Decision and control in networks with stochastic demand and supply

Overview & Synopsis

This manuscript summarizes one part of my research. The focus is on the decision and control in networks with stochastic demand and supply that have to be balanced by a central entity, or using a distributed control design. Two different settings are considered: stochastic matching systems and real-time balancing of stochastic demand and supply in power grids. The objective is similar, yet the models differ considerably and use techniques from various fields including queueing systems and network flows from graph theory for stochastic matching, and mean-field approximations and control theory for realtime demand-supply balancing. Both settings use Markov decision processes. The manuscript is organized in two parts: Part I covers stochastic matching systems and Part II balancing of stochastic demand and supply in power grids. The two parts can be read independently of each other.