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This 4 - part series , published to co-occur withBrain Awareness Week , highlights investments made by the Engineering Directorate of the National Science Foundation to develop cutting edge peter and technologies that will throw out our understanding of the brain .
The unmatched ability of the human brain to process and make sentiency of large amounts of complex datum has caught the attention of engineers work in the arena of control systems .
With over 6,000 plants transmitting electricity to homes and businesses across the country via 600,000 miles of power lines, today’s power grid can be thought of as the world’s largest single machine.
" The brain is one of the most rich computational platforms that subsist , " says Ganesh Kumar Venayagamoorthy , Ph.D. , director of theReal - Time Power and Intelligent Systems Laboratoryat Clemson University . " As power - organisation ascendancy becomes more and more complex , it makes signified to look to the brain as a framework for how to deal with all of the complexity and the dubiety that exists . "
Led by Venayagamoorthy , a team of neuroscientist and engineers is using nerve cell maturate in a dish to control imitation might grids . The researchers hope that studying how nervous mesh integrate and react to complex selective information will urge new method acting for managing the land ’s ever - changing exponent supply and demand .
In other words , the brainpower behind our next electric power grid might not be what you think .
With over 6,000 plants transmitting electricity to homes and businesses across the country via 600,000 miles of power lines, today’s power grid can be thought of as the world’s largest single machine.
Power to the masses
America ’s strategy for furnish power began in the late 1800s as a act of detached generating plants serve regional client . Over the next 50 age , the galvanic system was speedily transformed into an inter - attached " grid " that guarantee access to mogul when equipment failed or during menstruation of unexpected requirement .
Today , with nearly 200,000 mil of high - electric potential line of descent connecting over 6,000 exponent plants , America ’s major power grid has been called the world ’s large undivided motorcar .
G. Kumar Venayagamoorthy, Ph.D., director of the Real-Time Power and Intelligent Systems Laboratory at Clemson University leads a team of researchers using living brain cells to solve complex problems in a real-time computer-simulated power grid.
Unfortunately , the control grid ’s aging infrastructure was n’t built to handle today ’s ever - increase need . allot to the U.S. Department of Energy , the ordinary power generating post in the United States was built in the 1960s , using even older engineering . Today , the average substation transformer is 42 years old , two years past its expected life story span .
Another problem is that while the scheme has a great content toproducepower , it does n’t really have a means tostorepower .
This can spell trouble during period of unexpected high need , which can result in a massive loss ( amnesia ) or step-down ( brownout ) in electrical energy . In 2003 , 50 million mass in 8 state of matter and 1 Canadian responsibility were left without power when a single transmittal line in Ohio was damaged by a tree arm .
Tomorrow ’s power gridiron will ask to be able to anticipate usage and quickly counterbalance for unexpected need .
The " on - requirement " index production scheme of our current system also puddle it unmanageable to incorporate renewable sources of DOE , such as farting and solar power , which ca n’t be cranked up or down in response to peaks and lull in power expenditure .
" In parliamentary procedure to get the most out of the unlike type of renewable get-up-and-go generator , we need an well-informed grid that can perform real - time dispatch and manage optimally available vigor storage systems , " says Venayagamoorthy .
A impertinent electric magnate power system
While technologies such as solar panels , tip turbine and hybrid galvanic vehicle will help reduce our non - renewable energy pulmonary tuberculosis , experts believe the development of a " smart " storage-battery grid , equal to of monitoring and controlling the flow of electricity from tycoon plants down to individual appliances , will have the large impact .
According to the Department of Energy , if the current grid were just 5 percentage more efficient , the energy preservation would be equal to removing 53 million cars from the planet .
While a number of strategies have been proposed to optimise power grid performance and integrate intermittent energy sources , the ultimate destination is to make a distribute energy delivery connection characterise by a two - direction flow of electricity and info .
For Venayagamoorthy , looking to the nous for inspiration was a no - brainer .
" What we want is a arrangement that can supervise , forecast , plan , hear , make decisions , " say Venayagamoorthy . " Ultimately , what we involve is a ascendance system that is very brain - similar . "
What would the brain do ?
Because the brain operates in a completely different way than traditional computing systems , the first footstep was to attempt to make sentiency of how the wit integrates and responds to data . To do so , Venayagamoorthy enlisted the expertise of neuroscientist Steve Potter , Ph.D. , theatre director of the Laboratory for NeuroEngineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology .
A leader in the field of learning and memory inquiry , Potter lately pioneer a new method for understanding how the wit integrates and responds to information at the web level . The technique demand growing neurons in a dish containing a control grid of electrodes that can both excite and record activity . The electrode connect the neuronal web to a figurer , allowing two - room communicating between the living and the electronic components .
Potter ’s group has had achiever with this approach in the past , having shown that hold up neural electronic connection can be made to controlcomputer - feign fauna and simple robots .
In the current labor , the web is train to recognize and react to emf and speed sign from Venayagamoorthy ’s power grid pretense .
" The end is to translate the physical and functional changes that occur as be neuronal internet see into mathematical equations , ultimately leading to a more brain - corresponding level-headed ascendance system , " says Venayagamoorthy .
The purpose is to develop brain - inspired reckoner code , signify hold out learning ability cells wo n’t be part of the final equality .
What have we learn so far ?
The collaborationism has already yielded encouraging results .
The investigators have successfully " taught " a living neuronic connection how to respond to complex data point , and have incorporated these findings into simulated version call bio - inspired unreal neural connection ( BIANNS ) . They are presently using the fresh and improved BIANNS to control synchronal generators connected to a power system .
Venayagamoorthy and his team hope that this workplace will pave the way for smarter controller of our future tycoon grid .
For more entropy about this labor , check outbrain2grid.org .
