Letterio Zuccaro

Electric Vehicles charging control based on future internet generic enablers

In this paper a rationale for the deployment of Future Internet based applications in the field of Electric Vehicles (EVs) smart charging is presented. The focus is on the Connected Device Interface (CDI) Generic Enabler (GE) and the Network Information and Controller (NetIC) GE, which are recognized to have a potential impact on the charging control problem and the configuration of communications networks within reconfigurable clusters of charging points. The CDI GE can be used for capturing the driver feedback in terms of Quality of Experience (QoE) in those situations where the charging power is abruptly limited as a consequence of short term grid needs, like the shedding action asked by the Transmission System Operator to the Distribution System Operator aimed at clearing networks contingencies due to the loss of a transmission line or large wind power fluctuations. The NetIC GE can be used when a master Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) hosts the Load Area Controller, responsible for managing simultaneous charging sessions within a given Load Area (LA); the reconfiguration of distribution grid topology results in shift of EVSEs among LAs, then reallocation of slave EVSEs is needed. Involved actors, equipment, communications and processes are identified through the standardized framework provided by the Smart Grid Architecture Model (SGAM).

A Resource Allocation Algorithm of Multi-cloud Resources Based on Markov Decision Process

Cloud technologies can nowadays be considered as commodities. The possibility of getting access to storage, computing and networking virtual resources empowers any business that needs dynamic IT capabilities. The Cloud Management Broker (CMB) plays a crucial role to handle heterogeneous virtualized cloud resources in order to offer a unique set of interfaces to the cloud users. Moreover, the CMB is in charge of optimizing the usage of the cloud resources, satisfying the requirements declared by the users. This paper proposes a novel multi-cloud resource allocation algorithm, based on a Markov Decision Process (MDP), capable of dynamically assigning the resources requests to a set of IT resources (storage or computing resources), with the aim of maximizing the expected CMB revenue. Simulation results show the feasibility and the higher performances obtained by the proposed algorithm, compared to a greedy approach.

Electric vehicles charging load reprofiling

This paper presents a reference architecture and a control scheme for the aggregation and management of electric vehicle (EV) load at medium voltage level. The focus is put on the problem of EV load reprofiling, aimed at the procurement of active demand (AD) services to interested grid/market actors. The proposed approach achieves AD product composition always guaranteeing the respect of grid constraints as well as user constraints on the charging processes. Simulations are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Energy-Aware Control of Home Networks

Home networks have become heterogeneous environment hosting a variety of wireless and wired telecommunication technologies. Currently there no exist any intelligent energy saving mechanism to control the home networks. In this paper we propose an energy-aware strategy that integrate Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) with a convergent digital home network. We aim to demonstrate that a WSN can act as a dependable control plane to manage the high speed home network. While the home network nodes can be deactivated, the WSN is always on and, due to the low data rate required to properly work, it consumes a very limited quantity of energy. This mutual interaction leads to a substantial reduction of the energy consumptions. Simulation results show that this strategy is effective in different scenarios and provides a tangible economic benefit.

A distributed load balancing algorithm for the control plane in software defined networking

The increasing demand of bandwidth, low latency and reliability, even in mobile scenarios, has pushed the evolution of the networking technologies in order to satisfy the requirements of innovative services. In this context, Software Defined Networking (SDN), namely a new networking paradigm that proposes the decoupling of the control plane from the forwarding plane, enables network control centralization and automation of the network management. In order to address the performance issues related to the SDN Control Plane, this paper proposes a distributed load balancing algorithm with the aim of dynamically balancing the control traffic across a cluster of SDN Controllers, thus minimizing the latency and increasing the overall cluster throughput. The algorithm is based on game theory and converges to a specific equilibrium known as Wardrop equilibrium. Numerical simulations show that the proposed algorithm outperforms a standard static configuration approach.

A Future Internet interface to control programmable networks

current internet infrastructure is still configured and managed manually or adopting a limited level of automation. The Future Internet aims to provide the network resources as a service to ease the process of automatic designing, controlling and supervising the telecommunication infrastructure. A key enabler of the Future Internet is the virtualization of the available resources and of the related functionalities. The widespread of cloud computing, Software Defined Network (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) technologies opened the way for a total control of programmable networks. Many open and commercial implementations have adopted this paradigm, but they expose a fragmented set of dissimilar interfaces that often offer similar or even overlapping functionalities. The result is that uncontrolled, open-loop routines and procedures still require a manual intervention. In this paper, we describe an open interface and its reference implementation, to control programmable networks adopting a novel, closed-loop approach based on end-users feedbacks. The proposed interface has been implemented as a Future Internet Generic Enabler named OFNIC.

Distributed control in virtualized networks

Abstract The increasing number of the Internet connected devices requires novel solutions to control the next generation network resources. The cooperation between the Software Defined Network (SDN) and the Network Function Virtualization (NFV) seems to be a promising technology paradigm. The bottleneck of current SDN/NFV implementations is the use of a centralized controller. In this paper, different scenarios to identify the pro and cons of a distributed control-plane were investigated. We implemented a prototypal framework to benchmark different centralized and distributed approaches. The test results have been critically analyzed and related considerations and recommendations have been reported. The outcome of our research influenced the control plane design of the following European R&D projects: PLATINO, FI-WARE and T-NOVA.