Model Driven Software Engineering of Power Systems Applications: Literature Review and Trends

Abstract

This paper presents a survey on Software Engineering techniques for the power systems area. Our goal is to identify tools and techniques that can improve the life cycle management of customized applications for Energy Management Systems (SCADA/EMS), by applying a Model Driven Engineering (MDE) approach. We conducted a systematic literature review of published works related to the design and development of such applications. Two main repositories of publications in the area were used as sources and four search strategies were applied. Several works found are not directed to SCADA/EMS, but are related to other power systems applications. We have collected evidence that such applications are more commonly modeled using concepts specific to the power systems' domain, like control theory, rather than traditional techniques and tools from the software industry, like UML. However, few details about the process of transforming those specifications into software artifacts could be gathered. On the other hand, a few published works mention the MDE approach for power systems related applications, although clear methodology or frameworks applicable to the production of fully functional software are still missing. We have also identified promising technologies that need to be evaluated in order to propose such a framework, like domain specific languages, transformation engines and integration interfaces. The appealing MDE concept of automatically transforming design and specification models into programs and other software artifacts has the potential to facilitate the porting and migration of EMS applications from one platform to others. Ultimately, such an approach may help improving software quality and cutting development costs. INDEX TERMS Model driven engineering, SCADA/EMS, software engineering, power systems.

Achievements, experiences, and lessons learned from the European research infrastructure ERIGrid related to the validation of power and energy systems

“…Especially the integration of the electric power system with other domains (thermal, gas, water/waste water, transportation etc.) into a smart energy system requires additional efforts which are [12,13]:…”

Smart Grids and Their Role in Transforming Human Activities—A Systematic Literature Review

“…Generally, most of the works are focused on the field of health, medicine, oncology, etc. and references to the field of engineering greatly limit the scope of the research [28][29][30][31][32][33]. In some sources, the search was limited to two work vectors, as we have planned in this study, to subsequently establish the databases or search repositories chosen.…”

A Methodology for Retrofitting Generative Aspects in Existing Applications.

“…The literature review presented in (Neis et al 2019) summarizes the state of the art of MBSE in software engineering for power systems applications. Even though the targeted research questions aim to reveal how source models are processed into target models or code, none of the approaches mentioned produce fully functional software applications.…”

“…Activity 3: Language Family Identification. The literature review in (Neis et al 2019) investigated, among others, a research question regarding which modeling languages are used in model-driven and generative approaches of applications in the power systems domain. The languages found are classified into different language categories.…”