Chia-Hung Lien

Bio: Chia-Hung Lien is an academic researcher from National Taiwan University of Science and Technology. The author has contributed to research in topics: Power management & Home automation. The author has an hindex of 8, co-authored 12 publications receiving 404 citations.

Remote-Controllable Power Outlet System for Home Power Management

Abstract: In this paper we describe the Wireless Power-Controlled Outlet Module (WPCOM) with a scalable mechanism for home power management which we have developed. The WPCOM integrates the multiple AC power sockets and a simple low-power microcontroller into a power outlet to switch the power of the sockets ON/OFF and to measure the power consumption of plugged electric home appliances. Our WPCOM consists of six scalable modules, that is, the Essential Control Module, the Bluetooth Module, the GSM Module, the Ethernet Module, the SD Card Module and the Power Measuring Module, which together provide an indoor wireless, and an outdoor remote control and monitor of electric home appliances. We have designed a PDA control software and remote control software which support the Graphic User Interface, thus allowing the user to easily monitor the electric home appliances through the PDA and the Internet individually. In addition, we use a Short Message Service to achieve control and monitoring through a GSM cellular mobile phone for remote use anytime and anywhere.

Power Monitoring and Control for Electric Home Appliances Based on Power Line Communication

Abstract: Home power consumption tends to grow in proportion to the increase in the number of large-sized electric home appliances. An embedded system without any new additional wiring has been developed for home power management. By using power line communication (PLC) technology, electric home appliances can be controlled and monitored through domestic power lines. We describe a PPCOM (PTC Power-Controlled Outlet Module) which integrates the multiple AC power sockets, the power measuring module, the PTC module and a microcontroller into a power outlet to switch the power of the sockets on/off and to measure the power consumption of plugged-in electric home appliances. We have also designed an embedded home server which supports the Web page user interface, thus allowing the user to easily control and monitor the electric home appliances by means of the Internet. In addition, the field experiments reported have demonstrated that our design can be practically implemented and provides adequate results.

Estimation by Software for the Power Consumption of Streaming-Media Servers

Abstract: The power consumption of a streaming-media server can be obtained in real time by using the virtual-instrumentation software described in this paper without using an additional hardware meter. We have built a model to estimate the power consumption from the observation of experimental data that consists of tracking the CPU utilization and detecting the operation parameters of the measured servers. When calculated in real time, the CPU utilization can respond to the dynamic change of the power consumption of the measured servers. The operation parameters represent the hardware configuration of the measured servers. We also propose three methods to obtain these parameters: filled- manually, hardware-revised, and software-revised parameter estimating. We have constructed the virtual-instrumentation software according to this power model to measure the power consumption of the streaming-media server. To facilitate the measurement process, we have also designed a suitable graphic-user interface for it. Our virtual-instrumentation software with three parameter-estimating methods has been tested by way of comparison with measurement results obtained by a power meter. The average power values of the hardware-revised method are found to yield mean errors of the estimate within 3%. The mean error of the software-revised method is within 6%. However, the filled- manually method may underestimate the power consumption by as much as 11%.

Remotely Controllable Outlet System for Home Power Management

Abstract: In this paper, we describe a remotely controllable outlet system with mechanism for home power management. The system consists of four blocks: the Bluetooth Power-Controlled Outlet Module (BPCOM), the home server, the remote control and the GSM channel. Bluetooth, wireless system can control the home electric appliances wirelessly at home without new wiring. The BPCOM integrates the multiply AC power sockets and a simple plug-in low-power microcontroller performs the power on/off switching of the sockets. In addition, the power detection circuits are used by the Hall current transducer to verify home electric appliance power on/off status. For the power management module of the home server, we designed the software module by Visual Basic .NET, which supports the Graphic User Interface (GUI) to let users easily monitor the home electric appliances power on/off. We also integrate Bluetooth to receive/transmit between the home server and the microcontroller. The remote control also provides the users with the ability to control home appliances power on/off through the Internet and the GSM channel linked to the home server in order to receive the SMS (Short Message Service) for the power management of the home electric appliances power on/off anytime and anywhere.

Measurement by the Software Design for the Power Consumption of Streaming Media Servers

Abstract: The power consumption of the streaming media server can be obtained in real time by the virtual instrumentation software module described in this paper without an additional hardware meter. From the observation of experiment's data we conclude that the measurement of the power consumption of the streaming media server depends on the CPU utilization exquisite dynamically and with some system operation parameters. We form a model to represent the power consumption with respect to the CPU utilization. By using the software method based on this model, users can perform the measurement of the power consumption of the PC at any time even remotely through the Internet. Once the required measurements are made, the acquired data can be immediately transferred back to the monitor server in order that the measured data can be analyzed in more detail. To facilitate the measurement process, we also design a suitable graphic user interface is also designed. Our method has been tested through a comparison with the measurement results by means of a power meter.

Coordinated Scheduling of Residential Distributed Energy Resources to Optimize Smart Home Energy Services

Abstract: We describe algorithmic enhancements to a decision-support tool that residential consumers can utilize to optimize their acquisition of electrical energy services. The decision-support tool optimizes energy services provision by enabling end users to first assign values to desired energy services, and then scheduling their available distributed energy resources (DER) to maximize net benefits. We chose particle swarm optimization (PSO) to solve the corresponding optimization problem because of its straightforward implementation and demonstrated ability to generate near-optimal schedules within manageable computation times. We improve the basic formulation of cooperative PSO by introducing stochastic repulsion among the particles. The improved DER schedules are then used to investigate the potential consumer value added by coordinated DER scheduling. This is computed by comparing the end-user costs obtained with the enhanced algorithm simultaneously scheduling all DER, against the costs when each DER schedule is solved separately. This comparison enables the end users to determine whether their mix of energy service needs, available DER and electricity tariff arrangements might warrant solving the more complex coordinated scheduling problem, or instead, decomposing the problem into multiple simpler optimizations.

Multi-Objective Virtual Machine Placement in Virtualized Data Center Environments

Abstract: Server consolidation using virtualization technology has become increasingly important for improving data center efficiency It enables one physical server to host multiple independent virtual machines (VMs), and the transparent movement of workloads from one server to another Fine-grained virtual machine resource allocation and reallocation are possible in order to meet the performance targets of applications running on virtual machines On the other hand, these capabilities create demands on system management, especially for large-scale data centers In this paper, a two-level control system is proposed to manage the mappings of workloads to VMs and VMs to physical resources The focus is on the VM placement problem which is posed as a multi-objective optimization problem of simultaneously minimizing total resource wastage, power consumption and thermal dissipation costs An improved genetic algorithm with fuzzy multi-objective evaluation is proposed for efficiently searching the large solution space and conveniently combining possibly conflicting objectives The simulation-based evaluation using power-consumption and thermal-dissipation models based on profiling of a Blade Center, demonstrates the good performance, scalability and robustness of our proposed approach Compared with four well-known bin-packing algorithms and two single-objective approaches, the solutions obtained from our approach seek good balance among the conflicting objectives while others cannot

Optimal Operation of Residential Energy Hubs in Smart Grids

Abstract: This paper presents mathematical optimization models of residential energy hubs which can be readily incorporated into automated decision making technologies in smart grids, and can be solved efficiently in a real-time frame to optimally control all major residential energy loads, storage and production components while properly considering the customer preferences and comfort level. Novel mathematical models for major household demand, i.e., fridge, freezer, dishwasher, washer and dryer, stove, water heater, hot tub, and pool pumps are formulated. Also, mathematical models of other components of a residential energy system including lighting, heating, and air-conditioning are developed, and generic models for solar PV panels and energy storage/generation devices are proposed. The developed mathematical models result in Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) optimization problems with the objective functions of minimizing energy consumption, total cost of electricity and gas, emissions, peak load, and/or any combination of these objectives, while considering end-user preferences. Several realistic case studies are carried out to examine the performance of the mathematical model, and experimental tests are carried out to find practical procedures to determine the parameters of the model. The application of the proposed model to a real household in Ontario, Canada is presented for various objective functions. The simulation results show that savings of up to 20% on energy costs and 50% on peak demand can be achieved, while maintaining the household owner's desired comfort levels.

Smart home energy management system including renewable energy based on ZigBee and PLC

Abstract: This paper describes smart home energy management system (HEMS) that includes both energy consumption and renewable energy generation. ZigBee is used to measure and transfer the power and energy of home appliances at the outlets and the lights. Power line communication is adopted to monitor solar panels. By considering both energy consumption and generation simultaneously, the proposed HEMS can optimize home energy use and result in energy cost saving.