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Energy Storage System Test Bed

The UI for the Energy Storage System Test Bed. A list of completed use case simulations is displayed in a grid. A graph of the energy storage system's status over the course of running the use case is displayed, though all values are constant as the system does not yet have real hardware to run on. Other views allow for viewing the current queue of use cases and scheduling new use cases.
The UI for the Energy Storage System Test Bed. A list of completed use case simulations is displayed in a grid. A graph of the energy storage system's status over the course of running the use case is displayed, though all values are constant as the system does not yet have real hardware to run on. Other views allow for viewing the current queue of use cases and scheduling new use cases.

Achievement

Created a system to create, manage, and execute use cases for a battery simulation system and a web interface for user interactivity. 

Significance and Impact

This work has a software system necessary for the operation of an Energy Storage System Test Bed which will be housed at the Manufacturing Demonstration Facility.

Research Details

  • Created Volttron agents to execute use cases on the hardware of the simulator.
  • Created a web API controller to wrap the database of use case and simulation information.
  • Created a web based UI to allow users to define new use cases, send them to the simulator, then view the results of the simulation.

Overview

The Manufacturing Demonstration Facility plans to create a test bed for batteries which will simulate their operation over a variety of different scenarios, to test qualities such as the time it takes the battery to charge to different levels or how accurately it measures its own state of charge. In order to use this hardware, a user friendly software system is necessary to allow users to run these tests (or “use cases”). Thus, the Energy Storage System Test Bed software component was developed. This system features a web based user interface (UI) that will allow users to define a use case and schedule it for execution. The use case will then be stored in a queue to eventually be run. The code managing the hardware will then read use cases from this queue and execute them on the hardware. As the use case runs, the simulator will measure the state of the battery being tested and regularly report it back to the system. This entire history of measurements can then be viewed alongside the use case that produced them inside the UI.

Last Updated: January 15, 2021 - 11:37 am