Project Grant 2139713

This National Science Foundation project grant of $165,000 supports research into developing new computational tools and methods for designing distributed decision-making systems to assist in energy distribution and utility services. Awarded under the Computer and Information Science and Engineering program, the funding will be used over three years by researchers at the University of Maryland, College Park to advance the Automated Synthesis for Trustworthy Autonomous Utility Services (ASTRA) framework. The project aims to investigate scalable algorithms and system architectures for coordinating mixed-autonomy multi-agent cyber-physical systems. Specifically, it pursues a tractable approach for modeling large-scale power generation and distribution networks incorporating renewable energy sources. The research outcomes are intended to enable the automated design of distributed systems that optimize resource allocation while ensuring fairness, reliability and physical constraints are met.