Ricardo J. Bessa’s research while affiliated with Institute for Systems and Computer Engineering, Technology and Science (INESC TEC) and other places

The interaction between humans and AI in safety-critical systems presents a unique set of challenges that remain partially addressed by existing frameworks. These challenges stem from the complex interplay of requirements for transparency, trust, and explainability, coupled with the necessity for robust and safe decision-making. A framework that holistically integrates human and AI capabilities while addressing these concerns is notably required, bridging the critical gaps in designing, deploying, and maintaining safe and effective systems. This paper proposes a holistic conceptual framework for critical infrastructures by adopting an interdisciplinary approach. It integrates traditionally distinct fields such as mathematics, decision theory, computer science, philosophy, psychology, and cognitive engineering and draws on specialized engineering domains, particularly energy, mobility, and aeronautics. The flexibility in its adoption is also demonstrated through its instantiation on an already existing framework.

The European Union's Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act defines robustness, resilience, and security requirements for high-risk sectors but lacks detailed methodologies for assessment. This paper introduces a novel framework for quantitatively evaluating the robustness and resilience of reinforcement learning agents in congestion management. Using the AI-friendly digital environment Grid2Op, perturbation agents simulate natural and adversarial disruptions by perturbing the input of AI systems without altering the actual state of the environment, enabling the assessment of AI performance under various scenarios. Robustness is measured through stability and reward impact metrics, while resilience quantifies recovery from performance degradation. The results demonstrate the framework's effectiveness in identifying vulnerabilities and improving AI robustness and resilience for critical applications.

Accurate power forecasting from renewable energy sources (RES) is crucial for integrating additional RES capacity into the power system and realizing sustainability goals. This work emphasizes the importance of integrating decentralized spatio-temporal data into forecasting models. However, decentralized data ownership presents a critical obstacle to the success of such spatio-temporal models, and incentive mechanisms to foster data-sharing need to be considered. The main contributions are a) a comparative analysis of the forecasting models, advocating for efficient and interpretable spline LASSO regression models, and b) a bidding mechanism within the data/analytics market to ensure fair compensation for data providers and enable both buyers and sellers to express their data price requirements. Furthermore, an incentive mechanism for time series forecasting is proposed, effectively incorporating price constraints and preventing redundant feature allocation. Results show significant accuracy improvements and potential monetary gains for data sellers. For wind power data, an average root mean squared error improvement of over 10% was achieved by comparing forecasts generated by the proposal with locally generated ones.

Accurate power forecasting from renewable energy sources (RES) is crucial for integrating additional RES capacity into the power system and realizing sustainability goals. This work emphasizes the importance of integrating decentralized spatio-temporal data into forecasting models. However, decentralized data ownership presents a critical obstacle to the success of such spatio-temporal models, and incentive mechanisms to foster data-sharing need to be considered. The main contributions are a) a comparative analysis of the forecasting models, advocating for efficient and interpretable spline LASSO regression models, and b) a bidding mechanism within the data/analytics market to ensure fair compensation for data providers and enable both buyers and sellers to express their data price requirements. Furthermore, an incentive mechanism for time series forecasting is proposed, effectively incorporating price constraints and preventing redundant feature allocation. Results show significant accuracy improvements and potential monetary gains for data sellers. For wind power data, an average root mean squared error improvement of over 10% was achieved by comparing forecasts generated by the proposal with locally generated ones.

Climate change, geopolitical tensions, and decarbonization targets are bringing the resilience of the European electric power system to the forefront of discussion. Among various regulatory and technological solutions, voluntary demand response can help balance generation and demand during periods of energy scarcity or renewable energy generation surplus. This work presents an open data service called Interoperable Recommender that leverages publicly accessible data to calculate a country-specific operational balancing risk, providing actionable recommendations to empower citizens toward adaptive energy consumption, considering interconnections and local grid constraints. Using semantic interoperability, it enables third-party services to enhance energy management and customize applications to consumers. Real-world pilots in Portugal, Greece, and Croatia with over 300 consumers demonstrated the effectiveness of providing signals across diverse contexts. For instance, in Portugal, 7% of the hours included actionable recommendations, and metering data revealed a consumption decrease of 4% during periods when consumers were requested to lower consumption.

The power system worldwide is currently undergoing a rapid and transformative shift driven by decarbonization and digitization. The global goal of decarbonization in response to climate change has driven the evolution of smart grids toward high, or even 100%, renewable penetration. Meanwhile, traditional electricity consumers are transforming into prosumers who simultaneously consume and produce electricity. More flexible resource types continue to emerge and rise on the demand side. They have emerged as highly effective solutions to integrate and coordinate a diverse range of distributed energy resources that offer increased resilience, flexibility, and sustainability during the decarbonization of power systems.