ECOCIS

Economic operation of critical infrastructure systems

  • Principal Investigator
    • Daniel Limón Marruedo / Teodoro Álamo Cantarero 
  • Funded by
    • Plan Estatal 2013-2016 Retos – Proyectos I+D+i
  • Partners
    •  Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas  
    • Universidad de Huelva

In modern societies, the reliable and continuous operation of certain infrastructures plays a fundamental role in the quality of life, economic development and security of nations. Large-scale critical infrastructure systems (CIS), especially those located in urban areas as drinking water or gas infrastructures, is a subject of increasing concern. Because of this, these infrastructures are considered critical and it is very important to develop management systems that guarantee a reliable and continuous operation of these infrastructures. Other important aspects of the management of these infrastructures is that their operation must use efficiently the resources that they deliver, e.g., water, gas, etc, and also be efficient from an economic point of view and guarantee future supply.

The critical nature of these infrastructures makes necessary a management system able to take into account their specific features and operation limits in presence of the uncertainties related to their operation. Thus, it is of paramount importance to have a control system in the management system that, from sensor measurements and available predictions of external influential variables, finds the proper way to operate the infrastructure in an efficient, safe and continuous manner.

ECOCIS will study and develop novel solutions for CIS that will address:

  • The analysis of these systems to understand the weaknesses and risks in case some fault appears;
  • Fault detection/isolation and mitigation of its effect by means of fault-tolerant mechanisms;
  • Analysis and assessment of the  efficiency of  the CIS and determination of a computable economic cost function;
  • Development of sensor-feedback control systems for the real-time economic optimization of the infrastructure tolerant to uncertainty and errors in predictions;
  • Development of distributed control architectures for large-scale CIS.

Algorithms and methodologies developed in ECOCIS will be validated in realistic problems posed by the project stakeholder companies (Aguas de Barcelona, CEPSA, Gaz de France, Emasesa).

ECOCIS is a joint project of Instituto de Robótica e Informática Industrial (IRI) (overall coordinator), which is a UPC-CSIC joint research Institute, and the Systems Engineering and Automation Dept. and Energetic Engineering Dept. both of the Universidad de Sevilla (US). CETAQUA, a technology center of AGBAR, UPC and CSIC, will participate together with the IRI team.

logo financiador