A Novel Approach to Mitigating Power System Communication Failures

电力公用事业面临着向终端用户提供可靠电力的挑战，这就需要一个可靠的通信网络。本项目研究处理通信网络中时变延迟的方法。该项目的智能优点是为电力系统网络中运行的控制器引入了一种新的数学方法，该方法旨在限制能量消耗，同时减少执行工作并放宽通信要求。该方法被应用于广域电力系统的阻尼控制，在不降低系统稳定性和性能的情况下，对测量和通信中的故障具有健壮性。该项目的更广泛影响包括对网络系统科学和大型网络控制系统可靠性的贡献。此外，该项目具有本科生和预科学生应该感到有吸引力的特点：关键基础设施的稳定性和可控性、最先进的计算机应用以及与社会问题高度相关。该项目将开发一种新的方法，以确保电力系统在通信故障时的可靠性和弹性，通信故障会导致控制信号传递的时变延迟。PIS首次引入时标理论来解决信息传输的间歇性问题，为通信系统提供了较少的保守性要求。由于通信不可靠或执行器的能力限制，电力系统网络中的信息在网络资源(变电站、控制中心、发电机、执行器、传感器等)之间以确定和随机的时间间隔进行传输。目的是估计在不破坏系统稳定性的情况下信息传输中断持续时间的最大允许值。通过引入确定性和随机时标理论，我们将问题描述为非均匀时间域上的连续/离散切换系统，使得系统在连续时间子系统(当通信发生而没有任何中断时)和离散时间子系统(当通信失败并且控制保持不变时)之间切换。这一理论将在传感器/执行器网络的背景下调查事件触发控制，其中触发时间不等长，可能是确定性的或随机性的。这一裁决反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Electric utilities face the challenge of providing dependable power to end-users, which requires a reliable communication network. This project investigates approaches to deal with time-varying delays in the communication network. The intellectual merit of the project is based on introducing a novel mathematical approach for controllers operating in a power system network, which are designed to limit energy expenditures while reducing the actuation effort and relaxing communication requirements. The approach is applied to wide-area power system damping controls that are robust to failure in measurements and communications without degrading the stability and performance of the system. The broader impacts of the project include contributions to the science of networked systems and reliability of large network control systems. Moreover, the project has characteristics that undergraduate and pre-college students should find attractive: stability and control of critical infrastructures, state-of-the-art computer applications, and high relevance to societal problems.The project will develop a novel approach to ensure the reliability and resiliency of power systems in the presence of communication failures that introduce time-varying delays in control signal delivery. Time-scale theory is introduced for the first time by the PIs to solve the problem of intermittent information transmission, which shows promise for providing less conservative requirements on the communication system. The information in the power system network is transmitted between network resources (substations, control centers, generators, actuators, sensors, and so on) at deterministic and random time intervals due to communication unreliability or capability limits of actuators. The aim is to estimate the maximum allowable value of the duration of interruption of information transmission that does not violate the stability of the system. We formulate the problem as continuous/discrete switched system on a non-uniform time domain such that the system switches between a continuous-time subsystem (when the communication occurs without any interruption) and a discrete-time subsystem (when the communication fails and the control is held on and not evolving), by introducing deterministic and stochastic time scales theory. This theory will investigate event-triggered controls through communication channels in the context of sensor/actuator networks where the triggering times are not equidistant and may be deterministic or stochastic.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.