Researchers at Kyoto University and Kyoto University of Advanced Science have built a power router that directed one battery between two simulated homes. In a laboratory handoff, the e-Traceroute prototype moved the battery supply from one 500-watt load to the other when the alternating-current waveform crossed zero. The unreviewed paper was submitted to arXiv on September 11.
A community battery could store surplus rooftop-solar power from several homes, but billing requires a reliable record of which source served which customer. Conventional converters mix current from different sources on a shared electrical bus. Their control records travel on a separate data network, so a delayed message may describe a route that no longer matches the physical circuit.
e-Traceroute creates an isolated path for each source-and-customer pair with a crossbar switch. Each home can prepare its own forecast and battery schedule, while the central router selects the connection. Power-line communication carries control messages over the same wires as the electricity. A home requests a transfer, the router announces the next route and the battery sends the final command that changes the switches.
The bench represented two homes and one battery, with only one pair connected at a time. A regulated 200-volt supply represented the grid, and each household load drew 500 watts. Three short messages handled the request, route notice and switching trigger. The final message was timed to finish when the AC waveform reached zero, the point chosen for changing the electrical path.
The measured waveforms show all three messages arriving in order and the battery's power moving from House 1 to House 2 at the intended zero crossing. Switching at that point is expected to reduce voltage surges and electromagnetic interference. The experiment confirmed the timing and route change but did not measure either reduction.
The evidence covers one controlled handoff with three nodes, regulated equipment and manually calibrated timing. A community trial would need real solar panels and batteries, several routes at once, automatic synchronization and tests under lost messages, outages and cyberattacks. Measurements of energy loss and billing accuracy would then show whether a circuit-level route also produces a useful shared-energy service.
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Sources
- Shiu Mochiyama, Ryo Takahashi and Yoshihiko Susuki, e-Traceroute, arXiv, September 11, 2026. Abstract, authorship, submission date and stated purpose.
- Full paper. Router design, communication sequence, laboratory setup, measured handoff and limitations.
- Lead image: Cody Kabus and the U.S. Department of Energy, Wikimedia Commons, public domain as a U.S. federal government work. The photograph is illustrative and does not depict the e-Traceroute prototype or study.
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