by D.P.

Buse,
P. Sun, Q.H. Wu,
and J. Fitch

© DIGITAL VISION

M
MOST CURRENT POWER SYSTEM CONTROL AND
automation systems are based on the supervisory control and data
A multiagent system
acquisition (SCADA) model. A central master station, located at
the control center, gathers information from a number of remote
on an IP network
terminal units (RTUs), which are based in the substations. While
the SCADA model provides acceptable performance and reliabil-
provides autonomy to
ity, it has a number of drawbacks, particularly in the areas of flex-
ibility and open access to information.
each of the constituent
Recently, several manufacturers have introduced intelligent
electronic devices (IEDs) that perform various functions such as
parts of an inherently
protection, control, and monitoring. Recent years have also seen
the introduction of Ethernet local area networks (LANs) in sub-
distributed power
stations. These are used to connect various IEDs and control sys-
tems and allow access to data from other systems, such as
system.
databases and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, and

50 IEEE power & energy magazine 1540-7977/03/$17.00©2003 IEEE march/april 2003

 An agent is a software entity that is situated in some environment
and can sense and react to changes in that environment.

from outside locations. However, the problem remains of pro- mentation, due to their small size.
viding a suitable framework for managing the large quantity ✔ Belief-desire-intention (BDI) agents are based on the
of available information. Many vendors have developed sys- concept of three mental states (beliefs, desires, and
tems based on client-server and Web technology. However, intentions) and are capable of responding to external
these systems are sometimes inflexible and often centralize events and performing actions in pursuit of a goal. This
much of the system monitoring functionality, which can lead flexibility makes them suitable for performing a wide
to a requirement for high network bandwidth. Many are also range of tasks, such as real-time control, online moni-
one-vendor solutions, which prevent the integration of equip- toring, and alarm/event management.
ment from multiple sources.
Agent technology is one of the most interesting recent System Architecture
developments in the field of distributed artificial intelligence As shown in Figure 1, the architecture consists of a number of
(DAI). It has a wide range of applications, with information data sources, data storage and transportation mechanisms, and
management, intelligent user interfaces, personal assistants, data consumers. The primary source for monitoring information
and Internet commerce among the most popular. This article is the IEDs, such as protection relays, that interact with the sub-
defines a generic architecture that applies the multiagent sys- station plant. Information from these is gathered by control/mon-
tems methodology to the field of substation automation, itoring agents over an Ethernet network. Where a component of
describes the design of a system to be implemented based on the substation is controlled by a device that has no network inter-
this architecture, and proposes several possible applications. face, it is possible to gather this information from the substation
Compared with SCADA or client-server substation control system (SCS) over a network or serial link.
automation solutions, an agent-based system offers a number
of advantages. Each function or task of the system, such as the
management of a single IED, can be encapsulated within a Documents
(in Files)
separate agent, making the system highly modular. Agents are
Agent
loosely coupled, typically communicating via messaging User
GUI
HMI
rather than by procedure calls (remote or local), and, using Platform
directory services, new functions can easily be added to an
agent-based system by creating a new agent, which will then Doc.
Web
make its capabilities available to others. The inherently dis- Browser Agent
tributed power system architecture is suited ideally to a multi-
agent system, which provides greater autonomy to each of the User
constituent parts than a traditional system. Servlet Agent
Document
Retrieval
Agent Technology Decision
Support
An agent is a software entity that is situated in some environ-
ment and can sense and react to changes in that environment. Data
DB Online
Agents are capable of operating autonomously and in a goal- Agent
Analysis
Intervention Agent
directed manner. In a multiagent system, tasks are carried out
by interacting agents that can cooperate with each other. The
architecture described in this article is made up of several
Database Control
types of agents along with the external systems with which Agent
they interact, as shown in Figure 1. A more detailed descrip-
tion of the architecture is given later.
In experimental work so far on this architecture, two types
IED SCS
of agents have been used.
✔ Simple Java-based agents are used to perform simple
tasks that do not require intelligence or, in the case of an
Substation
agent that wraps an existing system, where the intelli- Plant
gent functionality is contained in the wrapped system.
These agents are also preferred for mobile agent imple- figure 1. Multiagent system architecture.

march/april 2003 IEEE power & energy magazine 51

 tity of data. Therefore, different types
of agents may be appropriate to differ-
DB
AP = Agent Platform ent tasks.
Auth. Service = User Authentication Task-specific agents in the system
Wide Area Database Service
AP include mobile information retrieval
DB = Database
agents to perform document and
AP
database retrieval and mobile remote
User Lookup Auth. Ontology control agents to allow online inter-
DB Agent Service Service Database vention. The full set of agents is
Agent
User described in Table 1. In addition to
Agent Services Module the abilities shown, all agents are
capable of communicating with other
agents.
All of the agents in this system are
The WAN capable of communicating using the
Mobile Foundation for Intelligent Physical
Agent Agents (FIPA) Agent Communica-
tions Language (ACL) messages.
Local Area Local Area This, along with the brokering and
AP AP AP AP directory services provided, allows
them to collaborate and make use of
each others’ unique abilities. The use
IED DB IED DB
Agent Agent of a common ACL also permits
Agent Agent
agents that use different agent archi-
IED User IED User tectures to communicate with each
Agent Agent Agent Agent other.

IEDs IEDs
DB
Plant HMI Plant
figure 2. Modular structure.
For persistent storage and logging of historical data, a sub-
station database is required, for which purpose a commercial
relational database may be used. This is managed by a database
agent that provides access to other agents and collects infor-
mation to be stored in the database.
Each user must have access to a user agent, which acts as
that user’s interface with the rest of the system. This agent can
be standalone, integrated into a software package such as a
human-machine interface (HMI), or can provide a Web-based
interface via servlets, applets, or active server pages.
There are a number of agents dedicated to performing var-
ious tasks, including document and database information
retrieval, decision support, online intervention, and data analy-
sis. These tasks have varying timing, network, and computing
resource requirements. For example, control tasks often have
strict timing requirements, while there are no such require-
ments on information retrieval and querying tasks other than
that they should be completed as quickly as possible in order to
return the results to the user. However, an information retrieval
task will usually result in the transfer of a much greater quan-
Modules
A typical power transmission system
consists of a number of substations,
DB along with the control center and
HMI offices. These are often connected via
slow dial-up links with speeds of 64 to
128 kb/s. It is, therefore, necessary to
minimize the amount of traffic over
these links. This system attempts to do this by making each sub-
station as autonomous as possible. The multiagent system is
divided into a number of modules, each responsible for a par-
ticular location, as shown in Figure 2. There are two main types
of modules. Global (or WAN) modules, containing mostly user
interface and database functionality, are situated at the control
center and offices. Local (LAN) modules contain functionality
relevant to a particular substation, along with facilities for dis-
playing local information and transferring it over the WAN.
Having multiple modules within a substation allows either for
agents providing different functions to be split into separate
modules or for the provision of redundancy between modules to
increase reliability.
Each module consists of a number of standard compo-
nents. Agent platform services, such as messaging and agent
management, should be provided, based on those specified by
FIPA. The messaging service allows agents to send messages
to those on other platforms, while the agent management serv-
ice allows a system administrator to add and remove agents. In
addition to these, two broker agents, the query broker and

52 IEEE power & energy magazine march/april 2003

 table 1. Types of agents in the system.
Agent Type Tasks Abilities Sensors Knowledge
User Intervention, Display GUI or other User model
querying, decision information, user interface
support initiate query
Database Data transfer, Add information Database
data acquisition, to database, metadata
querying respond to queries
Device Control Input from Model of
intervention device and system
being controlled
Information Retrieval Move, determine Locations of
retrieval information information
relevance
Remote Intervention Move Locations
control of devices

request broker, are included. These permit a brokered interac- ✔ Knowledge about the system, including, for example,
tion framework to be used in which an agent or user is able to the current status of plant: This is normally stored in
request a service or submit a query and allow the broker agent databases.
to manage its execution using any appropriate agents, without ✔ Human-readable documentation, including both written
requiring the originating agent to have any knowledge of those documents and images: This is normally stored in files
that will actually carry out the task. Most applications that do such as word processor documents.
not use mobile agents, such as online intervention and query- These different forms of information must be managed
ing, are compatible with the brokered method of interaction. If in different ways. For example, it is not possible for a com-
the module is to accept mobile agents, a mobile agent server puter to understand and act upon the knowledge stored
must also be included. within an image, whereas database information is easily
In addition to WAN and LAN modules, a number of direc- machine-understandable. Two mechanisms, querying and
tory services ensure that modules and agents are able to locate retrieval, work best with information that is machine-under-
and communicate with each other. The servers that provide standable and nonmachine-understandable, respectively.
these services are part of a services module, which can be con- ✔ Querying is performed using the user agent. System
sidered as a specialized WAN mod-
ule. These services can be linked in
a federation with the directory serv- User Module
ices provided by the agent plat- GUI
Inform Output KB = Knowledge
forms. (Expr., Broker
The modular structure can be Results) UA
implemented by adding one or two Query MT = Message
GUI Transport
computers to the substation LAN Input
MT
RB
KB

to hold the mobile agent system, User RB = Request

static agents, and database server. Broker

UA = User
Applications Inform
Agent
(Expr., Query
Results) Query (Expr.)
(Expr.)
Information Management CA = Control
Within the power system, a large Failure Agent
amount of information is generated
MT
RB
KB
MT
RB
KB

Expr. = Query
and stored. This falls into three Expression
main categories:
Inform Query
✔ Large quantities of numeri-
(Expr., (Expr.)
cal data, such as fault and Results)
event records, gathered from Agent
control and protection sys-
LAN Module
tems: This is normally
stored in files or databases. figure 3. Querying using query brokers.

march/april 2003 IEEE power & energy magazine 53

 ments and determines their locations. The user agent
can then either retrieve these documents by sending
1. Search for the Document requests to their document agents or dispatch a mobile
agent, as shown in Figure 4, to travel to the location of
Template Request
the documents and bring them back. When the system
User
Directory User is fully implemented, the information retrieval agent
Agent
Results will have the ability to retrieve both documents and
Server database data matching a specific query.
Name, The advantages of mobile agents are greatest for low-
Mobile
Template
Agent powered client devices, which can benefit from moving the
computational load onto more powerful servers, or systems
Mobile with slow or intermittent network connections, which bene-
Agent fit from the reduction in network transmission. This has been
Moves
shown in a number of previous works. For example, many
2. Retrieve the Document National Grid substations are connected to the corporate net-
Document work only by 64 kb/s dial-up links. Therefore, it is much
cheaper, in terms of the amount of time taken, to transmit a
Template
Files/ Wrapper Mobile mobile agent to a substation and have it perform a number of
Database Agent Document(s) Agent interactions locally rather than performing them over the
dial-up network.

MA Moves
Online Intervention
It is possible to use the multiagent system to allow a human
3. Return to User operator to intervene remotely in the activity of an automatic
control system, as shown in Figure 5. For example, the opera-
Mobile User Document tor may wish to operate one or more circuit breakers. An inter-
Agent Agent
vention is initiated through the graphical interface provided by
Document User the user agent. The user agent then sends a message to the
request broker, requesting that the specified action is per-
formed. The broker matches the request with information it
figure 4. Information retrieval using a mobile agent. has regarding the capabilities of various agents and forwards
it to an appropriate agent. When the action is complete, this
users input queries, for example, “What is the current agent must notify the request broker, which will in turn notify
temperature of transformer X?” (Figure 3). The user the user agent. If the request broker is unable to satisfy the
agent then creates a FIPA ACL
query-ref or query-if message and
transmits it to the query broker agent. User Module
The broker parses the query and,
Inform GUI KB = Knowledge
using registration information pro- Input
(Done (Action)) Broker
vided to it by other agents, deter- UA
mines which will be capable of MT = Message
Request Transport
answering it. The query is then for-
MT
RB
KB

(Action) User
warded to these agents, who reply to RB = Request
the query broker. The query broker Broker
Inform Request (Action)
then assembles these replies and (Done (Action)) UA = User Agent
sends them to the user agent. This
Control Module CA = Control
query brokering mechanism is
MT
RB
KB

Agent
derived from that described in a 1997 Request
paper by Martin et al., which was (Action)
part of SRI International’s Open CA
Agent Architecture project. Command to
Device
✔ Retrieval is initiated when a user
inputs a set of search criteria into the Device Device
user agent. Using the query broker,
the user agent locates relevant docu- figure 5. Online intervention.

54 IEEE power & energy magazine march/april 2003

 Having multiple modules within a substation allows for agents
providing different functions to be split into separate modules
or for redundancy between modules to increase reliability.
request, it must reply to the user agent with a failure message.
As an alternative to the brokered interaction method, a
sequence of interventions may be performed by a mobile
agent. This provides greater efficiency when the network
between the user and the substation is slow and a large num-
ber of interactions must be performed.
Data Acquisition and Transfer
It is often necessary to acquire monitoring information from a
device and store it in a database. This task can be performed
using publish-subscribe interactions between the database
agent and control agent. For each device for which the control
agent requires information, they locate the agent responsible
for that device, possibly using the directory facilitator, and
send a subscribe message specifying the information required.
The control agent must then notify the database agent of any
new information as it becomes available, which can then be
entered into the database using SQL commands. It would also
be possible to perform this interaction via an information bro-
ker. In this case, the database agent sends the subscription
message to the broker, which then locates the correct control
agent and subscribes to the required information on behalf of
the database agent.
A prototype system has been constructed to evaluate these
applications. Using this system, it has been possible to demon-
strate, in a basic fashion, information querying using the query
broker, online intervention to control an OLE for process con-
trol (OPC) based relay using several methods, including
directly across the network, using a mobile agent, and using a
user agent and the request broker system, and retrieval of doc-
uments and database information using mobile agents. It is
now hoped to perform a more detailed analysis using an
improved prototype in order to fully evaluate the performance
of the system.
For Further Reading
F.F. Ingrand, M.P. Georgeff, and A.S. Rao, “An architecture
for real-time reasoning and system control,” IEEE Expert, vol.
7 no. 6, pp. 34-44, Dec. 1992.
J. Corera, I. Laresgoiti, and N.R. Jennings, “Using Archon,
Part 2: Electricity Transportation Management,” IEEE Expert,
vol. 11, no. 6, pp. 71-79, 1996.
“FIPA Agent Management Specification,” Foundation for
Intelligent Physical Agents, Aug. 2000 [Online]. Available:
www.fipa.org/specs/fipa00023
M. Strasser and E. Schwehm, “A performance model for
mobile agent systems,” in Proc. PDPTA’97, vol. 2, 1997, pp.
1132-1140.
march/april 2003
Biographies
D.P. Buse obtained his B.S. degree in computer science from the
University of Liverpool, U.K. Currently he is a Ph.D. student in
the Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics at the
University of Liverpool. His research interests include mobile
agents, multiagent systems, and their industrial applications.
P. Sun graduated from the Department of Electronics and
Precision Machinery, Shenzhen University (SZU), P. R. China
with a B.Eng. degree. From 1994 to 1998, he worked as a
research engineer in the EDA R&D Centre at the Faculty of
Information Technology, SZU. He obtained his Ph.D. from the
University of Liverpool, U.K. He works as a postdoctoral
research assistant in the Department of Electrical Engineering
and Electronics. His research interests include signal and
image processing, electronic design automation, and power
system and industrial automation.
Q.H. Wu obtained an M.S. (Eng) degree in electrical
engineering from Huazhong University of Science and Tech-
nology (HUST), China. From 1981 to 1984, he was a lectur-
er in electrical engineering at the university. He obtained a
Ph.D. degree from The Queen’s University of Belfast
(QUB). He worked as a postdoctoral research fellow and
senior research fellow in QUB from 1987 to 1991 and lec-
turer and senior lecturer in the Department of Mathematical
Sciences, Loughborough University, U.K., from 1991 to
1995. Since 1995, he has held the chair of Electrical Engi-
neering in the Department of Electrical Engineering and
Electronics, The University of Liverpool, U.K., acting as the
head of the Intelligence Engineering and Automation group.
He is a Chartered Engineer, Fellow of IEE, and Senior Mem-
ber of IEEE. His research interests include adaptive control,
mathematical morphology, learning systems, computational
intelligence, multiagent systems, and power system control
and operation.
J. Fitch is the substation policy application team leader
within National Grid Asset Strategy, part of National Grid
Transco. His team is responsible for both the technical
specification and assessment of all substation HV and LV
equipment, as well as providing strategic direction and
application policy. With National Grid, he has worked in a
number of areas, including substation control and automa-
tion and demanning and new substation build projects. His
particular interests are substation automation, functional
integration, and telecontrol protocols. He received a first
class honors degree in electrical and electronic engineering
from Surrey University and is member of the IEE. He is a
U.K. utility representative on the BSI PEL57 and Cigré
Working Group 36-16. p&e
IEEE power & energy magazine 55