ABB Ltd

About: ABB Ltd is a company organization based out in Zurich, Switzerland. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Voltage & Signal. The organization has 6222 authors who have published 6852 publications receiving 83994 citations.

A market simulation program for the standard market design and generation/transmission planning

Abstract: To enhance competition in wholesale electric markets and broaden the benefits and cost savings to all wholesale and retail customers, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) proposed a standardized wholesale market design to provide more choices and improved services to all wholesale market participants; reduce delivered wholesale electricity prices through lower transaction costs and wider trade opportunities; improve reliability through better grid operations and expedited infrastructure improvements; and to increase certainty about market rules and cost recovery for greater investor confidence to facilitate much-needed investments in this crucial economic sector. Under this context, the authors attempt to address how a market simulation program, such as ABB's GridView, should adjust itself to improve its functions to meet the requirements proposed by FERC in the standard market design (SMD). The traditional generation and transmission planning process should be reviewed under the new era and a market-based power system planning process has been proposed.

Industrial real-time regression testing and analysis using firewalls

Abstract: Industrial real-time systems are complex and need to be thoroughly tested before being released to the customer. We have found that last minute changes are often responsible for the introduction of defects, causing serious problems for the customer. We demonstrate that these defects can be introduced into real-time software in diverse ways, and there is no simple regression testing method that can deal with all of these defect sources. This paper describes the application of a testing firewall for regression testing whose form differs depending upon the defect. The idea of the testing firewall is to limit the regression testing to those potentially affected system elements directly dependent upon changed system elements, and then to thoroughly test these elements. This has resulted in substantial savings in regression testing costs, and yet has been effective in detecting critical defects with significant implication in terms of customer acceptance at ABB. Empirical studies are reported for these experiences in an industrial setting.

A device for epitaxially growing objects and method for such a growth

Abstract: A device for epitaxially growing objects of for instance SiC by Chemical Vapour Deposition on a substrate has a first conduit (24) arranged to conduct substantially only a carrier gas to a room (18) receiving the substrate and a second conduit (25) received in the first conduit, having a smaller cross section than the first conduit and extending in the longitudinal direction of the first conduit with a circumferential space separating it from inner walls of the first conduit. The second conduit is adapted to conduct substantially the entire flow of reactive gases and it ends as seen in the direction of said flows, and emerges into said first conduit at a distance from said room.

What Predicts Software Developers’ Productivity?

Abstract: Organizations have a variety of options to help their software developers become their most productive selves, from modifying office layouts, to investing in better tools, to cleaning up the source code. But which options will have the biggest impact? Drawing from the literature in software engineering and industrial/organizational psychology to identify factors that correlate with productivity, we designed a survey that asked 622 developers across 3 companies about these productivity factors and about self-rated productivity. Our results suggest that the factors that most strongly correlate with self-rated productivity were non-technical factors, such as job enthusiasm, peer support for new ideas, and receiving useful feedback about job performance. Compared to other knowledge workers, our results also suggest that software developers’ self-rated productivity is more strongly related to task variety and ability to work remotely.

Standardization of Thermo-Fluid Modeling in Modelica.Fluid

Abstract: This article discusses the Modelica.Fluid library that has been included in the Modelica Standard Library 3.1. Modelica.Fluid provides interfaces and basic components for the device-oriented modeling of onedimensional thermo-fluid flow in networks containing vessels, pipes, fluid machines, valves and fittings. A unique feature of Modelica.Fluid is that the component equations and the media models as well as pressure loss and heat transfer correlations are decoupled from each other. All components are implemented such that they can be used for media from the Modelica.Media library. This means that an incompressible or compressible medium, a single or a multiple substance medium with one or more phases might be used with one and the same model as long as the modeling assumptions made hold. Furthermore, trace substances are supported. Modeling assumptions can be configured globally in an outer System object. This covers in particular the initialization, uni- or bi-directional flow, and dynamic or steady-state formulation of mass, energy, and momentum balance. All assumptions can be locally refined for every component. While Modelica.Fluid contains a reasonable set of component models, the goal of the library is not to provide a comprehensive set of models, but rather to provide interfaces and best practices for the treatment of issues such as connector design and implementation of energy, mass and momentum balances. Applications from various domains are presented.