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New needs and emerging societal constraints have put the emphasis on the inadequacy of the actual electrical grid. Indeed, it is impossible, or at least very hard, to 1) integrate renewable energy sources at a great scale within the actual electric grid, 2) enable communications between the various power suppliers and consumers, 3) design several different services that meet the needs of a wide range of end users. A key solution to these issues consists in using Smart Grids (SG). SG can efficiently control power flows by means of Information Technology (IT). Technically, a SG consists of a power system and a bidirectional communication system. Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) constitute a possible technology that can be applied to control and monitor the operation of power grids. Moreover, MAS exhibit distribution, adaptive and intelligent features. The goal of this paper is to propose a framework of qualification and evaluation for comparison SG approaches. First, a set of features of importance for smart grids definition is identified. Then, in a second step, some criteria are given to evaluate the impact of SG on the society. Finally, these features are applied to existing MAS approaches addressing SG in order to understand and compare their different contributions

Abstract. This article presents a local control approach to linear vehicle platooning. Linear platoon systems are sets of vehicles that use local or global perception capabilities to form a train configuration, without any hard grip element. Public transportation is beginning to interest in platoon systems as a technological base to conceive new services. The main problem related to platoon system's control corresponds with maintaining inter-vehicle distance. In literature, the platoon's geometry control problem is treated according to two approaches: global or local vehicle control. This paper focuses on a local approach which does not require sophisticated sensors and/or costly road equipment. This local control approach intends to obtain very good global matching to arbitrary trajectories, only from local perception which consists in measuring the vectorial distance between a given vehicle and its predecessor. The behavior of each platoon vehicle is determined from a physics inspired multi agent interaction model based on a virtual spring-damper. Furthermore, stability, platoon safety properties are checked using physics and mathematical proofs. Finally, simulation is used to measure trajectory error and inter-vehicle distance evolution.