[agents] Research engineer position (Paris area)- A multi-agent platform devoted to management and optimisation of energy systems

Mon Sep 28 10:42:14 EDT 2015

In the scope of the European Projects being developed at the CEA LIST
(*http://www.cea.fr/english_portal
<http://www.cea.fr/english_portal>*) data analysis and system Intelligence
lab (LADIS) in the Paris (France) area, a research engineer position is
available for developers who are interested in multi-agent solutions for an
efficient management of the smart grid.The successful candidate will join a
research and development team to investigate and develop a multi-agent
platform devoted to management and optimization of energy systems.

*Qualifications:*

1.      Research engineer with experience in R&D or PhD

2.       Excellent proficiency in software, object-oriented (in particular
Java), agent architectures, programming languages and tools (in particular
JADE).

3.      High motivation, self-learning and autonomy, teamwork skills

4.      Excellent communication skills, both verbal and written English.

5.      Background in multi-agent systems, artificial intelligence and
smart grid.

The successful applicant is expected to be able to successfully collaborate
with the project team and with researchers of the LADIS lab.

The position is open (start planned in January/February 2016). Review of
applications will begin as soon applications are received and continue
until the position is filled.

*Working context:* The CEA is the French Alternative Energies and Atomic
Energy Commission. Leader in research, development and innovation with its
16000 employees, CEA is active in four main areas: low-carbon energies,
defense and security, information technologies and health technologies. Key
figures include about 150 start-ups since 1984 in the innovative
technologies sector, a 4,3 billion euros yearly budget and more than 530 EU
projects obtained with CEA participation under the European FP7 since 2007.
Inside CEA, the CEA LIST institute (700 researchers, located in the
Paris-Saclay scientific cluster) focuses its research activities on
developing innovative technologies for smart and complex systems. Its R&D
programs focus on interactive systems (ambient intelligence), embedded
systems (architecture, software and systems engineering), sensors and
signal processing (industrial control systems, health, security and
metrology). The LADIS is a CEA LIST lab (60 researchers, post-doctoral &
PhD students) which activities aim at applying advanced artificial
intelligence, data/signal processing and software engineering approaches to
meet industrial needs, through its industrial partnerships and involvement
in collaborative research projects. Our activities essentially focus on
Health, Manufacturing and Energy domains, with the objective to deliver
industry-focused solutions and to be in line with the highest academic
excellence standards.

*Job description:* In the recent years, Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) have
emerged as one of the most promising technologies for the management of new
energy systems [1,2]. However, this interrelation between MAS and energy
systems still has many challenges.

This study will take place in the scope of a European collaborative
research project. The aim of this project is to design, develop, and
demonstrate a multi-agent holonic platform for distributed management,
control and optimization of energy systems (generation, storage and
distribution). This platform will rely on generic high-level software
components (mainly agents and behaviours to be able to represent
socio-economic and physical entities), generic interaction protocols and
the recursive and hierarchical structures that support a holonic
architecture. Multi-agent optimization protocols will be integrated in
order to allow agents to coordinate their different goals and
bi-directional communications will be secured. Goals will be based on
individual interests (e.g. balance for distribution operators; reduction of
generation price for producers; reduction of consumption and comfort
maximization for consumers, etc). Collective optimization protocols will
produce as output global agreed generation, distribution, storage and
consumption schedules.

The project includes prominent industrial organizations and research
institutes from the European energy, telecom and security fields.

The selected candidate will be part of a multi-agent systems team, which
includes two PhD students, two postdocs, two research engineers and one
software architect. The aim will be to participate in the development of
already existing multi-agent platform (developed in the institute). This
work will also rely on previous research results. The focus of this study
may be adapted depending on the candidate profile. However, excellent
skills in software development are a mandatory requirement.

[1] S. D. J. McArthur; E. M. Davidson; V. M. Catterson; A. L. Dimeas; N. D.
Hatziargyriou; F. Ponci; T. Funabashi, “Multi-Agent Systems for Power
Engineering Applications – Part I: Concepts, Approaches, and Technical
Challenges”, IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, Vol. 22, No. 4, November
2007.

[2] Gregor Rohbogner, Simon Fey
<http://dblp.uni-trier.de/pers/hc/f/Fey:Simon>, Ulf Hahnel
<http://dblp.uni-trier.de/pers/hc/h/Hahnel:Ulf>, Pascal Benoit
<http://dblp.uni-trier.de/pers/hc/b/Benoit:Pascal>, Bernhard Wille-Haussmann
<http://dblp.uni-trier.de/pers/hc/w/Wille=Haussmann:Bernhard>, “What the
term Agent stands for in the Smart Grid, Definition of Agents and
Multi-Agent Systems from an Engineer's Perspective”, FedCSIS 2012
<http://dblp.uni-trier.de/db/conf/fedcsis/fedcsis2012.html#RohbognerFHBW12>:
1301-1305

*Application package:*

Please send the following documents by email to *hassan.sleiman at cea.fr
<hassan.sleiman at cea.fr>* and  meritxell.vinyals at cea.fr in a single PDF file:

1.     CV with a list of at least 3 references

2.      A one-page summary of research background and interests.

3.      Available start date

*Contact Information:*

Hassan Sleiman (*hassan.sleiman at cea.fr <hassan.sleiman at cea.fr>*)
Meritxell Vinyals (meritxell.vinyals at cea.fr)