A Novel Quantum-Inspired Approximate Dynamic Programming Algorithm for Unit Commitment Problems

摘要

A novel quantum-inspired approximate dynamic programming algorithm (ADP) is proposed for solving unit commitment (UC) problems. The quantum computing theory is applied to tackle some new issues rising from ADP. In details, the unit states in UC problems are expressed by the quantum superposition. Then, the collapsing principle of quantum measurement is applied to solve the Bellman equation of ADP speedily. Based on the quantum rotation gate, the pre-decision states of the ADP are generated by quantum amplitude amplification technology. In the proposal algorithm, the quantum computation balances between state space exploration and exploitation automatically. Test cases of UC are performed to verify the feasibility of the proposal approximate algorithm for the range of 10 to 100 units with 24-hour with ramp rate constraints. The experimental results show that the quantum-inspired ADP algorithm can find the better sub-optimal solutions of large scale UC problems within a reasonable time.