Substation P&C Orchestration for Shared Execution Resources
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional P&C systems in electrical substations face challenges in efficiently deploying non-critical applications due to resource limitations, vendor-specific hardware, and inflexible deployment strategies, leading to wasted resources and high engineering costs.
Innovation Solution
A P&C system with application execution resources, memory, and an orchestrator that dynamically deploys and monitors subordinate applications, allowing them to self-adjust their operation based on available resources and predefined requirements, ensuring they do not disrupt critical applications.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If dedicated hardware is used for priority P&C applications, then real-time execution and fault tolerance are guaranteed, but resource utilization efficiency deteriorates and engineering costs increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges priority P&C applications and subordinate applications onto the same application execution resources (hardware platform). The orchestration system manages multiple applications sharing common compute units, memory, and I/O interfaces, eliminating the need for separate dedicated hardware for each application type while maintaining reliability through virtualization and resource allocation mechanisms.
Solution Approach 2:
The application execution resources are designed to be universal, capable of executing both priority P&C applications and subordinate applications. The same hardware platform (compute units, memory, I/O interfaces) serves multiple functions by dynamically allocating resources to different applications based on their requirements and priority levels, thereby improving overall resource utilization.
2Reliability
If dedicated hardware is allocated for each P&C application, then execution reliability is improved, but device complexity and engineering effort increase
Solution Approach 1:
The orchestration system acts as an intermediary layer between the hardware platform and multiple applications. It manages resource allocation, application deployment, and runtime coordination without requiring complex hardware configuration for each application. The orchestration software abstracts the hardware complexity while ensuring execution reliability through controlled resource access and priority management.
3Productivity
If application execution resources are dynamically shared, then resource utilization efficiency is improved, but the risk of subordinate applications disrupting priority applications increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies different quality levels of resource allocation to different applications. Priority P&C applications receive guaranteed resource allocation with highest precedence, ensuring their real-time execution requirements are met. Subordinate applications are allocated remaining resources with lower priority, allowing dynamic sharing while protecting critical functions from interference through differentiated resource access rights.
Data Source
AI summary
A Protection and Control (P&C) system for an electrical substation is disclosed which includes a plurality of application execution resources configured to execute one or more priority P&C applications, and configured to execute one or more subordinate applications. The P&C system further includes a memory for holding one or more subordinate applications to be additionally executed by the application execution resources and an application orchestrator configured to determine, among each of the application execution resources, a subordinate execution capability for a subordinate application in the memory, and to instruct each of the application execution resources determined to have a subordinate execution capability to execute an instance of the subordinate application. The P&C system additionally includes one or more application monitors configured to, for an executed subordinate application instance, determine whether an execution condition is met, and when it is determined that the execution condition is not met, terminate the instance.