems, there
will be redundant information accumulation (RIA), which will lead to
incorrect information flow in the agent system. It is very much like
a positive feedback loop in a traditional control application, and will
make the information flow unstable. Owing to space constraints, the
focus of this correspondence is on addressing only the issue of the RIA,
leaving the other issues for future publication. The main contributions
of this correspondence are to provide: 1) an algorithm to automatically
detect a ring structure in a decentralized system; and 2) an algorithm
to avoid the RIA problem in a system with ring structure.
There are two assumptions for the work presented in this correspon-
dence. The first assumption is that the communication among agents is
robust. The basis for this assumption is the fact that onboard ship com-
munication systems consist of redundancies and backups. The second
assumption is that there is at most one ring structure in the system.
This means that the algorithm can be applied to a radial system or a
system with one ring structure. The second assumption is reasonable
because the SPS generally consists of a single ring structure at the
generation level and a radial distribution downstream of the generation
level. However, the developed method is not suitable for mesh network
systems that may exist in the next-generation SPS.
This correspondence is organized as follows. In Section II, the MAS
presented in the authors’ earlier papers for radial SPS reconfiguration
[14], [15] is briefly shown. Also, the occurrence of RIA problem in
the agent system for a ring-structured SPS is introduced. Section III
presents a novel algorithm for information-flow calculation in a ring-
structured SPS without an RIA problem. An illustration of the proposed
methodology is presented through a test case in Section IV. Finally,
some concluding remarks are dealt in Section V.
II. PREVIOUS WORK
A. MAS for Radial SPS Reconfiguration
The authors have successfully developed a decentralized MAS for
SPS reconfiguration [14], [15]. In that system, each agent represents
a major electrical component of the power system, such as generator,
motor, breaker, and so on. These agents can control and receive data
from corresponding electrical components. If two electric components
have connection in the power system layer, the associated agents also
have connection in the agent layer. So the topology of the agent system
is similar to that of the power system. The agents are restricted to
communicate only with their immediate neighbors to assure that the
system works as a decentralized system. This makes the system less
dependent on the topology of SPS. Meanwhile, it also decreases the
communication burden within the system. In this approach, electric
power is distributed throughout the entire network by the cooperation
of the agents. Since each agent only communicates with its immediate
neighbors, there is no need for agents to have global knowledge of the
system. If an agent has a connection with another agent, the connection
is defined as an interface of the agent. An agent may have more than
one interface, since it can connect to more than one agent. The agent
1017
Fig. 1. Agent model with four interfaces.
in Fig. 1 has four interfaces. Each interface has different variables such
as contract, output cost-load curve, input cost-load curve, nvload_in,
and nvload_out as shown in Fig. 1. In later discussion, the power that
flows through an interface refers to the power that flows through the
connection in power system layer that the interface represents.
The contract is the exact power that flows through this interface.
The input/output cost-load curve provides the budget_in/budget_out
and per unit power cost of the interface. The budget_in provides the
available power that could be received through the interface, while
budget_out indicates the maximum power that could be transferred to
other agents through this interface. The nvload_in indicates the max-
imum power that could be received via this interface if all nonvital
loads in the system are shed, while nvload_out indicates the maximum
power that could be transferred to other agents through this interface
if all nonvital loads in the system are shed. Agents also have behav-
iors, such as UpdateBehavior, CostBehavior, and RequestBehavior.
UpdateBehavior resides in all agents, and generates the output cost-
load curve and nvload_out for each interface. CostBehavior uses the
contract and input cost-load curve of every interface on the agent to
distribute the power flow. It switches the power supplies from high-cost
neighbors to low-cost neighbors. RequestBehavior is responsible for
making request to a neighbor to change the contract variable of the
interface connecting them.
LEAP [16] library combined with JADE [17] was used as the agent
development framework. The agent system so developed reconfigures
the radial SPS properly and rapidly, though LEAP and JADE are non-
specific to the solution. More details can be found in [14]. However,
for a power system with a ring structure, the agent system cannot trans-
fer the budget_in and budget_out information among agents correctly
because of the RIA problem. In later discussion, the authors refer to
the budget_in and budget_out information transferred among agents as
information flow. The benefits of this method are in the areas of lower
network bandwidth requirement, less computation time, improved scal-
ability, no single point of failure, and the ability to create an intelligent
system. But it also suffers from the drawback of RIA problem. This
correspondence retains all the benefits of the existing method, and
addresses and solves the RIA problem.
B. RIA Problem
Consider a simple ring-structured power system with four generators
and four loads. In this system, the generators are connected in a ring
structure, and each load is connected to one of the generators. The
corresponding generator agents (agent 1, agent 2, agent 3, and agent
1018 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SYSTEMS, MAN, AND CYBERNETICS—PART C: APPLICATIONS AND REVIEWS, VOL. 37, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER 2007
Fig. 2. Information flow with RIA problem in ring structure.
4) of the MAS are shown in Fig. 2. In Fig. 2, the load agents have
been omitted in order to simplify the information flow. Assume that
agent 1 has 20 kW power supply and the load agent that connects to
agent 1 has 40 kW power request. Then, the power summation of these
two agents is 20 kW request (shown by the arrow pointing outward).
The summation is termed as effective capacity. Similarly, the effective
capacities of agents 2, 3, and 4 are 30 kW request, 30 kW supply, and
40 kW supply, respectively.
In a system as shown in Fig. 2, the information flow may provide
feedback to an agent where it originated. Here, power supply and
power request are simplified as s and r, respectively. In Fig. 2(a),
assume that the information flow starts from agent 1. In the first round
of information flow, agent 1 sends a message of 20 kW request, i.e.,
20 kW(r), to agent 2. Agent 2 gets the message of 20 kW(r), and
adds it with its own 30 kW(r) capacity. Then, it sends a message of
50 kW(r) to agent 3, and so on. In the second round of information
flow, after agent 1 gets the message of 20 kW(s) from agent 4, it also
adds it with its own 20 kW(r) capacity, and the result is 0 kW(r).
Then, it will send a request of 0 kW(r) to agent 2 as shown in Fig. 2(b).
An additional 20 kW(s) power is added into the request as compared
with the request in the previous round of information flow shown in
Fig. 2(a). This 20 kW(s) will be added to each message in this round,
and will accumulate in each round of information flow. This RIA has a
similar effect to that of a positive feedback loop, leading to an unstable
information flow.
III. ALGORITHM FOR INFORMATION FLOW IN MAS
Discussions in Section II-B shows that the RIA problem occurs
whenever there is a ring structure in the system. In this proposed MAS,
each agent communicates only with its neighbors, and has no global
information regarding the system topology. Thus, it is difficult for an
agent to determine if a ring structure exists in the system. So in order to
solve the RIA problem, agents must be able to detect the presence of a
ring structure in the MAS. This section presents a methodology, based
on the spanning tree algorithm in IEEE 802.1d protocol [18], which
can not only detect the presence of a ring network in the agent system
automatically, but also avoids the RIA problem.
A. Detection of a Ring-Structure and Radial-Structure Generation
Based on the discussion in Section II-B, the RIA problem exists
whenever there is a ring structure in the system. In order to cancel an
RIA, the ring-structured system should be broken into a radial system
first. In this approach, agents exchange messages that consist of a tag.
A tag is a number decided by the agent forwarding that tag. Each time
an agent receives a tag, it labels itself with the received tag number.
Furthermore, an agent increases the received tag number by one, and
then forwards this new tag to all its neighboring agents, except to the
agent that originally sent this tag to it. Taking the system in Fig. 2 as
an example, several steps are presented to detect a ring network in the
system, and then break it into a radial network.
Step 1: Select an agent as the root agent in the system. Since the
system is decentralized, each agent has information only of its direct
neighbors. The agents have to interact with each other to decide an
agent as root agent autonomously.
Each agent in the system has a unique ID and a media access control
(MAC) address for communication. The MAC address can uniquely
identify the agent; so each agent in the system uses its MAC address as
its unique ID. Each agent has a root agent register in which the ID of
the root agent is stored. First, each agent takes itself as the root agent
and stores its own ID in the register. Then, each agent requests the IDs
from its neighbors’ root agent register, and compares the received ID
numbers with the ID number in its root agent register. If the received
number is lower than the number in its register, it updates the number in
its register with the received number; if the received number is higher
than the number in the register, it just discards the received number.
Finally, the numbers in the root agent register of each agent will be the
same, which is the lowest agent ID in the system. The agent with this
lowest ID is elected as the root agent. In this case, assume that agent 1
has the lowest ID in the system, which means that agent 1 is elected as
the root agent.
Step 2: The root agent labels itself as #1, as shown in Fig. 3, and
generates a tag with #2. Then, it broadcasts this tag to all its neighboring
agents.
Step 3: Any agent who receives this tag will label itself with the
number in the tag, i.e., #2. Then, that agent will generate a new tag.
The new tag number is increased by one from the tag that the agent
received. So in this example, the number of the newly generated tag
is #3. This tag is then forwarded by that agent to all the neighbors,
except to the agent from which tag #2 was received, which in this case
is agent 1.
Step 4: An agent will stop forwarding tags if there is no other agent
to forward a tag to or as soon as it receives a second tag. When the tag
forwarding stops, some agents may have only one tag while others may
have two tags. If an agent receives two tags, this implies a presence of a
ring structure in the system. If no agent receives two tags, the system is
a radial system. There are two circumstances when agents receive two
tags. Fig. 3(a) shows the first circumstance in which agent 3 receives
#3 from agent 2 and agent 4, respectively; so agent 3 stops forwarding
the tag as soon as it receives the second tag. Fig. 3(b) shows the other
circumstance in which agent 3 receives #3 from agent 2, and it forwards
#4 to agent 4; at the same time, agent 4 receives #2 from agent 1, and
it forwards #3 to agent 3.Thus, both agents 3 and agent 4 have two tag
numbers.
Step 5: The agent with two different tag numbers chooses the smaller
tag number as its label. The agent that has two same tag numbers
randomly chooses one tag as its label. In Fig. 3(b), agent 4 chooses #2
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SYSTEMS, MAN, AND CYBERNETICS—PART C: APPLICATIONS AND REVIEWS, VOL. 37, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER 2007
Fig. 3. Radial structure generation.
as its label, and agent 3 chooses #3 from agent 2 as its label. The agent
with one tag number labels itself with that tag number. Then each agent
takes the agent from which it receives its label number as its ancestor.
In Fig. 3, the numbers in brackets show the label numbers for each
agent, and the arrows point from an agent to its ancestor. If agent A
is the ancestor of agent B, then agent B is termed as the descendant
of agent A. For example, agent 2 is the ancestor of agent 3; therefore,
agent 3 is the descendant of agent 2.
Step 6: An agent with no descendant is termed as a leaf agent. For
example, in Fig. 3(b), agent 3 and agent 4 have no descendant agent;
therefore, they are leaf agents. If there is a ring in the system, two leaf
agents will be neighbors, e.g., agent 3 and agent 4 in Fig. 3(b). Then, a
point between agent 3 and agent 4 is identified as the break point.
Step 7: The information flow is discontinued at the break point;
thereby, the ring-structured agent system is broken into a radial-
structured agent system. The next task is to manage the information
flow and avoid the RIA problem among agents.
B. Information Flow Calculation Without RIA Problem
After the detection of the ring network and the break point in the
system, the agent system is initialized. Fig. 4 shows the system after
disconnecting the origin system at the break point. When the MAS is
broken, only the information flow is cut off at the break point, but the
SPS’s electrical configuration remains unchanged. The initialization
and the information flow between the agents can be shown in several
steps.
Step 1: Each agent exchanges capacity information with all its neigh-
boring agents. For example, agent 2 sends its power capacity 30 kW(r)
to agents 1 and 3. Agents 1 and 3 also send their power capacities 20
and 30 kW(s), respectively, back to agent 2, as shown in Fig 4.
Step 2: Meanwhile, agent adds the information it receives from its
descendants with its own capacity, and sends the result to its ancestor.
This result is defined as accumulated information. This process starts
1019
Fig. 4. Radial structure generated with the algorithm.
Fig. 5. Modified information flow without RIA problem.
from the leaf agents. A leaf agent will send its power capacity to its
ancestors for generation of accumulated information.
For example, agent 3 is a leaf agent, and its ancestor agent is agent
2. So agent 3 will send its power capacity to agent 2 as the accumulated
information, which is 30 kW(s).
Each time an agent receives the accumulated information from its
descendants, it will add its own power capacity to the accumulated
information, and send the result to its ancestor agent. For example,
agent 2 receives the accumulated information from agent 3, which is
30 kW(s). It will accumulate this information with its effective power
capacity, which is 30 kW(r), and get 0 kW(s) as the accumulated
power, as shown by dashed arrow in Fig. 4. After that, it will send the
0 kW(s) power capacity to its ancestor, agent 1, as the accumulated
information.
When the root agent receives the accumulated information, it just
adds its power capacity to the accumulated information but does not
send the result to any other agents. The result will be the net power
in the system. For example, in this case the root agent, i.e., agent 1,
receives the accumulated power information from agent 2 and agent 4,
and adds up all the accumulated power with its own power capacity. In
this way, agent 1 gets the net power, i.e., 20 kW(s), as shown in the
bracket in Fig. 4.
Step 3: The agent system reconnects the information flow route at the
break point, and puts itself back to the original structure. The two leaf
agents exchange power capacity with each other. Then the information
transfer begins.
The information flow starts from the root agent, i.e., agent 1, as
shown in Fig. 5. Here, power supply is defined as positive and power
request is defined as negative. Agent 1 first uses the net power in the
system to subtract the power capacity of agent 2, and then sends the
result to agent 2. Since the net power in the system is 20 kW(s), and
the power capacity of agent 2 is 30 kW(r), the result will be 20 kW(s)–
30 kW(r) = 50 kW(s). So agent 1 will send a message of 50 kW(s)
to agent 2.
1020 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SYSTEMS, MAN, AND CYBERNETICS—PART C: APPLICATIONS AND REVIEWS, VOL. 37, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER 2007

Fig. 6. Simplified test SPS [10].

Fig. 7. Graphic representation of test SPS.

Step 4: Each time an agent receives a message, it first adds the

message with its power capacity, and then subtracts the power capacity
of the destination-neighboring agent. The result is the information to
be sent to the destination-neighboring agent. A destination-neighboring
agent is the one who receives the information, in a pair of neighboring
agents.
The final information flow is shown in Fig. 5. At the end of the
first round of information flow, agent 1 receives the 40 kW(s) power
capacity from agent 4. It adds the 40 kW(s) power capacity with its
own 20 kW(r) power capacity and gets 20 kW(s) power capacity, and
then subtracts the 30 kW(r) power capacity of agent 2. The result is
50 kW(s) power capacity, and this is the same with the information
flow in the first round. Thus, the RIA problem is avoided in a ring
network by using this algorithm. But this method is not applicable for
Fig. 8. Radial system after breaking the ring structure at break point.
a mesh system because in a mesh system, an agent can be connected to
several agents leading to the formation of multiple rings. Therefore, in
that case an agent can receive more than two tags, and it is difficult to
determine a criterion for an agent to stop forwarding tags. If a criterion system will be disconnected between node14 and node 17, and the
can be established, then the RIA problem can be avoided in a mesh corresponding radial-structured system is shown in Fig. 8.
system using the methodology presented in this correspondence. Here Ei,j is defined as the information flow from agent i to agent
j. After initialization, the net power in the system turns out to be
40 kW(s). Assume that the information flow starts from agent 1. Agent
2 represents a breaker, so the capacity of agent 2 is 0 kW(s). Then, the
IV. ILLUSTRATION
information flow from agent 1 to agent 2, i.e., E1,2 can be calculated
In this section, the proposed methodology is illustrated on a simple as E1,2 = 40 kW(s)–0 kW(s) = 40 kW(s). After agent 2 receives the
test SPS. Fig. 6 shows a simplified SPS [10]. Three generators connect 40 kW(s) capacity from agent 1, it adds the 40 kW(s) capacity with its
to the ring bus in the system. Two of them supply power to the system, own 0 kW(s) capacity, and gets 40 kW(s) capacity. Since the capacity
and the third one works as an emergency power supply. Some of the of agent 1 is 60 kW(s), E2,1 = 40 kW(s)–60 kW(s) = 20 kW(r).
loads in the system connect directly to the load center, while others Similarly, we can find out the information flow in the whole system as
connect to the load center through ABTs. ABTs provide normal (solid shown in Table I. During system operation the information flow will
line) and alternate (dashed line) supply paths to vital loads, as shown not change in subsequent rounds if the parameters of the system remain
in Fig. 6. At any given time, an ABT gets power supply via only one the same. Thus, there is no more RIA problem in the information flow
of these two paths. In the test illustration, the authors have assumed in this ring-structured system.
that all the vital loads are getting supply via normal paths. Fig. 7 shows However, in reality the power system parameters will change
the graphic representation of the test SPS. In this SPS, generators on because of the dynamic nature of power systems. Whenever the power
node 1, node 10, and node 15 supply 60, 30, and 40 kW, respectively; capacities of the components change, the information flow would
loads on node 9, node 25, node 22, and node 26 request 10, 30, 20, dynamically get adjusted. For example, assume that the capacity
and 30 kW, respectively. By using the method in Section III, the ring- of the generator represented by agent 10 decreases to 10 kW(s)
structured system can be broken into radial structure. If node 1 is chosen from 30 kW(s), and the capacities of other components remain
as the root, the break point is between node 14 and node 17. The agent unchanged. This change in the generator capacity is communicated
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SYSTEMS, MAN, AND CYBERNETICS—PART C: APPLICATIONS AND REVIEWS, VOL. 37, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER 2007
TABLE I
INFORMATION FLOW IN TEST SPS
TABLE II
UPDATED INFORMATION FLOW
to the corresponding generator agent 10. When agent 10 receives
E11,10 = 10 kW(s) from agent 11 (from previous round of informa-
tion flow) as shown in Table I, it will add the 10 kW(s) with its own
capacity, i.e., 10 kW(s), and get the result of 20 kW(s) capacity. After
that it will recalculate E10,11 = 20 kW(s), and send it to agent 11.
Agent 11 will also recalculate the information flow that starts from
it. The information flow in the system is updated as shown in Table II,
and will remain stable in later rounds. Thus, the RIA problem can be
avoided for the dynamically changing power system.
Though the proposed MAS is able to make intelligent decisions and
control an SPS at the simulation level, there are various challenges for
its application to the real-world system. The key challenges in these
areas are: the speed of computation in agents, the speed of communi-
cation between the agents and the real power system components, and
the communication interface between the agents and the embedded
controller.
V. CONCLUSION
In this correspondence, authors present an algorithm for avoiding the
RIA problem in an MAS during the reconfiguration process of a reduced
complexity ring SPS. The RIA problem is like positive feedback loop
and makes the information flow in the system unstable. In the proposed
1021
algorithm, the authors use the algorithm to detect and break the ring
structure in the agent system. After initialization, the broken agent
system is reconnected into the ring structure, and the information flow
in the system is calculated. The redundant information accumulation
can be solved with this algorithm. In addition, the information flow
could be dynamically adjusted during operation if the capacities of the
components change.
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