Consensus-based distribution of power packets and decentralized control for routing

Abstract

A power packet distribution network is expected to be one of the advanced power distribution systems, providing high controllability in both energy management and failure management. Regarding network operations, the power packet transmission is governed by switching operation within each of the routers. Here, the power distribution through power packets exhibits consensus-like dynamical behaviors. These features lead to the question of a consensus dynamics on switching topology and routing controls for appropriate power flows. Our approach to the above subjects is based on the dynamical modeling and the emulation of dynamics through the decentralized control of routers. The simulations on a ring-structure network, of the power distribution, reveal that the dynamical solution of the unbiased distribution is feasible via the decentralized control, while in the biased case, the result shows two behavioral fragments, which is quite different from the dynamical solution. In this discussion, we propose a decentralized algorithm that contains only fundamental functions for the packet transmission and is able to be redesigned or extended for further applications.