DEMAND RESPONSE SYSTEM INCORPORATING A GRAPHICAL PROCESSING UNIT

• US 20120066686A1
• Filed: 11/18/2011
• Published: 03/15/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 07/17/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Honeywell International Inc.
• Original Assignee: Honeywell International Inc.
• Inventors: Koch, Edward
• Granted Patent: US 9,137,050 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/104
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5027 the resource being a machine, e.g. CPUs, Servers, Terminals
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5038 considering the execution order of a plurality of tasks, e.g. taking priority or time dependency constraints into consideration scheduling strategies G06F9/4881 and subgroups
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 1/00 General purpose image data processing
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/363 Graphics controllers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/6418 Hybrid transport

Abstract

A system and approach for utilizing a graphical processing unit in a demand response program. A demand response server may have numerous demand response resources connected to it. The server may have a main processor and an associated memory, and a graphic processing unit connected to the main processor and memory. The graphic processing unit may have numerous cores which incorporate processing units and associated memories. The cores may concurrently process demand response information and rules of the numerous resources, respectively, and provide signal values to the main processor. The main processor may the provide demand response signals based at least partially on the signal values, to each of the respective demand response resources.

Claims

1. A demand response management processing system comprising:

a demand response (DR) server; and

one or more DR resources connected to the DR server; and

wherein;

the DR server comprises;

a controller; and

a graphic processing unit (GPU) connected to the controller; and

wherein the GPU comprises a plurality of central processing units (CPUs); and

the one or more DR resources have components which are processed by two or more CPUs of the plurality of the CPUs, respectively.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a component comprises DR logic; and

DR logic for each of the one or more DR resources is processed by a CPU of the plurality of CPUs.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the plurality of CPUs operate in parallel.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the DR logic comprises a set of rules for the respective DR resource, which defines content of signal values to the controller and the DR signals from the controller to the respective DR resource.

5. The system of claim 3, wherein:

a CPU of the plurality of CPUs processes information and DR logic of a DR resource into signal values for DR signals to the DR resource; and

another CPU of the plurality of CPUs processes information and DR logic of another DR resource into signal values for DR signals to the other DR resource, and so on.

6. The system of claim 2, wherein:

processing DR logic of a DR resource into signal values for DR signals to each DR resource is an operation; and

each operation assigned to a CPU of the plurality of CPUs is a thread execution; and

a plurality of operations assigned to a plurality of CPUs, respectively, comprise parallel execution threads.

7. A method for managing rules for demand response resources, comprising:

receiving resource information from one or more demand response (DR) resources;

processing the resource information into a configuration and inputs for rules, with a main central processing unit; and

processing the configuration and inputs for rules in conjunction with a set of rules for each DR resource into signal values with two or more central processing units of a plurality of central processing units of a graphic processing unit; and

wherein the two or more central processing units operate in parallel.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising converting the signal values for each DR resource into DR signals at the main central processing unit for conveyance to the respective DR resource of the one or more DR resources.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein:

the processing of the configuration and inputs for rules into signal values is an operation;

an operation assigned to a central processing unit of the graphic processing unit is an execution thread;

two or more operations assigned to two or more central processing units of the graphic processing unit, respectively, are two or more execution threads; and

the two or more execution threads are performed by the two or more central processing units of the graphic processing unit.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein:

the two or more execution threads constitute a thread block; and

the thread block is a set of concurrent execution threads.

11. The method of claim 7, wherein DR resource rules which define content of the DR signals conveyed respectively to the one or more DR resources are at least a part of DR logic for the one or more DR resources.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the DR logic for the one or more DR resources is processed to obtain signal values for the DR signals by the two or more central processing units of the graphic processing unit.

13. A demand response management processing system comprising:

a demand response (DR) server; and

two or more DR resources connected to the DR server; and

wherein;

the DR server comprises a graphic processing unit connected to the main central processing unit;

the graphic processing unit comprises two or more cores; and

a core of the two or more cores executes a set of rules for a respective DR resource of the two or more DR resources.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein each core comprises:

a central processing unit; and

a memory connected to the central processing unit.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the DR server further comprises a main central processing unit and memory, connected to the two or more DR resources and the graphic processing unit.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein each of the two or more DR resources have an information connection to the main central processing unit and memory, and a DR signal connection from the main central processing unit and memory.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the main central processing unit and memory have a configuration and inputs for rules connection to the graphic processing unit, and a signal values connection from the graphic processing unit.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein:

the two or more cores correspond to the two or more DR resources, respectively; and

a memory connected to the central processing unit of a core contains the set of rules for the DR resource of the two or more DR resources, corresponding to the core comprising the memory.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein:

the central processing unit of a core processes the configuration and inputs for rules in conjunction with the set of rules to obtain signal values; and

the signal values are processed by the main central processing unit into DR signals for the respective DR resource.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the set of rules comprises DR logic.