Publications

Preprints

• Sanju Xaviar, Xin Yang, Omid Ardakanian, "Robust Multimodal Fusion for Human Activity Recognition", preprint available on arXiv

Refereed Papers

2023

• Xin Yang, Omid Ardakanian, "Blinder: End-to-end Privacy Protection in Sensing Systems via Personalized Federated Learning", ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks, in press, 2023. [Preprint][Impact Factor: 4.1]
• Xin Yang, Omid Ardakanian, "Privacy through Diffusion: A White-listing Approach to Sensor Data Anonymization", Accepted in the 5th Workshop on CPS & IoT Security and Privacy at ACM CCS, November 2023.
• Karim Boubouh, Robert Basmadjian, Omid Ardakanian, Alexandre Maurer, Rachid Guerraoui, "Efficacy of Temporal and Spatial Abstraction for Training Accurate Machine Learning Models: A Case Study in Smart Thermostats", Energy and Buildings, vol.296, pp.113377, October 2023. [code][Impact Factor: 6.7]
• Afia Afrin, Omid Ardakanian, "Adversarial Attacks on Machine Learning-Based State Estimation in Power Distribution Systems", In Proceedings of the 14th ACM International Conference on Future Energy Systems (ACM e-Energy), pp. 446-458, June 2023. [PDF]
• Saidur Rahman, Javier Sales-Ortiz, Omid Ardakanian, "Making a Virtual Power Plant out of Privately Owned Electric Vehicles: From Contract Design to Scheduling", In Proceedings of the 14th ACM International Conference on Future Energy Systems (ACM e-Energy), pp. 459-472, June 2023. [PDF][code]
• Karim Boubouh, Robert Basmadjian, Omid Ardakanian, Alexandre Maurer, Rachid Guerraoui, "Efficient and Accurate Peer-to-Peer Training of Machine Learning-Based Home Thermal Models", In Proceedings of the 14th ACM International Conference on Future Energy Systems (ACM e-Energy), pp. 524-529, June 2023. [PDF]
• Tianyu Zhang, Omid Ardakanian, "Investigating the Impact of Space Allocation Strategy on Energy-Comfort Trade-off in Office Buildings", Accepted in the Third ACM SIGEnergy Workshop on Societal Decarbonization, June 2023. [PDF]
• Yuan Liu, Omid Ardakanian, Ioanis Nikolaidis, Hao Liang, "False Data Injection Attacks on Smart Grid Voltage Regulation with Stochastic Communication Model", IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, vol.19, no.5, pp.7122-7132, May 2023. [Impact Factor: 11.648]
• Abilmansur Zhumabekov, Daniel May, Tianyu Zhang, Aakash Krishna, Omid Ardakanian, Matthew E. Taylor, "Ensembling Diverse Policies Improves Generalizability of Reinforcement Learning Algorithms in Continuous Control Tasks", Adaptive and Learning Agents (ALA) Workshop at AAMAS, 2023.
• Aakash Krishna, Tianyu Zhang, Omid Ardakanian, Matthew E. Taylor, "Mitigating an Adoption Barrier of Reinforcement Learning-Based Control Strategies in Buildings", Energy and Buildings, vol.285, pp.112878, April 2023. [code][Impact Factor: 7.201]
• Ye Yuan, Steven Low, Omid Ardakanian, Claire Tomlin, "Inverse Power Flow Problem", IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems, vol.10, no.1, pp.261-273, March 2023. [Preprint][Impact Factor: 4.347]

2022

• Saidur Rahman, Linda Punt, Omid Ardakanian, Yashar Ghiassi-Farrokhfal, Xiaoqi Tan, "On Efficient Operation of a V2G-Enabled Virtual Power Plant", In Proceedings of the 9th ACM International Conference on Systems for Energy-Efficient Built Environments (ACM BuildSys), pp. 119-128, November 2022. Winner of Best Paper Award 🏆 [PDF]
• Xinlei Chen, Omid Ardakanian, "Data Efficient Energy Disaggregation with Behind-the-meter Energy Resources", Sustainable Energy, Grids and Networks, vol.32, pp.100813, 2022. [Impact Factor: 5.405]
• Mohammadhadi Rouhani, Omid Ardakanian, Petr Musilek, "Robust Sizing of Solar-Powered Charging Station with Co-located Energy Storage", In Proceedings of IEEE Power & Energy Society General Meeting, pp. 1-5, July 2022. [PDF]
• Tianyu Zhang, Jake Gu, Omid Ardakanian, Joyce Kim, "Addressing Data Inadequacy Challenges in Personal Comfort Models by Combining Pretrained Comfort Models", Energy and Buildings, vol.264, pp.112068, June 2022. [Impact Factor: 7.201]
• Tianyu Zhang, Aakash Krishna, Mohammad Afshari, Petr Musilek, Matthew Taylor, Omid Ardakanian, "Diversity for Transfer in Learning-based Control of Buildings", In Proceedings of the 13th ACM International Conference on Future Energy Systems (ACM e-Energy), pp. 556-564, June 2022.
• Omid Hajihassani, Omid Ardakanian, Hamzeh Khazaei, "Anonymizing Sensor Data on the Edge: A Representation Learning and Transformation Approach", ACM Transactions on Internet of Things, vol.3, no.1, pp.8:1-8:26, February 2022. [Preprint]
• Leepakshi Bindra, Kalvin Eng, Omid Ardakanian, Eleni Stroulia, "Flexible, Decentralized Access Control for Smart Buildings with Smart Contracts", Cyber-Physical Systems, vol.8, no.4, pp.286--320, 2022.

2021

• Tianyu Zhang, Gaby Baasch, Omid Ardakanian, Ralph Evins, "On the Joint Control of Multiple Building Systems with Reinforcement Learning", In Proceedings of the 12th ACM International Conference on Future Energy Systems (ACM e-Energy), pp. 60-72, 2021. [PDF]
• Xinlei Chen, Moosa Moghimi Haji, Omid Ardakanian, "Disaggregating Solar Generation Using Smart Meter Data and Proxy Measurements from Neighbouring Sites", In Proceedings of the 12th ACM International Conference on Future Energy Systems (ACM e-Energy), pp. 225-230, 2021.
• Omid Hajihassani, Omid Ardakanian, Hamzeh Khazaei, "ObscureNet: Learning Attribute-invariant Latent Representation for Anonymizing Sensor Data", In Proceedings of the International Conference on Internet-of-Things Design and Implementation (ACM/IEEE IoTDI), pp.40-52, 2021. [code]
• Md Monir Hossain, Tianyu Zhang, Omid Ardakanian, "Identifying Grey-box Thermal Models with Bayesian Neural Networks", Energy and Buildings, vol.238, pp.1-11, 2021. [Impact Factor: 5.879]
• Abdullah Al Zishan, Moosa Moghimi Haji, Omid Ardakanian, "Adaptive Congestion Control for Electric Vehicle Charging in the Smart Grid", IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, vol.12, no.3, pp.2439-2449, May 2021. [PDF][Impact Factor: 10.486]
• Alireza Goli, Nima Mahmoudi, Hamzeh Khazaei, Omid Ardakanian, "A Holistic Machine Learning-Based Autoscaling Approach for Microservice Applications", Accepted in the 11th International Conference on Cloud Computing and Services Science, 2021.

2020

• Md Monir Hossain, Mark Sebestyen, Dhruv Mayank, Omid Ardakanian, Hamzeh Khazaei, "Large-scale Data-driven Segmentation of Banking Customers", In Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Big Data (Big Data), December 2020.
• Xinlei Chen, Omid Ardakanian, "Solar Disaggregation: State of the Art and Open Challenges", In Proceedings of the 5th International Workshop on Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring, November 2020.
• Tianyu Zhang, Omid Ardakanian, "Poster Abstract: COBS: COmprehensive Building Simulator", In Proceedings of the 7th ACM Conference on Systems for Built Environments (BuildSys), November 2020. Runner-up Best Poster Award 🏆 [video][code]
• Omid Ardakanian, "Advances in Distribution System Monitoring", In: Shen X., Lin X., Zhang K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Wireless Networks. Springer. 2020.
• Abdullah Al Zishan, Moosa Moghimi Haji, Omid Ardakanian, "Adaptive Control of Plug-in Electric Vehicle Charging with Reinforcement Learning", In Proceedings of the 11th ACM International Conference on Future Energy Systems (e-Energy), pp.116-120, 2020. [video]
• Evandro de Souza, Omid Ardakanian, Ioanis Nikolaidis, "A Co-simulation Platform for Evaluating Cyber Security and Control Applications in the Smart Grid", In Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), pp. 1-7, 2020. [video][code]
• Abdullah Al Zishan, Moosa Moghimi Haji, Omid Ardakanian, "Reputation-based Fair Power Allocation to Plug-in Electric Vehicles in the Smart Grid", In Proceedings of the 11th ACM/IEEE Conference on Cyber-Physical Systems (ICCPS'20), pp.63-74, 2020. [video]
• Omid Hajihassani, Omid Ardakanian, Hamzeh Khazaei, "Latent Representation Learning and Manipulation for Privacy-Preserving Sensor Data Analytics", In Proceedings of the 2nd IEEE Workshop on Machine Learning on Edge in Sensor Systems (Sensys-ML), pp.7-12, 2020.
• Mikkel B. Kjærgaard, Omid Ardakanian, Salvatore Carlucci, Bing Dong, Steven K. Firth, Nan Gao, Gesche Margarethe Huebner, Ardeshir Mahdavi, Mohammad Saiedur Rahaman, Flora D. Salim, Fisayo Caleb Sangogboye, Jens Hjort Schwee, Dawid Wolosiuk, Yimin Zhu, "Current practices and infrastructure for open data based research on occupant-centric design and operation of buildings", Building and Environment, vol.177, pp.1-13, 2020.[Impact Factor: 6.456]
• Alireza Goli, Omid Hajihassani, Hamzeh Khazaei, Omid Ardakanian, Moe Rashidi and Tyler Dauphinee, "Migrating from Monolithic to Serverless: A FinTech Case Study", In Companion of the 2020 ACM/SPEC International Conference on Performance Engineering (ICPE), pp.20-25, 2020.
• Hamed Mohsenian-Rad, Mario Paolone, Vassilis Kekatos, Omid Ardakanian, Yan Xu, Di Shi, Reza Arghandeh, "Guest Editorial Theory and Application of PMUs in Power Distribution Systems", IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, vol.11, no.1, pp.723-725, January 2020. [Impact Factor: 10.486]
• Wei Zhou, Omid Ardakanian, Hai-Tao Zhang, Ye Yuan, "Bayesian Learning-based Harmonic State Estimation in Distribution Systems with Smart Meter and DPMU Data", IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, vol.11, no.1, pp.832-845, January 2020. [Impact Factor: 10.486]

2019

• Md Monir Hossain, Tianyu Zhang, Omid Ardakanian, "Evaluating the Feasibility of Reusing Pre-trained Thermal Models in the Residential Sector", In Proceedings of the 1st ACM International Workshop on Urban Building Energy Sensing, Controls, Big Data Analysis, and Visualization (UrbSys), pp.23-32, November 2019.
• Leepakshi Bindra, Kalvin Eng, Yancheng Ou, Omid Ardakanian, Eleni Stroulia, "Poster Abstract: Indoor Path Planning and Decentralized Access Control in Commercial Buildings", In Proceedings of the 6th ACM Conference on Systems for Built Environments (BuildSys), pp.385–386, November 2019.
• Madi Zhanbyrtayev, Omid Ardakanian, Ioanis Nikolaidis, "Device Mobility Detection Based on Optical Flow and Multi-Receiver Consensus", IEEE Sensors, pp.1-4, October 2019.
• Moosa Moghimi Haji, Omid Ardakanian, "Practical Considerations in the Design of Distribution State Estimation Techniques", Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Communications, Control, and Computing Technologies for Smart Grids (SmartGridComm), pp.1-6, October 2019. [PDF]
• Omid Ardakanian, Ye Yuan, Vincent Wong, Roel Dobbe, Alexandra von Meier, Steven Low, Claire Tomlin, "On Identification of Distribution Grids", IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems, vol.6, no.3, pp.950-960, September 2019. [Impact Factor: 4.8]
• Baihong Qi, Mohammad Rashedi, Omid Ardakanian, "EnergyBoost: Learning-based Control of Home Batteries", In Proceedings of the Tenth ACM International Conference on Future Energy Systems (e-Energy), pp.239-250, June 2019. Best Paper Award Finalist. [Slides]
• Tianyu Zhang, Abdullah Al Zishan, Omid Ardakanian, "ODToolkit: Extensible Toolkit for Occupancy Detection in Smart Buildings", In Proceedings of the Tenth ACM International Conference on Future Energy Systems (e-Energy), pp.35-46, June 2019. [Slides]
• Leepakshi Bindra, Changyuan Lin, Eleni Stroulia, Omid Ardakanian, "Decentralized Access Control for Smart Buildings Using Metadata and Smart Contracts", In Proceedings of the 5th IEEE/ACM International Workshop on Software Engineering for Smart Cyber-Physical Systems (SEsCPS), pp.32-38, May 2019.
• Tianyu Zhang, Omid Ardakanian, "A Domain Adaptation Technique for Occupancy Estimation in Smart Buildings", In Proceedings of the International Conference on Internet of Things Design and Implementation (IoTDI), pp.148-159, April 2019. [PDF][Slides]

2018

• Omid Ardakanian, "Leveraging Sparsity in Distribution Grids: System Identification and Harmonic State Estimation", Extended Abstract, ACM SIGMETRICS Performance Evaluation Review, vol.46, no.3, pp.84-85, December 2018.
• Dmitriy Volinskiy, Lana Cuthbertson, Omid Ardakanian, "In (Stochastic) Search of a Fairer Alife", NIPS Workshop on AI in Financial Services: Fairness, Explainability, Accuracy and Privacy, December 2018.
• Yaqing Chen, Xinming Li, Regina Ferreira, Mustafa Gul, Ioanis Nikolaidis, Omid Ardakanian, "Evaluating and Improving the Energy Performance of School Buildings with a Proposed Real-Time Monitoring System", In Proceedings of IEEE Conference on Technologies for Sustainability, pp.1-8, November 2018.
• Mikkel Baun Kjærgaard, Bing Dong, Salvatore Carlucci, Flora Salim, Junjing Yang, Clinton Andrews, Omid Ardakanian, "Data-Driven Occupant Modeling Strategies and Digital Tools Enabled by IEA EBC Annex 79: Poster Abstract", In Proceedings of the 5th ACM Conference on Systems for Built Environments (BuildSys), pp.188-189, November 2018.
• Omid Ardakanian, Arka Bhattacharya, David Culler, "Non-Intrusive Occupancy Monitoring for Energy Conservation in Commercial Buildings", Energy and Buildings, vol.179, pp.311-323, November 2018. [Bibtex][Impact Factor: 4.495]
• Ye Yuan, Wei Zhou, Hai-Tao Zhang, Zuowei Ping, Omid Ardakanian, "Sparse Bayesian Harmonic State Estimation", In Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Communications, Control, and Computing Technologies for Smart Grids (SmartGridComm), pp. 1-6, October 2018. [Bibtex][Slides]
• Shadan Golestan, Sepehr Kazemian, Omid Ardakanian, "Data-Driven Models for Building Occupancy Estimation", In Proceedings of the 9th ACM International Conference on Future Energy Systems (e-Energy), pp.277-281, June 2018. [Bibtex][Slides]

2017

• Omid Ardakanian, Ye Yuan, Roel Dobbe, Alexandra von Meier, Steven Low, Claire Tomlin, "Event Detection and Localization in Distribution Grids with Phasor Measurement Units", IEEE PES General Meeting, July 2017. Winner of Best Paper Award 🏆 [Bibtex]
• Daniel Arnold, Ciaran Roberts, Omid Ardakanian, Emma Stewart, "Synchrophasor Data Analytics in Distribution Grids", In Proceedings of IEEE Innovative Smart Grid Technologies (ISGT), April 2017. [Bibtex]

2016

• Omid Ardakanian, Arka Bhattacharya, David Culler, "Non-Intrusive Techniques for Establishing Occupancy Related Energy Savings in Commercial Buildings", In Proceedings of the 3rd ACM International Conference on Systems for Energy-Efficient Built Environments (BuildSys), pp.21-30, 2016. Winner of Best Paper Award 🏆 [Bibtex][Slides]
• Omid Ardakanian, S. Keshav, Catherine Rosenberg, “Integration of Renewable Generation and Elastic Loads into Distribution Grids“, Springer Briefs in Electrical and Computer Engineering, 2016. [Bibtex]

Before 2015

• Omid Ardakanian, Catherine Rosenberg, S. Keshav, "Quantifying the Benefits of Extending Electric Vehicle Charging Deadlines with Solar Generation", In Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Smart Grid Communications (SmartGridComm), pp.620-625, 2014. [Bibtex][Slides]
• Omid Ardakanian, S. Keshav, Catherine Rosenberg, "Real-Time Distributed Control for Smart Electric Vehicle Chargers: From a Static to a Dynamic Study", IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, vol.5, no.5, pp.2295-2305, September 2014. [Bibtex][Impact Factor: 10.486]
• Omid Ardakanian, Negar Koochakzadeh, Rayman Preet Singh, Lukasz Golab, S. Keshav, "Computing Electricity Consumption Profiles from Household Smart Meter Data", In Proceedings of the Workshops of the EDBT/ICDT Joint Conference (EnDM), pp.140-147, 2014. [Bibtex][Slides]
• Omid Ardakanian, Catherine Rosenberg, S. Keshav, "Distributed Control of Electric Vehicle Charging", In Proceedings of the 4th ACM International Conference on Future Energy Systems (e-Energy), pp.101-112, 2013. Winner of Best Paper Award 🏆 [Bibtex][Slides]
• Omid Ardakanian, Catherine Rosenberg, S. Keshav, "Real-time distributed congestion control for electrical vehicle charging", invited paper, ACM SIGMETRICS Performance Evaluation Review, vol.40, no.3, pp.38-42, December 2012. [Bibtex]
• Omid Ardakanian, Catherine Rosenberg, S. Keshav, "On the impact of storage in residential power distribution systems, ACM SIGMETRICS Performance Evaluation Review, vol.40, no.3, pp.43-47, December 2012. [Bibtex][Slides]
• Omid Ardakanian, S. Keshav, Catherine Rosenberg, "On the use of teletraffic theory in power distribution systems", In Proceedings of the 3rd ACM International Conference on Future Energy Systems (e-Energy), pp.21:1-21:10, 2012. [Bibtex][Slides]
• Omid Ardakanian, S. Keshav, Catherine Rosenberg, "Markovian models for home electricity consumption", In Proceedings of the 2nd ACM SIGCOMM workshop on green networking (GreenNets), pp.31-36, 2011. [Bibtex][Slides]
• Omid Ardakanian, S. Keshav, "Using Decision Making to Improve Energy Efficiency of Buildings", In ICAPS-10 POMDP Practitioners Workshop, May 2010.
• MH. Khaledi, S. M. Mousavi, H. R. Rabiee, A. Movaghar, MJ. Khaledi, O. Ardakanian, "Mobility Aware Distributed Topology Control in Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks Using Mobility Pattern Matching", In Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Wireless and Mobile Computing, Networking and Communication, pp. 453-458, 2009. [Bibtex]

Datasets

• Omid Ardakanian, Siqing Huo, S. Keshav, "6-second load measurement dataset", Scholars Portal Dataverse, 2020.

Posters

• All You Need is an EV Fleet and Bidirectional Chargers, Edmonton EV+Hydrogen Expo, September 2022 (image)
• Comprehensive Building Simulator, ACM BuildSys, November 2020 (pdf)
• Indoor Path Planning and Decentralized Access Control in Commercial Buildings, ACM BuildSys, November 2019 (pdf)
• Decentralized Access Control for Smart Buildings Using Building Metadata and Smart Contracts, Reverse Expo, February 2019 (pdf)
• Data-driven Occupant Modeling Strategies and Digital Tools, ACM BuildSys, November 2018 (pdf)
• Energy Management Strategies for Distributed Energy Resources, Future Energy Systems Open House, October 2018 (pdf)
• Event Detection and Localization in Distribution Grids with Phasor Measurement Units, IEEE PES General Meeting, July 2017 (pdf)
• Absorbing Excess PV Generation by Controlling EV Chargers, Canadian Utilities Information & Communications Technology Conference (open house at Cisco), September 2016 (pdf)
• Efficient Analytics with BTrDB: From Grids to Buildings, SDB Retreat, February 2016 (pdf)
• Real-Time Distributed Control for Electric Vehicle Chargers, WISE Energy Day/Cheriton Research Symposium, October 2013/September 2014 (pdf)
• Using Decision Making to Improve Energy Efficiency of Buildings, POMDP Practitioners Workshop, 2010 (pdf)

Theses

• Omid Ardakanian, "On the Control of Active End-nodes in the Smart Grid", PhD Dissertation, University of Waterloo, August 2015. [Bibtex]
• Omid Ardakanian, "Resource Provisioning in the Electrical Grid", MMath Dissertation, University of Waterloo, April 2011. [Bibtex]

Technical Reports

• Omid Ardakanian, S. Keshav, and Catherine Rosenberg, "Real-Time Distributed Control for Smart Electric Vehicle Chargers: From a Static to a Dynamic Study", University of Waterloo Technical Report, CS-2013-20, December 2013.
• Omid Ardakanian, Catherine Rosenberg, and S. Keshav, "On the Impact of Storage in Residential Power Distribution Systems", University of Waterloo Technical Report, CS-2012-08, May 2012.
• Omid Ardakanian, S. Keshav, Catherine Rosenberg, "Sizing the Electrical Grid", University of Waterloo Technical Report CS-2011-18, July 2011.
• Omid Ardakanian, "Autonomous Thermal Control System", University of Waterloo Technical Report CS-2010-16, September 2010.

Selected Talks

• Controlling Stationary and Mobile Batteries, FES Lab Tour, December 2022 (pdf)
• Challenges in Designing Control Strategies for Buildings, EEG Seminar Series, University of Cambridge, December 2022 (pdf)(video)
• Developing Sustainable Urban Infrastructure: From Research to Practice, Edmonton Public Library Energy Talks Series, June 2021 (pdf)(video)
• Reinforcement Learning-based Control of Building Subsystems, ABBY-NET Lecture Series, March 2021 (pdf)
• Learning-based Control of Distributed Energy Resources, IEEE EPEC tutorial, November 2020 (pdf)
• Leveraging Sparsity in Distribution Grids, IFIP Performance ePerf Workshop, December 2018 (pdf)
• State Estimation using Distribution-level Phasor Measurement Unit Data, IEEE SmartGridComm Workshop on Data, Analytics, and Synchrophasors for Transparent Distribution Networks, October 2018 (pdf)
• Domain Adaptation Techniques for Fine-Grained Occupancy Estimation, 4th International Symposium on Occupant Behaviour and 1st IEA EBC Annex 79 Experts' Meeting, October 2018 (pdf)
• Smart Buildings:
from sensor networks to analytics, Networks Group Seminar, January 2018 (pdf)
• Building Smarter Energy Systems: the Path towards a Sustainable Future, Seminar at the University of Toronto, March 2017 (pdf)
• Smarter Schedules for Commercial Buildings, ISS4E Seminar, September 2016 (pdf)
• Toward a Sustainable Future: Theory, Models, and Data, SDB Meeting, August 2016 (pdf)
• Enabling Micro-Synchrophasor Data Analytics, International Synchrophasor Symposium, March 2016 (pdf)
• Experience with MPC: Triumphs and Failings, SDB Retreat, January 2016 (pdf)
• Efficient Analytics with BTrDB: From Grids to Buildings, SDB Retreat, January 2016 (pdf)
• On the Control of Active End-nodes in the Smart Grid, PhD Defence Seminar, August 2015 (pdf)
• Cost-Effective Integration of Distributed Solar Generation: A Utility-Centric View, ISS4E Seminar, February 2015 (pdf)
• Resource Provisioning in the Electrical Grid, NDS Seminar, April 2011 (pdf).
• Utility Scale Applications of Energy Storage, ISS4E Seminar, September 2010 (pdf).