ACC 2026 Workshop

Abstract

This workshop provides hands-on training on the NSF-funded DERConnect testbed intended for researchers and industry professionals. The workshop focuses on implementation of distributed control algorithms for applications related to Distributed Energy Resources, Energy Systems, and Cybersecurity. The workshop goals are to provide users with information and mentoring to become expert users of DERConnect software and DERs so that they can run in-depth and realistic power system studies remotely. The DERConnect platform includes a full Distributed Energy Resource Management System (DERMS) stack—data management and visualization (dashboards, notebooks, time-series entities), device and code orchestration (IoTHub projects/environments with Gitea for versioning), field I/O and protocol translation (Babel), and real-time simulators (RTDS and Typhoon HIL)—enabling hands-on studies that span from algorithm design to deployment and evaluation. This half-day workshop guides participants through a distributed voltage-regulation use case implemented on DERConnect. Attendees will (i) configure a communication graph using the Topology Service, (ii) run an ADMM-style distributed controller across multiple DER nodes, and (iii) integrate real-time simulation to probe performance under changing PV and load scenarios. Data will be streamed and visualized using Entities, Datasources, and Dashboards, with analysis performed in platform Notebooks. Device interaction uses Babel, which publishes/consumes via an MQTT broker; deployments leverage dockerized components and IoTHub's project/environment model.

Speakers

• Dr. Sonia Martínez
  Speaker & Chair — Professor, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, UC San Diego
  soniamd@ucsd.edu
• Dr. Adil Khurram
  Speaker — Project Scientist, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, UC San Diego
  akhurram@ucsd.edu
• Mr. Keaton Chia
  Speaker — R&D Engineer, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, UC San Diego
  kwchia@ucsd.edu