IOEN: Inspired by Nature
In this article we will see how IOEN is biomimetic: its innovative agent-based architecture is based on patterns found in nature.
Our current electricity grids are experiencing a period of rapid transition. The tidal wave of new renewable energy sources and internet of things (IoT) devices have been creating new complications for a grid that was not built to handle them. In addition to this, extreme weather events are further exaggerating the problems within our energy grids, as seen in Texas earlier this year.
Our grids can adapt, but the challenges require a new approach. In our design of IOEN, we have looked to nature for inspiration, considering the grid as an organism rather than just as infrastructure.
What can nature teach us?
IOEN draws inspiration from design 4.3 billion years in the making. Nature manages complex systems by creating awareness, through simple configurations between and within every element from the edge, middle and core of the system. It produces a symbiosis in which those elements work together. The result is a balanced and simple system that is truly distributed, decentralized, adaptive, self-healing and fractal. There are many examples of this in nature, and here are a few of them.
Elements in nature are self-sovereign:
Within a beehive, for example, each bee has its own agency and set of rules that govern how it behaves. A bee does not need to go back to the queen for directions. It is pre-programmed with a handful of rules from birth to act in the best interest of the hive. If an individual bee dies the hive is resilient, ensuring no single source of failure. Their small actions, however, add up to big changes as each individual goes about its business on behalf of the hive.
Simplicity creates complex emergent behavior:
What makes up a “handful of rules”? Birds flock based on three of them:
- Maintain a safe distance from other birds and obstructions
- Travel at approximately the average speed as your neighbours in the flock
- Travel in approximately the same direction as your neighbours in the flock.
These simple instructions produce breathtaking patterns and complexity, such as starling’s murmuration.
Creating systemic resilience: Ant colonies are resilient. Stepping on a few ants does not endanger the ant hill. If a few honey bees are disrupted from returning to the hive, the queen is still safe. The ability for the individuals to carry out commands instilled as a set of rules or principles, and then adapt to the conditions they find, enables the wider system to be resilient and face changing conditions.
Decentralised autonomy: Importantly, none of these examples rely on a central authority to instruct their behavior. IOEN is creating a system where all elements of the electricity grid are aware of their local surroundings. Nodes listen and signal their neighbors with their needs and the emergent behavior is beneficial to the ‘colony’.
We use a unique combination of emerging distributed software architecture and technologies to replicate this same approach to create a localized, self-aware, self-healing energy system. What we call an ecology of energy.
Nature scales, big time: Because there is no central coordination, nature can grow as the environment allows. Last century the argentine ant arrived and settled in Europe from its native South America. The colony spanned the Mediterranean. One super colony now circles the globe, and ants from Melbourne will recognise its cousins from Barcelona.
Nature is self-similar: Consider a fern. The fronds are themselves made up of other fronds. The pattern repeats all the way up, or down, in fractals. This provides a huge economy in design, just reuse the same pattern.
Network Resilience in Practice, Using IOEN
An overheating transformer on the electricity grid has little visibility of which other devices may be consuming, producing, or storing energy in its vicinity. The device has no opportunity to engage its peers to indicate it is in distress and ask them to alleviate the load. The net-effect is that the small issue of an overheating transformer becomes a bigger one as additional loads are placed on upstream components, which may then end up overwhelming the system.
In our solution we connect devices in the area to a community of the open-source Internet of Energy Network. This allows them to communicate in a private and secure language. Each agent has software DNA that defines their behavior, as well as the ability to listen and to emit signals (“biochemicals”) to their peers.
In the overheating transformer example the infrastructure component (the transformer) will broadcast a distress signal. This signal is heard by nearby agents (energy devices) and in turn gossiped to their peers. IOEN partner RedGrid in Australia has created a simulation using a programmable version of Conway’s Game of Life, a form of mathematics known as cellular automata, where the electrical transformer requires cooperation from neighborhood nodes.
Agent-based architecture
Behind this technological approach is an agent-based architecture. In an upcoming article we will be doing a deep dive into how this framework enhances the key benefits of the Internet of Energy Network.
Follow this medium to catch that article, and join the community at https://t.me/ioen_global
For more information on RedGrid, head to https://redgrid.io
