Design of Arduino-based communication agent for rural Indian microgrids

This paper explains the design of a communication system, using an Arduino microcontroller and GSM Module and its functions / associated components to be implemented in a microgrid. The microgrid control and coordination infrastructure has been realized as a hierarchical multi-agent system (MAS) comprising of the DG agents, the Mu agent and the D agent. The Communication (Mu) Agent acts as a link between the lower-level microgrid agents (distributed energy resources (DERs), the load, the storage and the utility grid) which provide the required digital parameter inputs, and the Control Agent comprising of the Cloud. Data storage, analytics and control commands are generated based on the rule engine updates given by the Utility Service Provider (USP) to the Cloud. The microgrid side input data are converted into appropriate GPRS signals within the Arduino. The specific functions that enable this conversion are elucidated as pseudocode. Further, the cloud control commands are sent back to the various microgrid-side agents via the Mu agent as GPRS signals. The communication strategy has been explained in detail and has been implemented using Arduino keeping in mind system costs, ease of operability and maintenance.