[Deep learning] What is deep in learning?

Depth of leaning is in general mapped to the well-read. After all well-read creates depth in thinking sparks new ideas and aid you to corelate things [as generally referred to as intelligence]. On the other side lies machines to whom we are trying to teach all that we know, for which we create depth for them and coined it as deep learning.

Data in the world is in abundance (relatively) and there surely exists relation among their entities, relations that we map not at first glance and point it clearly, as we can point – ‘as milk is to cat so carrot is to rabbit’, it is more simple function – linear so to say. For some reason there are functions that are too complex to learn and visualize for which we need depth. Layer after layer – memory page after memory page, one adding and increasing the complexity of its prior and marching to learn the complex with sharpness.

What is deep in deep learning, who is leaning and what is that they are learning?

Deep learning models (which are mathematical representation) are build by use of neurons as is our own human system, just they are artificial in existence, after all they don’t have hemoglobin supplying, they the oxygenated blood for functioning properly. This entire model has sharp, planned connection among these neurons which are layered in there functioning and appearance – hence deep. These models to give arguably acceptable response needs data in abundance (relatively), they carefully dismantle the cluttered thread and learns the structure in entirety – so to speak the model learns.

How far this layer stacking brings these math models close to human?

As Gladwell brings in his book Outliers, for intelligence the idea of "threshold" -  have this models have already surpassed the threshold? if so do they need practical intelligence? if not - how deep are they going?

 

“THE DUCK CURVE”

By - Akshay avate

B.Tech(EEE) 

Central University of Karnataka 

The electricity is of vital importance to us, we expect it to be supplied to us at every point in time, nowadays we cannot afford to loos the supply of electricity for a very long time, since almost all of the work, depends on it, we turn on the switch and we need the light to glow, but for electrical engineer, it’s not a cakewalk to maintain the supply all the time. In India, a large amount of electricity is being generated using fossil fuels, but the time period until which we can depend on fossil fuels is not very far, due to its restricted presence on earth and also due to the severe fact that it plays a crucial role in the climate change, so now most of the countries are switching towards renewable energy sources, like Wind, Solar, etc. As we are evolving as more human we are understanding our ridiculous behavior towards earth as a whole, so there are people with posters and social media stories, who are drawing attention towards the serious fact of climate change, and hence governments are working on policy levels to fill the grave that we have dug for the future generation. 

As of now, solar panels are the ones who seem to take the burden squarely on their shoulders, so the government is emphasizing more on it, and what now, the problem solved? 

Umm, let’s see….. 

The need for the consumption of electricity is so dynamic in nature, because, on a very large scale cannot be very sure that when will any person will switch on the fan and hence start consuming the supply and vice-versa is also true, so here graphs come in handy, we call them as load-curve  ( consumption of energy in MW and time on 24hrs scale), load-curve can be of daily, monthly, yearly and of any geographical area which is connected to the grid

“A typical load-curve”

graph Credits: POSOCO 

A typical load curve reflects our own lifestyle, we get up in the morning and, as we start our day we start using electricity so the overall demand increases, and as we get ready and leave the home for work we are generally switching the place from where we use the supply and as we return home in the evenings the demand peaks and as we start to make our bed the appliances switch off and hence the demand decreases, and the cycle continues. 

One major task is to maintain the balance between the load and the demand  

The solar panel’s generation is at the peak from 1100hrs to 1600 hrs, and after that, the production drastically decreases because the sun starts to set. So we have to slow down the production from the other supply sources like thermal, nuclear, etc during 1100 hrs and 1600 hrs and then suddenly increase the production, to meet the demand and failing which we may disturb the entire grid and latter may face black-outs.

image credit: vox youtube channel  

The decrease in demand due to the availability of supply from the solar panels is being seen as serious since more number of solar panels mean more decrease in demand from 1100hrs and 1600hrs and then sudden sharp increase in demand, but now that increase in demand has to meet by the conventional sources, now that’s the problem and if the solar panels start producing more supply then required, intentionally we have to turn off, some of the panels, (to maintain the balance between the supply and demand), which is not economical. And the sudden increase in the production from sources like thermal is not a cake wake, since to start the thermal power plant we have need some time, but the demand cannot be kept on hold. 

image credit: vox youtube channel  

Now, this duck has to be tackled very carefully.

   

The 9PM 9minutes

On April 3 2020, at 9:10 hrs, The Hon’ble prime minister Narendra Modi while addressing to the nation emphasized on the ongoing struggle, as the whole nation and as well as the world is facing and, in the times, when the hope was settling, PM made an appeal to the citizens, to introduce the power of the light (as mentioned Prakash) to the darkness of the corona and defect it, PM mentioned to voluntarily turn off the lights at homes alone ,on April 5 2020 at 9:00 PM for nine minutes and light a lamp, diyas, mobile flash or torch, PM had mapped the output to highlight the single battle that we all are fighting together, and none is alone.

 This at the first glance may seem very easy task to execute, as we often take electricity supply as granted, but its not completely true, electricity takes a long dynamic journey across wide spread geographical areas, under scorching sun, freezing cold, and wetting rain, before it reaches your home, the journey is as interesting as any of the Pankaj Tripathi’s movies and his life, and mind you the journey of electricity employees many (so let’s praise it). The entire power system can be divided into three units:1) Generation unit,2) Transmission unit,3) Distribution unit. “One nation one gird” is the category in which Indian power system falls in, it helps to send the power, which is generated at any corner of the nation, to any of the places where it is necessary, Grid is the interconnected network to supply electricity from producer to consumer.

Power System Operation Corporation Limited (POSOCO), is a Government of India enterprise under Ministry of Power, it holds the responsibility of integrated operation of the grid in a reliable and efficient way, it has a main section called National Load Dispatch Centre (NLDC), NLDC in turn is divided into five Regional Load Dispatch Centers (RLDC), Northern Regional Load Dispatch Centre (NRLDC) and such like, SRLDC, ERLDC, WRLDC and NERLDC. And every state has State Load Dispatch Centre (SLDC)

HOW 9PM 9MINUTES CHALLENGED THE POWER SECTOR? 

Since entire country was under complete lockdown, almost all the industries were off, due to which the overall load demand was reduced by 20 percent, nearly 220-240 lines at 400 kV voltage level and above were kept in open circuit condition for voltage control, the major load consuming sectors were domestics, hospitals and such like. And the previous alike event of clapping and cheering from the balcony had received humongous response, which was intended to show support to the corona warriors, all these similar factors were strong points to believe the promising response to the 9PM9minutes, so the power sector had planned meticulously to tackle this engineering opportunity

The event was unique and very dynamic in its own ways, since it involved in a hugh reduction of, all India lightning load for 9minutes and a sudden increase in the same. The current that is supplied is of alternating types and called alternating current (AC), it is chacterised by having a frequency, the standard frequency at which the power system works is 50 hertz (in India), the range provided by POSOCO is 49.70 hertz- 50.26 hertz, violating these frequencies would lead to system failure, as we are aware of weather forecasting, there is also something called as load forecasting, this was the starting key task to successful organizing of this event, based on the analysis the all India lightning load was estimated and demand reduction of 11344 megawatt (MW) at 9 PM was anticipated but the actual reduction had surpassed the estimated value. The reduction in load was not a problem but the sudden dip and then a sharp increase in load demand was a hugh concern, since the mechanical input would be the same to the generators, but the electrical output would have been reduced so drastically, so generator will pick up the speed, by increasing the speed of generator, the frequency would also increase, so does the induced emf (electro motive force)/voltage (according to Faradays law), and as we know the increase in frequency is not valid. A simple analogy to understand the problem would be of a, vehicle moving at x km/hr with 10 passengers, suddenly the passengers dropping to 2 will certainly speeds up the vehicle and it will be little tedious to control the vehicle, the same can be explained using Swing equation, talks about the power system stability.

 SO HOW WAS THIS ISSUE APPROACHED? 

Around 8:55 pm (on April 5 2020) the frequency (of every generating station all over the country) was maintained as low as possible (of the limited range), since anyhow the frequency would have raised latter at 9:00 pm, we have to understand that the different kind of power plant needs different time to pull up their socks, because of various reasons. Around 6:30 pm gas based units under reserve shut down were brought back on board, around 7:30 pm the thermal units were gradually brought down, which were ramped up to meet the evening peak demand, to compensate the thermal units hydro units were ramped up around 8:45 pm thermal units were backed to lowest technical level and hydro units ramped to maximum, sharp reduction in all India lighting demand started around 8:45 pm from116887 MW, around 9:10 PM, minimum all India demand was recorded, it was 85799 MW , at 9:10 PM all India demand started to raise, around 10:10 pm all India demand settled at 114000 MW.

This was just a vague attempt to draw the wonderful aspect of the dynamic power system and the meticulous approach by the engineers and the entire management along with the government support to maintain the grid so that the entire nation will continue to work with brighter hope.

Akshay Avate 

B.Tech in Electrical and Electronics, Central University of Karnataka