Group for Research on Engineering ENergy-efficiency (GREEN)

Mailstop 3131, Dept. of Industrial and Systems Engineering,
Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-3131.
Phone: (979) 458-2345

Focus:

There are many definitions of energy-efficiency. Our focus is on reducing energy wastage while ensuring that quality is not affected. Switching off a machine when it is not being used and powering it back on just before needing to use it, would be a canonical example. Our technology is a control system that would sense, predict and act to enable energy-efficiency while meeting the needs of the user.

Objective:

To develop technologies that would enable optimal energy consumption through intelligent resource management strategies while guaranteeing high quality.

Research Agenda:

Develop approaches for energy conservation in systems with inherent uncertainty and/or dynamics using methods in stochastic control, performance analysis and mathematical programming.

Projects:

Reducing Energy Consumption in Data Centers

Energy consumption in data centers is skyrocketing. This project (funded by NSF) develops models and methods based on stochastic control and optimization for reducing energy consumption in data centers to the maximum extent possible without degrading the quality of service experienced by the users. This is done by effectively combining virtualization, dynamic voltage scaling and cluster sizing. Collaborator: L. Ntaimo (Texas A&M), Y. Chen (IBM), Q. Wang (PSU) and A. Sivasubramaniam (PSU). website

Gautam, N. and Ntaimo, L. "Achieving Energy-Efficiency in Data-Center Industry: A Proactive-Reactive Resource Management Framework", Proc. Of NSF CMMI Engineering Research and Innovation Conference, 2011. pdf

Gallego, J., Ko, Y.M., Polansky, R., Perez, E., Ntaimo, L. and Gautam, N. "Integrating Virtualization, Speed Scaling and Powering On/Off Servers in Data Centers for Energy Efficiency", IIE Transactions, Vol. 45, No. 10, 1114-1136, 2013. pdf

Bjorkqvist, M., Gautam, N., Birke, R., Chen, L.Y. and Binder, W. "Optimizing for Tail Sojourn Times of Cloud Clusters", IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing (DOI: 10.1109/TCC.2015.2474367), 2016. pdf

Ying, Y., Birke, R., Wang, C., Chen, L.Y. and Gautam, N. "On Energy-aware Allocation and Execution for Batch and Interactive MapReduce", ACM SIGMETRICS Performance Evaluation Review, Vol. 42, No. 4, 22-30, 2015. pdf

Ying, Y., Birke, R., Wang, C., Chen, L.Y. and Gautam, N. "Optimizing Energy, Locality and Priority in a MapReduce Cluster", Proc. of IEEE Intl. Conf. on Autonomic Computing (ICAC), 21-30, 2015.

Kwon, S. and Gautam, N. "Resource Management in Data Centers with Non-Homogeneous and Multi-class Workloads", IEEE Transactions on Networking, DOI: 10.1109/TNET.2015.2406280, 2016. pdf

Kwon, S. and Gautam, N. "Guaranteeing Performance based on Time-stability for Energy-efficient Data Centers", IIE Transactions, Vol. 48, No. 9, 1322-1335, 2016. pdf

Polansky, R., Sethuraman, S. and Gautam, N. "Obtaining Optimal Thresholds for Processors with Speed-Scaling", Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science, Vol. 310, 135-155, 2015. pdf

Chen, Y. and Gautam, N., "Server Frequency Control Using Markov Decision Processes", IEEE INFOCOM, 2009. pdf

Qin, W.B., Wang, Q., Chen, Y. and Gautam, N., "A First-Principles Based LPV Modeling and Design for Performance Management of Internet Web Servers", Proceedings of American Control Conference, 2006. pdf

Chen, Y., Das, A., Qin, W.B., Sivasubramaniam, A., Wang, Q. and Gautam, N., "Managing Server Energy and Operational Costs in Hosting Centers," ACM SIGMETRICS Performance Evaluation Review, Vol. 33, No. 1, 303-314, 2005. pdf

Managing Storage and Renewable Sources for Demand-side Energy Management

Power portfolio for industrial consumers consist of a combination of traditional grid-based energy and renewable energy. We consider models and methods to make optimal decisions under time-varying conditions and uncertainty observed in demand, renewable supply and power cost. A key enabler is the use of energy storage devices which has several restrictions such as capacity, inefficiency, and short lifetimes. Collaborator: Yunjian Xu (SUTD)

Kwon, S., Xu, Y. and Gautam, N. "Meeting Inelastic Demand in Systems with Storage and Renewable Sources", IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid (DOI: 10.1109/TSG.2015.2494874), 2016. pdf

Gautam, N., Xu, Y. and Bradley, J.T. "Meeting Inelastic Demand in Systems with Storage and Renewable Sources", Proc. of IEEE SmartGridComm, 2014. pdf

Eren, E.C. and Gautam, N., "Efficient Control for a Multi-Product Quasi-Batch Process via Stochastic Dynamic Programming", IIE Transactions, Vol. 43, 192-206, 2011. pdf of main paper, pdf of online supplement

Ramakrishnan, S., Gautam, N., and Wysk, R.A., "Tunnel Freezing Process with Adaptive Control: A Stochastic Modeling Approach," Proceeding of the Industrial Engineering Research Conference, 2002. pdf

Efficient Control of Tunnel Freezers

Food products need to be rapidly cooled and frozen using freezer tunnels but with minimal energy wastage. The research considers striking a balance between energy conservation, freezer performance, and quality, given the food products are stochastic in terms of size and thermal loads. Using a stochastic dynamic programming model, total system-wide cost is minimized by controlling cryogen generation optimally. Industrial Partner: Air Liquide.

Eren, E.C. and Gautam, N., "Efficient Control for a Multi-Product Quasi-Batch Process via Stochastic Dynamic Programming", IIE Transactions, Vol. 43, 192-206, 2011. pdf of main paper, pdf of online supplement

Eren, E.C. and Gautam, N., "Reducing Carbon Footprint in Process Industries", Research highlight in Industrial Engineer, February 2011.

Ramakrishnan, S., Gautam, N., and Wysk, R.A., "Tunnel Freezing Process with Adaptive Control: A Stochastic Modeling Approach," Proceeding of the Industrial Engineering Research Conference, 2002. pdf

Energy Conservation in Wireless Sensor Networks

Efficient information sharing in multi-hop wireless networks is needed to optimize energy usage while not compromising performance. The research is a combination of multiple topics: (a) strategies to leverage network coding opportunities; (b) maintenance policies for underwater sensors; (c) techniques based on epidemic spread models for information dissemination. Collaborators: S. Shakottai, A. Sprintson, R. Gibson (all Texas A&M), L Duan (SUTD) and I. Nevat (I2R Singapore).

Gong, S., Duan, L. and Gautam, N. "Optimal Scheduling and Beamforming in Relay Networks with Energy Harvesting Constraints", IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, 2016 (DOI: 10.1109/TWC.2015.2487459).

Gautam, N. and Mohapatra, A. "Efficiently Operating Wireless Nodes Powered by Renewable Energy Sources", IEEE Journal of Special Areas in Communications, Vol. 33, No. 8, 1706-1716, 2015. pdf

Chan, W.H.R., Zhang, P., Zhang, W., Nevat, I., Nagarajan, S. Valera, A.C., Tan, H.-X. and Gautam, N., "Adaptive Duty Cycling in Sensor Networks with Energy Harvesting using CTMC and Fluid Models", IEEE Journal of Special Areas in Communications, Vol. 33, No. 12, 2687-2700, 2015. pdf

Chan, W.H.R., Zhang, P., Zhang, W., Nevat, I., Valera, A.C., Tan, H.-X. and Gautam, N., "Adaptive Duty Cycling in Sensor Networks via Continuous Time Markov Chain Modelling", IEEE ICC 2015, 6669-6674, 2015. pdf

Hsu, Y., Abedini, N., Gautam, N., Sprintson, A. and Shakkottai, S. "Opportunities for Network Coding: To Wait or Not to Wait", IEEE Transactions on Networking, Vol. 23, No. 6, 1876-1889, 2015. pdf

Mohapatra, A., Gautam, N., Sprintson, A. and Shakkottai, S. "Optimal Network Coding Decisions in Delay-sensitive Wireless Transmission", IEEE Transactions on Communications, Vol. 62, No. 8, 2965-2976, 2014. pdf

Ramaswamy, V., Reddy, V., Shakkottai, S., Sprintson, A. and Gautam, N. "Multipath Wireless Network Coding: A Population Game Perspective", IEEE Transactions on Networking, Vol. 22, No. 1, 217-229, 2014. pdf

Hsu, Y., Ramasamy, S., Abedini, N., Gautam, N., Sprintson, A. and Shakkottai, S. "Opportunities for Network Coding: To Wait or Not to Wait", IEEE Symposium on Information Theory, 2011. pdf

Reddy, V., Shakkottai, S., Sprintson, A. and Gautam, N. "Multipath Wireless Network Coding: A Population Game Perspective", Proc. Of IEEE INFOCOM, 2010. pdf

Mohapatra, A., Gautam, N. and Gibson, R., "Combined Routing and Node Replacement in Energy-efficient Underwater Sensor Networks for Seismic Monitoring", IEEE Journal of Ocean Engineering, Vol. 38, No. 1, 80-90, 2013. pdf

Ko, Y.-M. and Gautam, N., "Epidemic-based Information Dissemination in Wireless Mobile Sensor Networks", IEEE Transactions on Networking, Vol. 18, No. 6, 1738-1751, 2010. pdf

People:

N. Gautam (Professor) website

Rohit Dube (Ph.D. Student)

Young Myoung Ko (Former Ph.D. Student)

Ezgi Can Eren (Former Ph.D. Student)

Arupa Mohapatra (Former Ph.D. Student)

Samyukta Sethuraman (Former Ph.D. Student)

Soongeol Kwon (Former Ph.D. Student)

Educational Program:

Data Center Engineering Operations Certificate for undergraduate students in the College of Engineering at Texas A&M University.

Some Relevant Links:

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