Energy, Power, Control, and Learning (EPCL)

The Energy, Power, Control, and Learning (EPCL) program invests in fundamental research to advance the capabilities, performance, security and resilience of engineered systems. These advances can benefit the U.S. power grid, transportation, manufacturing, healthcare and other critical infrastructure systems that enable economic growth and prosperity.

EPCL supports research on systems and control, learning, optimization, and networked multi-agent systems. The program addresses a wide variety of systems and decision-making issues; examples include higher-level decision making, dynamic resource allocation, risk management in the presence of uncertainty, sub-system failures, and game theory for system control and learning, as well as stochastic and hybrid systems. EPCL research may also involve advances in artificial intelligence (AI); examples include novel machine learning algorithms, new AI-assisted tools, adaptive programming, and brain-like networked architectures for real-time learning.

The program encourages collaboration among different fields to advance knowledge that will lead to new methods and technologies. While projects focus on fundamental advances in knowledge, they should ideally provide a clear vision of how research can influence real-world applications. These may include energy, transportation, robotics, biomedical devices and systems, or other uses.

EPCL is committed to supporting advances in the theory and technology of electric power systems. Such research can address issues related to generation, transmission, storage, inverter-based energy sources; power electronics and drives; battery management systems; energy harvesting; hybrid and electric vehicles; and the interplay of power system operation with regulatory and economic structures and consumer behavior. The program also supports research that addresses emerging challenges stemming from societal trends in energy production and consumption, such as changes in energy sources for the power grid or growth in data centers.

Partnerships: To speed discovery and innovation, NSF partners with federal agencies, industry, international groups, and others. Current opportunities are at NSF ENG Partnerships.

This program advances NSF’s mission as given in the NSF organic statute (42 U.S.C. 1861, et seq.).