Integrating Traffic and Power Simulators Using MetaMAS™ for Evaluating Highway EMS

In the near future, if many electric vehicles (EVs) run on highways, a highway energy management system (highway EMS) that controls supply and demand of EV charging will be required. In order to conduct research on future highway EMSs, a simulator is needed for evaluating EV charging strategies. For this purpose, it is necessary to model how EV charging strategies affect EV drivers’ decision-making. Multi-agent simulators (MASs) are often used for predicting the total effect on individuals’ decision-making and activities. This paper presents a new general-purpose meta-level multi-agent simulator, MetaMAS™, which simulates the total effect of individual agents’ activities using domain-specific simulators. Using MetaMAS™ agents, the authors model the key players of the highway EMS and integrate traffic and power simulators. They show how MetaMAS™ agents communicate with one another and interact with traffic and power simulators. They also evaluate some charging strategies of the highway EMS: the power reduction strategy, the energy reduction strategy, and the power and energy reduction strategy.