2021 journal article

Development of an Encoding Method on a Co-Simulation Platform for Mitigating the Impact of Unreliable Communication

IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, 12(3), 2496–2507.

By: F. Xie n, C. McEntee n, M. Zhang  n, B. Mather * & N. Lu 

co-author countries: United States of America πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ
author keywords: Data models; Modeling; Load modeling; Long Term Evolution; Computational modeling; Voltage control; Integrated circuit modeling; Augmented Lagrangian multiplier; data recovery; distribution; hardware-in-the-loop; volt-var control
Source: ORCID
Added: April 21, 2021

This article presents a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) based modeling approach for simulating impacts of unreliable communication on the performance of centralized volt-var control and for developing an encoding method to mitigate the impacts. First, an asynchronous real-time HIL simulation platform is introduced to enable multi-rate co-simulation of a distribution system with many inverter-based distributed energy resources (DERs). The distribution system is modeled by milliseconds phasor-based models and the DERs are modeled by micro-seconds power electronic models. Communication connections between a centralized volt-var controller (modeled externally to the HIL testbed) and smart inverters are built by implementing Modbus links and the Long Term Evolution network. On this co-simulation platform, an enhanced, augmented Lagrangian multiplier based encoded data recovery (EALM-EDR) algorithm for mitigating the impact of unreliable communication is developed and validated. Simulation results demonstrate the efficacy of using the HIL-based co-simulation platform as a power grid digital twin for developing algorithms that coordinate a large number of heterogeneous control systems through wired and wireless communication links.