Fraunhofer Center for Assistive Information and Communication Solutions – AICOSDescription:
Reducing the energy consumed by the infrastructure of the Communications Service Providers (CSPs) is currently one of the critical factors driving advances in telecommunication technologies. Improving the energy efficiency of telecommunication networks delivers a significant contribution towards a “greener” environment, strongly directing organizations to the implementation of sustainability strategies and governments to the creation of incentives for “environmentally friendly” actions.
In addition, the increasing weight of energy expenses in operational costs for the industry and service sectors turns the adoption of the aforementioned actions into a cost saving opportunity. With the objective of decreasing the power consumption and integrating innovative solutions, such as renewable energy sources, within a BTS site, this thesis aims to present an energy management mechanism based on the Autonomic Computing philosophy.
This solutions interfaces several BTS site components (e.g. AC, renewable energy sources, batteries, etc.), handling the collection and management of their energy consumption data, as well as the integrated management of their operation. This monitoring and management functionalities are processed according to medium-to-high level energy efficiency policies (e.g. “Activate energy supply via utility if solar radiation drops below X W/m2”) created by the system administrator.
The system’s architecture is composed by two main blocks: the BTS Site environment, and a remote central server. They are separated entities that use the Internet as its communication route. The Central Server is responsible for supporting the BTS Site Environment, providing them additional services. The BTS Site environment is the “heart” of the system and where the focus of intervention of this thesis will lie. It is composed by an “Energy Box”, which is the element responsible for managing the set of sensors and actuators running at the BTS Site, which in turn are responsible for the management and control of certain variables related to the BTS Site. This document introduces the areas involved on the development of the aforementioned system and specifies its application scenario.
An architecture’s specification for the system is proposed and its implementation steps during the development of the system’s proof-of-concept are explained in the light of the main objectives proposed. To assess the correct functioning of the system towards the main objectives presented, a system evaluation is also performed leveraging the feasibility of integrating it in a real BTS Site environment.
The final system output fulfills the base requirements presented, providing a modular architecture to an autonomous system to be deployed in a BTS Site.
Author: Pedro Madureira
Type: MSc thesis
Partner: Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto
Year: 2012