IEEE Electrification Magazine - December 2016 - 17

External Resource

Management
UI Agent

MATLAB
Interface

Weather

Supervisory
Agent

Platform
Agent

Device
Configuration
Visualizations
Web Services

Router
Improvements

VIP

Resource
Monitor

Authentication
Module

Agent
Instantiation and
Packaging
Module

Message Bus

Historian
General
Framework

Resource
Directory

Configuration
Store

Authorization
Module

Agent
Execution
Environment
Resource
Constraints

Data Collection
Failover

Actuator

Keystore

Agent Sandbox

SQLlite
MySQL
MongoDB

Revert and
Override

Drivers
General
Framework

v1.2
V3.0

V2.0 (Licensed)
v3.5

Modbus
BACnet

DNP3
SEP2.0

v4.0
Device

Figure 1. The VOLTTRON platform. UI: user interface.

would subscribe. The platform itself publishes platformrelated messages to the platform topic (such as "shutdown"). Topics are hierarchical, following the format of
topic/subtopic/subtopic/.../... and allowing agents to be
as general or as specific as desired with their subscriptions. For example, agents could subscribe to weather/all
and get all weather data for a location or subscribe to
weather/temperature for only temperature data. VOLTTRON incorporates several open-source projects to build
a flexible and powerful platform (http://github.com/
volttron). The key services and applications provided by
VOLTTRON include the following.
xx
An actuator agent. Agents within the platform manage
the control of external devices.
xx
Drivers. Devices controlled by the platform communicate with drivers. The drivers abstract device-specific
protocols from the rest of the platform by publishing
device data to and taking commands from the message bus. VOLTTRON currently includes supported
drivers for BACnet and Modbus protocols.
xx
Historians. Storage is enabled for the device data
obtained by the drivers and application analysis
results in a database (currently SQLlite, MySQL, and

MongoDB databases are supported). Multiple historians can run on the platform at the same time.
xx
A management interface. A web-based user interface
allows the administration of VOLTTRON nodes (and
the agent/applications) running on the VOLTTRON
nodes on one or more networks.
xx
A message bus. All agents and services can publish
and subscribe to topics on the message bus. The message bus provides a single and uniform interface that
abstracts the details of devices and agents from each
other. Agents and components running in the platform produce and consume messages and/or events.
The agents decide how agents produce events and
how they process received events.
xx
Remote procedure calls. VOLTTRON agents can interact
via remote procedure calls. This is especially useful
when interacting with service agents, such as an actuator or historian, and simplifies the code required to
use those services.
xx
VOLTTRON Interconnect Protocol (VIP). This protocol is
designed to provide secure communications within
and between VOLTTRON platforms. It allows for attribution of messages and restriction of access. It also
IEEE Electrific ation Magazine / d ec em be r 2 0 1 6

17


http://www.github.com/

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Electrification Magazine - December 2016

IEEE Electrification Magazine - December 2016 - Cover1
IEEE Electrification Magazine - December 2016 - Cover2
IEEE Electrification Magazine - December 2016 - 1
IEEE Electrification Magazine - December 2016 - 2
IEEE Electrification Magazine - December 2016 - 3
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IEEE Electrification Magazine - December 2016 - Cover3
IEEE Electrification Magazine - December 2016 - Cover4
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_december2022
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_september2022
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_june2022
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_march2022
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_december2021
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_september2021
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_june2021
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_march2021
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_december2020
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_september2020
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_june2020
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_march2020
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_december2019
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_september2019
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_june2019
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_march2019
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_december2018
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_september2018
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_june2018
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_december2017
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_september2017
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_march2018
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_june2017
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_march2017
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_june2016
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_december2016
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_september2016
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_december2015
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_march2016
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_march2015
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_june2015
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_september2015
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_march2014
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_june2014
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_september2014
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_december2014
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_december2013
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pes/electrification_september2013
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