REU Supplement: CAREER:Energy Management for Smart Residential Environments through Human-in-the-loop Algorithm Design (Participant Support Costs)

This REU supplement request is for the support of one undergraduate student in the Computer Science Department at University of Kentucky (UK). The student will be advised by Dr. Silvestri. The REU student will be involved in research training and experience for the semesters Spring 2023, Fall 2024, and Summer 2024. The student is expected to write scientific papers based on her research experience. REU Student Research Plan The REU student will be focusing on the use of LoraWAN communication technologies in the context of smartgrids. These technologies provide long range communications at low data rates, and have found numerous applications in several domains. However, their use in energy management systems has not yet being investigated, to the best of our knowledge. Proposed work The student will focus on developing a Raspberry PI testbed integrated with LoraWAN technologies. The idea is to be able to test such long range communication in a small-scale testbed fully developed by the REU student, supervised by PI Silvestri and the graduate student supported by this project. The REU student’ work will be structured in 3 concurrent phases. First phase: The REU student will receive exposure and training on the research issues related to the CPS CAREER funded project. Specifically, the student will read research papers on the topic to position the work in the context of the most recent state-of-the-art and technological solutions for LoraWAN and energy systems. Second phase: The student will develop the testbed based on LoraWAN and Raspberry Pi. During this time, the student will meet with the PI and graduate student on a regular basis (more details are discussed in the REU mentoring section) to discuss research progress and associated problems. Third phase: The REU student will collect preliminary results using the testbed. These will be summarized in a poster or workshop paper, to be submitted to an international conference. The student will have major responsibilities in writing the paper, while receiving feedback from the PI and the graduate student, in order to improve her writing skills. The student will also make presentations of the research and implementation findings in group meetings, and make necessary revisions of the work based on the feedback, according to a spiral design approach.