Electric Energy Demand Response Algorithm based on Deep Reinforcement Learning

In this paper, we address the difficulty of solving large-scale multi-dimensional knapsack instances (MKP), presenting a novel deep reinforcement learning (DRL) framework. In this DRL framework, we train different agents compatible with a discrete action space for sequential decision-making while still satisfying any resource constraint of the MKP. This novel framework incorporates the decision variable values in the 2D DRL where the agent is responsible for assigning a value of 1 or 0 to each of the variables. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first DRL model of its kind in which a 2D environment is formulated, and an element of the DRL solution matrix represents an item of the MKP. Our framework is configured to solve MKP instances of different dimensions and distributions. We propose a K-means approach to obtain an initial feasible solution that is used to train the DRL agent. We train four different agents in our framework and present the results comparing each of them with the CPLEX commercial solver. The results show that our agents can learn and generalize over instances with different sizes and distributions. Our DRL framework shows that it can solve medium-sized instances at least 45 times faster in CPU solution time and at least 10 times faster for large instances, with a maximum solution gap of 0.28% compared to the performance of CPLEX. Furthermore, at least 95% of the items are predicted in line with the CPLEX solution. Computations with DRL also provide a better optimality gap with respect to state-of-the-art approaches.

Optimal scheduling of island integrated energy systems considering multi-uncertainties and hydrothermal simultaneous transmission: A deep reinforcement learning approach

Effective ways to optimise real-time pump scheduling to maximise energy efficiency are being sought to meet the challenges in the energy market. However, the considerable number of evaluations of popular optimisation methods based on metaheuristics cause significant delays for real-time pump scheduling, and the simplification of traditional deterministic methods may introduce bias towards the optimal solutions. To address these limitations, an exploration-enhanced deep reinforcement learning (DRL) framework is proposed to address real-time pump scheduling problems in water distribution systems. The experimental results indicate that E-PPO can learn suboptimal scheduling policies for various demand distributions and can control the application time to 0.42 s by transferring the online computation-intensive optimisation task offline. Furthermore, a form of penalty of the tank level was found that can reduce energy costs by up to 11.14% without sacrificing the water level in the long term. Following the DRL framework, the proposed method makes it possible to schedule pumps in a more agile way as a timely response to changing water demand while still controlling the energy cost and level of tanks.

To address the static limitations of current career assessment methods and the lack of a long-term perspective in planning strategies, this study constructs an intelligent analysis framework named Deep learning-driven Value-added Career Analytics Model (DV-CAM). Integrating Deep Learning (DL) with value-added assessment, the framework aims to realize dynamic and accurate evaluation of individual professional competencies and generate personalized career planning paths that maximize the benefits of long-term development. Specifically, DV-CAM first leverages Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) to extract and dynamically update individual competency profiles from multi-source time-series data. Second, it designs a value-added evaluation index system covering the absolute level of competency, growth slope, growth curvature and stability to quantitatively diagnose development potential. Finally, under the framework of Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL), this study takes competency status, value-added potential and job requirements as joint state inputs, and solves for the optimal sequence of career development actions by optimizing long-term cumulative rewards. Experiments based on the public Occupational Information Network (O*NET) dataset show that DV-CAM achieves a mean squared error of 0.0312 and a mean absolute error of 0.1289 for competency assessment on the test set. In planning tasks, its long-term cumulative reward and target job matching degree improvement rate reach 185.3% and 42.7% respectively, both outperforming various benchmark models. The results demonstrate that DV-CAM can diagnose competency status more accurately, and effectively guide individuals to achieve long-term career development goals through its forward-looking planning strategies. By combining the concept of value-added assessment with advanced deep learning technologies, this study provides a data-driven, dynamically perceivable and long-term oriented new paradigm for the fields of career planning and competency assessment.

Manually designing an effective and efficient controller for complex mechanics, such as bio-inspired robots or underactuated mechanical system, typically are very difficult. It requires precise motion planning and dynamic control. Reinforcement learning or genetic algorithm based learning methods suffers from representing the high dimensional models. The combination of deep learning and reinforcement learning provide a feasible way to handle such difficulties. However, priori-less searching sometimes tends to be low efficient and usually finds the “mechanic” solution instead of the “natural” one. In this paper, the traditional nonlinear control concept is integrated into the deep reinforcement learning (DRL) framework. The whole process is implemented on the brachiation control problem of a two link bio-primate robot. Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (DDPG) is used to search for the optimal control policy. The searching process is realized by interacting with the dynamic model instead of real robot. The energy based planning and control concept is adopted, which utilize the fact that when the shoulder joint angle is fixed, energy of the whole system keeps constant. By regulating the angle and energy, the robot can be restricted on a particular trajectory. The energy concept is encoded within the reward function and trained in the Gym environment. For varying targets point-to-point control, the network structure is also modified to accept the target coordinates. Effectiveness of the proposed methods are verified by simulation and experimental results.

Modern power systems are more vulnerable to cascading failure due to the increasing complexity and renewable integration in modern power systems. Cooperative, adaptive protection schemes are considered fundamental to improving grid resilience, but as a matter of fact, the implementation of such schemes is inherently limited by the data privacy and ownership rules on multi-entity grids. The current centralized and multi-agent deep reinforcement learning (DRL) solutions require consolidation of sensitive operational information, which forms critical single points of failures and privacy violations. To address this gap, this paper will present a new Federated Deep Reinforcement Learning (FDRL) framework. The methodology develops relay coordination as a Partially Observable Markov Decision Process (POMDP) and uses a Federated Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (F-DDPG) algorithm such that distributed relay agents learn local models with privately available data and just provides encrypted model parameters to a central aggregator to securely train the federating process. Simulation outcomes on the IEEE 39-bus system show that the proposed scheme decreases the cascade size by 52.5% and load shedding by 54.7% relative to traditional protection, and has fault discrimination accuracy equal to 95.8, and can operate at 13% of the speed of a privacy-violating centralized DRL benchmark. The framework manages to accomplish intelligent and collaborative protection without data confidentiality.

Dynamic movement primitives (DMPs) are a learning from demonstration (LfD) method that imitates movement primitives. Recently, reinforcement learning (RL) has been used to modify DMPs. In this regard, most methods have concentrated on improving DMPs with RL after DMPs are learned with supervised learning. In this way, there is no guarantee that the DMPs stay close to demonstrations while modified. To address this problem, in this study, a framework is proposed for learning DMPs with deep RL, which can be further used to modify DMPs. To do so, first, DMPs are modeled in the framework of deep RL. Then, after the reward function for learning is defined, they are learned with deep RL. The deep RL algorithm used in the present study is the twin-delayed deep deterministic policy gradient (TD3) algorithm. Our proposed algorithm is evaluated with various demonstrations, and a case study of a pick-and-place task is done. The results show that our method can learn all demonstrations with high accuracy.

Design automation is undergoing a new generation of changes caused by artificial intelligence technologies represented by deep learning and reinforcement learning. Notably, the advantages of deep reinforcement learning in addressing solution optimisation and decision-making tasks with cognitive automation functionality have garnered attention in design. In the context of surrogate model-driven engineering design optimisation, this paper addresses current research challenges such as reliance on domain knowledge for local development, shortcomings in the self-learning and adaptive capabilities of optimisation algorithms for global exploration, etc. Centred around the deep reinforcement learning model, Deep Q-learning, and complemented by self-organising maps and neural network technologies, we propose a methodology considering multi-fidelity simulation data for design space exploration. This approach effectively reduces sampling costs and enables the optimisation model to learn the optimal direction for high-precision predictions and achieve rapid, accurate optimisation. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is comprehensively validated through four typical optimisation scenarios and a case study involving the optimisation of a wheeled robot's suspension swing arm structure. This work will be a crucial reference for applying deep reinforcement learning in simulation-driven engineering design optimisation.

In the task of interactive image segmentation, the Inside-Outside Guidance (IOG) algorithm has demonstrated superior segmentation performance leveraging Inside-Outside Guidance information. Nevertheless, we observe that the inconsistent input between training and testing when selecting the inside point will result in significant performance degradation. In this paper, a deep reinforcement learning framework, named Inside Point Localization Network (IPL-Net), is proposed to infer the suitable position for the inside point to help the IOG algorithm. Concretely, when a user first clicks two outside points at the symmetrical corner locations of the target object, our proposed system automatically generates the sequence of movement to localize the inside point. We then perform the IOG interactive segmentation method for precisely segmenting the target object of interest. The inside point localization problem is difficult to define as a supervised learning framework because it is expensive to collect image and their corresponding inside points. Therefore, we formulate this problem as Markov Decision Process (MDP) and then optimize it with Dueling Double Deep Q-Network (D3QN). We train our network on the PASCAL dataset and demonstrate that the network achieves excellent performance.

Deep reinforcement learning (DRL) is one of the emerging areas of machine learning which focuses on maximized rewards. DRL is a type of machine learning that combines reinforcement learning and deep learning. It uses a series of algorithms to enable an agent to learn how to make decisions in a complex environment. DRL is a subset of artificial intelligence that focuses on making decisions based on the environment and the rewards associated with each action.The goal of DRL is to maximize the long-term reward of an agent. In order to do this, the agent must use a combination of deep learning, reinforcement learning and other AI techniques to learn which actions will lead to the highest reward. DRL is used to solve a variety of problems, from playing video games to controlling robots. It is also used in autonomous driving and robotics, as well as for financial trading. DRL is a powerful tool for solving complex problems and has been used in a variety of research projects. DRL has the potential to revolutionize the way we interact with machines and the environment.

Task assignment is a challenging problem in multiple unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) missions. In this paper, we focus on the task assignment problem for a UAV swarm saturation attack, in which a deep reinforcement learning (DRL) framework is developed. Specifically, we first construct a mathematical model to formulate the task assignment problem for a UAV swarm saturation attack and consider it as a Markov Decision Process (MDP). We then design a policy neural network using the attention mechanism. We also propose a training algorithm based on the policy gradient method so that our agent can learn an effective task assignment policy. The experimental results have shown that our DRL method can generate high-quality solutions for different problem scales, which meets the requirements of real-time and flexibility in the actual situation.

We present a hierarchical deep reinforcement learning (DRL) framework with prominent sampling efficiency and sim-to-real transfer ability for fast and safe navigation: the low-level DRL policy enables the robot to move towards the target position and keep a safe distance to obstacles simultaneously; the high-level DRL policy is supplemented to further enhance the navigation safety. We select a waypoint located on the path from the robot to the ultimate goal as the sub-goal to reduce the state space and avoid sparse reward. Moreover, the path is generated based on either a local or a global map, which can significantly improve the sampling efficiency, safety, and generalization ability of the proposed DRL framework. Additionally, a target-directed representation for the action space can be derived based on the sub-goal to improve the motion efficiency and reduce the action space. In order to demonstrate the eminent sampling efficiency, motion performance, obstacle avoidance, and generalization ability of the proposed framework, we implement sufficient comparisons with the non-learning navigation methods and DRL-based baselines, with videos, data, code, and other supplemental material shown on our website<xref ref-type="fn" rid="fn1">¹</xref><fn id="fn1"><label>¹</label> https://github.com/zw199502/RL <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\_$</tex-math></inline-formula> navigation </fn>.

Learning ability is the basic characteristic of human intelligence. The July 1, 2005 issue of Science published a list of 125 important questions in science. Among them, the question 94 “What are the limits of learning by machines?”. The annotation “Computers can already beat the world’s best chess players, and they have a wealth of information on the Web to draw on. But abstract reasoning is still beyond any machine”. In recent artificial intelligence has made great progresses. In 1997, the rise of the man-machine war, IBM Supercomputer Deep Blue defeated the chess master Garry Kasparov. On February 14, 2011, IBM’s Watson supercomputer won a practice round against Jeopardy champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. In March 2016, Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo sealed a 4-1 victory over a South Korean Go grandmaster Lee Se-dol. This paper focuses on the machine learning methods of AlphaGo, including reinforcement learning, deep learning, deep reinforcement learning, analysis of the existing problems and the latest research progress. Deep reinforcement learning is the combination of deep learning and reinforcement learning, which can realize the learning algorithm from the perception to action. Simply said, this is the same as human behavior, input sensing information such as vision, and then, direct output action through the deep neural network. Deep reinforcement learning has the potential to learn a variety of skills for the robot to achieve full autonomy. Even though reinforcement learning is practiced successfully, but feature states need to manually set, for complex scene is a difficult thing, especially easy to cause the dimension disaster, and expression is not good. In 2010, Sascha Lange and Martin Riedmiller proposed deep auto-encoder neural networks in reinforcement learning to extract feature, which is used to control the visual correlation. In 2013, DeepMind proposed deep Q-network (DQN) in NIPS 2013, using convolution neural network to extract features, and then applied in reinforcement learning. They continue to improve and published an improved version of DQN on Nature in 2015, which has aroused widespread concern. In order to break through the limits of learning by machines, cognitive machine learning is proposed, which is the combination of machine learning and brain cognition, so that the machine intelligence is constantly evolving, and gradually reaches the human level of artificial intelligence. A cognitive model entitled Consciousness And Memory (CAM) is proposed by author, which consists of memory, consciousness, high-level cognitive functions, perception and motor. High-level cognitive functions of the brain include learning, language, thinking, decision making, emotion, and so on. Learning is a course to accept the stimulus through the nervous system and obtain new behavior, habits and accumulation experience. According to the current research progress of brain science and cognitive science, cognitive machine learning may be interested in learning emergence, procedural memory knowledge learning, learning evolution and so on. For intelligence, so-called evolution is refers to the learning of learning and the structure also follows the change. It is important to record the learning result by structure changing and improve the learning method.

With The advent of the Internet of Things (IoT) and its use cases there is a necessity for improved latency which has led to edgecomputing technologies. IoT applications need a cloud environment and appropriate scheduling based on the underlying requirements of a given workload. Due to the mobility nature of IoT devices and resource constraints and resource heterogeneity, IoT application tasks need more efficient scheduling which is a challenging problem. The existing conventional and deep learning scheduling techniques have limitations such as lack of adaptability, issues with synchronous nature and inability to deal with temporal patterns in the workloads. To address these issues, we proposed a learning-based framework known as the Deep Reinforcement Learning Framework (DRLF). This is designed in such a way that it exploits Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) with underlying mechanisms and enhanced deep network architecture based on Recurrent Neural Network (RNN). We also proposed an algorithm named Reinforcement Learning Dynamic Scheduling (RLbDS) which exploits different hyperparameters and DRL-based decision-making for efficient scheduling. Real-time traces of edge-cloud infrastructure are used for empirical study. We implemented our framework by defining new classes for CloudSim and iFogSim simulation frameworks. Our empirical study has revealed that RLbDS out performs many existing scheduling methods.

A multi-objective deep reinforcement learning framework