Today’s increasingly complex energy systems require innovative approaches to integrate and optimize different energy sources and technologies. In this paper, we explore the system of systems (SoS) approach, which provides a comprehensive framework for improving energy systems’ interoperability, efficiency, and resilience. By examining recent advances in various sectors, including photovoltaic systems, electric vehicles, energy storage, renewable energy, smart cities, and rural communities, this study highlights the essential role of SoSs in addressing the challenges of the energy transition. The principal areas of interest include the integration of advanced control algorithms and machine learning techniques and the development of robust communication networks to manage interactions between interconnected subsystems. This study also identifies significant challenges associated with large-scale SoS implementation, such as real-time data processing, decision-making complexity, and the need for harmonized regulatory frameworks. This study outlines future directions for improving the intelligence and autonomy of energy subsystems, which are essential for achieving a sustainable, resilient, and adaptive energy infrastructure.

This paper introduces a dynamic scheduling algorithm designed to minimize makespan within a smart manufacturing system, accommodating delays in the production process. The proposed approach relies on Model Predictive Control (MPC) principles and adapts flow-shop scheduling theory to solve an open-shop scheduling problem. It aims to strike a balance between the ideal, delay-free solution and robustness in the case of processing time delays. By combining MPC theory with flow-shop scheduling, the algorithm offers a robust approach to open-shop scheduling problems, even with uncertain processing times. Iterated upon the arrival of each new job on the shop floor, the algorithm incorporates a control horizon to predict impending job arrivals and seamlessly integrates them into the scheduling process. Efficiency is examined through a comprehensive case study, where it is compared against a similar, offline scheduling algorithm. This novel method not only optimizes scheduling but also adapts to dynamic scenarios, reducing the computational demand and the information needed to optimize the production process, thus making it suitable for agile manufacturing environments. The results demonstrate the algorithm’s efficacy in achieving competitive scheduling performance with nearly the same makespan as the offline algorithm, while accounting for uncertainties in processing times. A robustness analysis confirms the reliability of the proposed approach, showing an average improvement of 5% in makespan across different delay magnitudes.

This article explores the management of automated guided vehicles within smart manufacturing systems, presenting an architecture designed to handle various stages in a fully automated production system. Trajectory planning is managed using a potential field controller, coupled with a time-of-arrival optimization for vehicles heading to shared resources, exploiting the concepts of virtual platoons. This approach optimizes arrival times at resources and minimizes energy consumption, prioritizing other elements directed toward currently available resources within the system. In addition, a decision-making algorithm schedules vehicles needing recharging due to low battery levels, ensuring uninterrupted production without overloading recharging stations and guaranteeing system efficiency. The proposed architecture is tested on three production orders of increasing complexity. Results demonstrate that the use of virtual platooning simplifies the dynamic trajectory generation of the potential field controller and, consequently, significantly reduces energy consumption and waiting times at shared resources, while reducing the variability on the production chain's makespan.

This article introduces a digital twin framework for greenhouse climate management, utilizing model predictive control (MPC) to enhance smart farming practices and tackle the challenge of maintaining optimal conditions in diverse weather scenarios. The proposed MPC integrates dynamic system modeling, predictive control, and constraint management to regulate critical variables such as ambient temperature, solar radiation, and airflow. To validate the control framework, historical meteorological data from the city of Savona are used for four seasonal scenarios: winter, spring, summer, and autumn. The main contributions include designing and tuning the MPC, applying soft constraints via equal concern for relaxation for feasibility, and implementing scaling factors to ensure numerical stability. Simulation results demonstrate the controller’s ability to maintain desired climatic conditions while meeting physical and operational constraints. This work highlights the potential of combining digital twin technology with advanced control systems to support sustainable and efficient smart farming.

In this paper, Nonlinear Model Predictive Control (NMPC) and Nonlinear Moving Horizon Estimator (NMHE) are combined to control, in a distributed way, a heterogeneous fleet composed of a steering car and a quadcopter. In particular, the ground vehicle in the role of the leader communicates its one-step future position to the drone, which keeps the formation along the desired trajectory. Inequality constraints are introduced in a switching control fashion to the leader’s NMPC formulation to avoid obstacles. In the literature, few works using NMPC and NMHE deal with these two vehicles together. Moreover, the presented scheme can tackle noisy, partial, and missing measurements of the agents’ state. Results show that the ground car can avoid detected obstacles, keeping the tracking errors of both robots in the order of a few centimeters, thanks to trustworthy NMHE estimates and NMPC predictions.