GUILDA: Grid & Utility Infrastructure Linkage Dynamics Analyzer

GUILDA is a numerical simulation platform for smart energy management being developed by our laboratory. The goal is to provide students and researchers in the field of systems and control with an advanced numerical simulation environment that can be used with minimal knowledge of power systems. By closely linking it with a textbook published in 2022 that explains related knowledge in the language of systems and control, we are devising a way for students to learn the mathematical fundamentals and the construction of a numerical simulation environment in parallel.

Through these activities, we aim to establish power systems as one of the familiar benchmark models in the field of systems and control, thereby helping to promote power system reform through the technologies and knowledge in this field.

Public source code (updated as needed)

The source code of MATLAB is available on GitHub. Nishino (M2) is the main administrator.  [⎋] GitHub

Tutorial for beginners (updated as needed)

Our students are taking the lead in making tutorials for beginning students.  [⎋] GitHub (English ver) 

Power Systems Control Engineering: 

Systems Theory and MATLAB Simulation 

In this book, the authors, who specialize in systems and control engineering, explain the structure and mathematical fundamentals of power systems in the language of systems and control engineering, assuming students, researchers, and engineers in the field of systems and control as the main readers. In addition, the basics of object-oriented programming in MATLAB are explained so that readers can build their own numerical simulation environment for power system analysis and control using GUILDA (Grid & Utility Infrastructure Linkage Dynamics Analyzer), a numerical simulation platform developed by the authors' research group.   [⎋] Book Introduction

Source code for numerical examples available [⎋] GitHub

Background of Development

Realizing the Difficulty of Fusion Research with Specialists in Different Fields

Ishizaki and Kawaguchi participated in a team-based project (April 2012 - March 2020) on distributed energy management as researchers in the field of systems and control, conducting research and development aimed at making renewable energy a main power source.

At the beginning of the project, we were complete amateurs about power systems. We began to learn the basics of related fields to advance our research, but even things that should have been familiar to us, such as differential equations and optimization, were largely incomprehensible in the context of the power systems field.

The reason for this was that power systems engineering is a practical discipline that focuses on the reality of power systems, while systems and control engineering is a mathematical discipline with its origins in mathematics, and therefore the underlying issues are very different.

To overcome the situation, we learned the basics of power systems engineering from scratch and had discussions with many experts through the project. It took many years before we began to understand and sympathize with the words of experts from different fields.

To Create Opportunities for Research That Crosses Disciplinary Boundaries

The field of systems and control is an academic discipline that has developed across a wide range of disciplines, including control theory, information theory, data science, systems science, and mathematical optimization. Therefore, it is expected that the technologies and knowledge in this field will widely contribute to the research and development of power systems, which requires the integration of diverse academic knowledge.

On the other hand, a major problem is the high barrier to entry for students and researchers from outside the field of power systems, as they need to be familiar with knowledge and technologies specific to the field to start energy-related research.

To overcome this problem, we strongly felt that a bridge is needed to enable researchers in system s and control field to enter power system R&D with only minimal expertise. This desire prompted us to develop and publish GUILDA and to write a textbook explaining the fundamentals of the field.

In the future, our laboratory will continue to focus on expanding content, such as enhancing tutorials for beginners and creating benchmark problem collections.