42

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 18, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2003

PAT: A Power Analysis Toolbox for

MATLAB/Simulink
Karl Schoder, Amer Hasanovic, Ali Feliachi, Senior Member, IEEE, and Azra Hasanovic

AbstractA power system simulation environment in

MATLAB/Simulink is presented in this paper. The developed
power analysis toolbox (PAT) is a very flexible and modular tool
for load flow, transient, and small-signal analysis of electric power
systems. Standard power system component models and a wide
range of flexible ac transmission systems (FACTS) devices are
included. Its data structure and block library have been tested to
confirm its applicability to small-to-medium-sized power systems.
Its advantages over an existing commercial package are given.
Index TermsMATLAB, PAT, simulation, Simulink, transient
stability.

I. INTRODUCTION

ITH THE RECENT deregulation and increase in the

demand, maintaining the power system stability is becoming evermore difficult. In order to operate power systems
effectively, without reduction in the system security and quality
of supply, even in the case of contingency conditions such as
loss of transmission lines and/or generating units, which will
most probably occur at a higher frequency under deregulation
and/or restructuring, new control strategies need to be implemented. New equipment and control devices, such as flexible
ac transmission systems (FACTS) [1], are sought to enhance
stability and reliability of the system. Also, neural networks,
fuzzy logic, and other soft computing technologies are increasingly used to answer control challenges. Before implementing
any novel technology, it is essential to validate these new control schema through simulation within an environment that allows accurate modeling of all power systems components. This
environment also has to be modular enough to allow frequent
additions of new components without compromising the overall
speed of simulation or its accuracy.
Traditional tools for power system simulation such as PSS/E
[2], Eurostag [3], and PSAPAC [4], require coding in conventional programming languages and are optimized for speed and
efficiency. However, implementation of new components, especially soft computing ones, within these packages can be very
difficult and error prone.
In the last decade, MATLAB [5] became, de facto, the
standard tool for flexible technical computing. MATLAB

Manuscript received September 26, 2001; revised April 18, 2002. This work
was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant ECS-9870041
and a DOE/EPSCoR WV state Implementation Award.
K. Schoder, Am. Hasanovic, and A. Feliachi are with the Lane Department
of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, West Virginia University,
Morgantown, 26506-6109 USA.
A. Hasanovic is with American Electric Power, Columbus, OH, 43230 USA.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRS.2002.807117

incorporates a large number of domain specific toolboxes such

as fuzzy logic toolbox, neural network toolbox, control toolbox,
real-time workshop, etc., and Simulink [6], an interactive tool
for modeling, simulating, and analyzing dynamic systems.
Simulink offers a set of tools that can be used to build systems
from the library of built-in blocks. It also allows creation
of custom blocks that can incorporate C/C++, Fortran, or
MATLAB code. These features make MATLAB/Simulink an
attractive choice for power systems-related research.
A number of papers addressed the issue of power system simulation in MATLAB/Simulink. Using the real-time workshop,
the authors in [7] have demonstrated real-time simulation of a
four-machine power system in the Simulink environment. Mahseredjian and Alvarado have developed MatEMTP [8], a set
of m-files that can perform Electromagnetic Transient Program
(EMTP)-type simulations in the MATLAB environment. In [9],
Allen et al. described an object-oriented approach. The problem
with this approach is that Simulink was not designed to handle
noncausal modeling (i.e., model ports in Simulink must have either output or input role specified). If these ports are connected
in an object-oriented fashion, algebraic loops are created within
the model. The current Simulink solvers resolve algebraic loops
iteratively, decreasing the speed of simulation while having a
negative impact on simulation stability. These limitations make
this approach impractical for larger systems.
There exist two commercial toolboxes that allow power
system simulation in MATLAB, namely the power system
toolbox [10] (PST) and power system blockset [11]. The latter
targets the three-phase power system simulation and, therefore,
is not appropriate for large-scale transient stability analysis. The
PST is a set of MATLAB m-files that can be used to perform
power flow and stability studies. PST does not offer graphical
user interface (GUI) and cannot be used within the Simulink
environment; addition of new components is time consuming
and requires a good understanding of the toolboxs internal
structure. PST provides a single predictor-corrector solver that
supports vectorized computation. However, Simulink offers 12
continuous time-domain solvers that outperform PST solver in
terms of features and speed of computation.
Due to the drawbacks of the mentioned environments and
lack of some features that were required for an ongoing research
conducted at West Virginia Universitys Advanced Power Engineering Research Center (APERC), a power analysis toolbox
(PAT) was developed. PAT incorporates most features and
dynamic models that are provided by PST. Additionally, PAT
includes some FACTS device models that are not part of PST
distribution. Significant improvements, in terms of speed and
modularity, were obtained by extensively using features that

0885-8950/03$17.00 2003 IEEE

SCHODER et al.: PAT: A POWER ANALYSIS TOOLBOX FOR MATLAB/SIMULINK

43

Fig. 1. PAT modules.

were introduced in Simulink V4.1, such as complex number

and matrix signal propagation. PATs main features are
fast transient simulations;
automatic generation of linearized models;
addition of new components by using Simulinks GUI;
simple interface with other MATLAB/Simulink toolboxes;
possibility to generate C-code for real-time simulations
using real-time workshop.
This paper is organized as follows: overview of PAT data
structure and modules is presented in Section II. Section III
demonstrates some simulation and analysis of a 16-generator,
68-bus system which is a representation of the New England/
New York interconnected system. Also, the implementation of a
fuzzy damping controller for a UPFC in the two-area-four-generator system used to improve transient stability is presented.
Speed comparison of PAT with PST is presented in Section IV.
II. SIMULATION ENVIRONMENT
Modules that constitute the structure of PAT are shown in
Fig. 1. By combining the functionality of these modules, the
toolbox can perform the following tasks:
load flow;
transient stability;
small-signal analysis.
The following sections describe these modules and their interaction. But first, preprocessing and PATs data structure are
presented.
A. Preprocessor
Before any computations can be performed, a data file that describes the power system must be read and processed. Currently,
PAT supports a modified PST data format that includes FACTS
devices and their controls. As a result of the preprocessing, a
MATLAB structure object, shown in Fig. 2, is obtained.
B. PAT Data Structure
The PAT data structure is designed to hierarchically organize
the vast amounts of data necessary to describe the power system
components.
The three top-most levels of the hierarchy are shown in Fig. 2
(from left to right). Starting with the abstract layer that stores
the information of power systems components, the tree expands

Fig. 2. PAT data structure.

Fig. 3.

Power system model in Simulink.

down to the fields that hold information on specific devices and

their parameters.
The data structure supports simple access to specific fields,
and offers enough flexibility to be extended by the user to accommodate new components. The expandability is a major requirement for todays power system analysis and simulation
software due to the steadily growing number of power electronics devices implemented in power systems.
C. Load Flow
The load-flow module extracts the power system information stored in the PAT data structure and solves the load-flow
problem using a NewtonRaphson algorithm. The output from
this module is the PAT data structure appended with the fields
that contain the load-flow solution as well as computed internal
steady-state quantities of the dynamic devices and their controls.
This information is used to initialize the transient module.
Elements included at the current development stage are
generators, slack buses, PI-lines, constant PQ-loads, under load
tap changers (ULTCs), and various FACTS devices [e.g., static
var compensator (SVC), thyristor-controlled series capacitor
(TCSC), static synchronous compensator (STATCOM), static
synchronous series compensator (SSSC), unified power-flow
controller (UPFC)], and their controls. The load flow of a
power system that includes FACTS devices is solved with
respect to the desired control modes and reference values. The
possible control modes include fixed compensation mode as
well as constant power-flow and voltage-control modes.

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Fig. 4.

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 18, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2003

New England/New York interconnected system.

D. Transient Stability Analysis

The transient module targets the balanced-power system transient studies and is organized as a Simulink-Block library. It
allows the user to build a case file via a drag-and-drop feature
provided by Simulink. Each block in the PAT library models one
type of device (e.g., subtransient machine model, UPFC model
etc.). Additionally, each block is vectorized, meaning that the
user needs to add only one block to the Simulink MDL-case file
to represent a number of devices of the same type. For example,
if there are detailed machines and classical machines (EM)
in a case study one subtransient block and one EM-block will
be used from the PAT library to perform the simulation. The internals of each block have been modeled by Simulink built-in
blocks and/or MATLAB-S functions. Through the utilization of
Simulinks ability to propagate complex vectors as signals between blocks, a great improvement in simulation speed has been
achieved.
To properly initialize the time-domain simulation, the
transient analysis module requires consistent steady-state
conditions as found by the load-flow module and a switching
file describing switching sequence and disturbance scenarios
(e.g., type of fault, loss of line/load/generating unit, opening/reclosure of the faulted line, etc.).
Simulink is based on a set of differential equation solvers,
ranging from simple fixed step (integration) to variable time
step solvers that can handle stiff systems. These solvers are able
to handle traditional power system elements (e.g., generators,
excitation systems, PSSs, etc.). Furthermore, they can cope with
the numerical problems introduced by devices with small time
constants, such as FACTS devices. Many power system elements have discrete and/or dynamic states (e.g., switches, digital
controls, saturation limits, etc.); therefore, they require a simulation environment that is capable of handling hybrid models.
Simulinks solvers have built-in zero-crossing detection algorithms that properly adjust the simulation time step to detect
discontinuities and automatically reinitialize the simulation.

The problem of incorporating dynamics of FACTS devices

and nonconforming loads into the network solution has been
solved in the following way. Due to the lack of explicit analytical expressions for the injected currents at the FACTS bus(es),
the actual influence of FACTS devices has to be found using
an iterative approach at each time step of the simulation. Algorithms based on a fixed-point and Newtons method [10], [12]
have been implemented as PAT blocks (see bus interface block
in Fig. 5) and can be placed into the mdl-case study file via
drag-and-drop. Elements of varying impedance (i.e., SVC and
TCSC) are interfaced via their admittance valuesSTATCOM,
SSSC, and UPFC are interfaced as voltage sources, and nonconforming loads as current sources.

E. Small-Signal Analysis
Though the power system is a highly nonlinear system, a
wealth of information is obtained from the linearized model
around an operating point. The eigenstructure of the system, in
particular, can be used to analyze properties of the system, assess its stability, select control signals, and site the controllers or
design controllers using the rich tools of linear control systems.
For example, parameters for power system damping controllers
are often found by applying various linear control design procedures. Therefore, it was important to choose a simulation environment that guarantees the ability to linearize the dynamic
power system model at the desired operating point, and offers
the use of well-established linear analysis and synthesis tools.
The built-in capabilities of the MATLAB/Simulink environment are used to determine the state-space representation of the
power system and to perform eigenvalue analysis. Additionally,
optional toolboxes, such as robust control toolbox, LMI control toolbox, -analysis and synthesis toolbox or control system
toolbox, can be used to design linear controllers.

SCHODER et al.: PAT: A POWER ANALYSIS TOOLBOX FOR MATLAB/SIMULINK

Fig. 5.

45

Power system and UPFCs modeled in Simulink.

III. CASE STUDIES

The functionality of PAT is illustrated using two systems. One
of these is a well-known two-area four-generator system [13]
to illustrate usage of PAT in designing a UPFC fuzzy damping
controller [14], and the New England/New York interconnected
system to illustrate the other modules of PAT.
A. New England/New York System
The single line diagram of the system, for which two cases are
presented, is shown in Fig. 4. The first case study is the system
as found in [13]. In the second case, three UPFCs were added
on three heavily loaded tie-lines (line 12, line 89, and line
4142). To ensure stability of the system, each generator was
equipped with a simple exciter and PSS.
Simulink representations of these systems are shown in
Figs. 3 and 5. Numbers that appear on each connection represent the width of vector signal being propagated. Simulink
automatically adjusts these values according to the information
stored in PATs data structure. Any signal can be monitored
while the simulation is running by connecting one of the
blocks from the Sinks-library. Additionally, for the purpose of
further analysis and/or plot generation, signals can be stored in
MATLABs workspace.
To find the FACTS devices bus voltages, an iterative procedure is required. The FACTS devices interface is shown in
Fig. 5. The interfacing block takes the generator internal voltages and the interfacing quantities of the FACTS devices as inputs. In case of the UPFC, the injected shunt and series voltages with respect to one of its buses are taken as input signals.
The output of the FACTS devices interfacing block is used together with the generator voltages to determine the network current solutions.
The same simulation scenario is investigated for both case
ms, a three-phase fault is applied on
studies. At time
the line between buses 29 and 28, the near end of the line is
ms, and the line is completely removed at
opened at
ms. The speed response of the generator closest to
the three-phase fault location is shown in Fig. 6. To be able

Fig. 6. Comparing speed of generator closest to the fault location

(solidsystem with UPFC; dashedsystem without UPFCs).

to estimate possible improvements in transient stability, the response of the test system with three UPFCs installed is given in
the same figure. These are only the preliminary results of using
FACTS devices to enhance the overall controllability and stability of power systems. Control schemes and parameter tuning
are not investigated further in this paper. Voltage magnitude profile of the faulted bus 29 and its two closest neighbors (buses 28
and 61), during the first two seconds of simulation, are shown
in Fig. 7. It can be seen that the ODE solver accurately adjusts
the time steps taken at the time of fault application (100 ms),
opening of faulted line side (190 ms), and removing the fault
entirely by opening the remote end (200 ms). The UPFC close
to the faulted area of the power system helps to stabilize the bus
voltages.
Linear representations of the two test systems are obtained
within the linearization module of PAT. Signals to be used as inputs and outputs during the linearization procedure can be specified by connecting Simulink in and outports at the desired locations. Part of the eigenvalue plot for the linearized power systems with and without the UPFCs installed is given in Fig. 8.
The state space representations of both systems containing 222

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 18, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2003

Fig. 7. Comparing bus voltages close to fault location with (solid) and without
(dashed) UPFCs.

Fig. 9. Relative machine angle between two areas (dashedwithout UPFC,

solidwith UPFC, dash-dottedUPFC with fuzzy damping control).
TABLE I
SIMULATION TIME FOR PST AND PAT WITHOUT UPFCS
FOR A TRANSIENT PERIOD OF 10 s

Fig. 8. Comparing eigenvalues with ( ) and without ( ) UPFCs.

and 207 continuous states, respectively, have been verified via

comparison of simulations of the linear and nonlinear systems
using small disturbances.

TABLE II
SIMULATION TIME PAT WITH UPFCS FOR A TRANSIENT PERIOD OF 10 s

B. Two-Area System
Since this system is widely available in the literature, its
single line diagram is omitted. In [14], the authors have used
fuzzy control to design a UPFC damping controller. Fig. 9
compares the response of the system without UPFC, with
UPFC, as well as the system with UPFC and fuzzy damping
controller. The fuzzy damping controller measures the active
line power flow at the UPFC site and augments the reference
signal for the active line power flow as controlled by the UPFC.
The improved transient stability due to the fuzzy damping
scheme can be observed. Also, a reduced first swing stability
in case of applying a UPFC without fuzzy damping control is
noticeable.
IV. PERFORMANCE EVALUATION
To evaluate the performance of PAT comparisons with the
PST, on-the-test systems with and without UPFCs have been

performed. Very promising results with speed ratio up to 20 : 1

in favor of PAT were achieved. To obtain raw performance measurement, all displays that get refreshed during the simulation
run-time were disabled in both toolboxes. Environment used for
the benchmarking purpose consisted of Pentium IV-based PC
running MATLAB/Simulink 6.0 under Windows 2000.
Table I shows the simulation time required for the power
system without UPFCs in PST and PAT using different ODE
solvers and time step settings. The simulation outputs produced
with different solver settings were identical in terms of system

SCHODER et al.: PAT: A POWER ANALYSIS TOOLBOX FOR MATLAB/SIMULINK

47

behavior and accuracy. The time setting for the varying time step
solvers should be interpreted as the maximum time step allowed.
Table II gives the time required to simulate the test system
with UPFCs included. The implicit interface block for dynamic
loads and FACTS devices introduces an algebraic loop in
Simulink model that needs to be solved iteratively. Hence, a
significant increase in simulation time is recorded. Extremely
small time steps are required to maintain the numerical stability
of simulation when fixed step size solvers are used. Therefore,
results obtained with these solvers are omitted from the table.
Further comparisons with different modeling approaches
such as EMTPs detailed three-phase analysis have not been
attempted. Electromagnetic transients and switching events of
high frequency are not in the scope of PAT.

[6] Simulink, Dynamic system simulation software, The Mathworks Inc.,

2001.
[7] T. Hiyama and A. Ueno, Development of real time power system simulator in MATLAB/Simulink environment, in Proc. IEEE Power Eng.
Soc. Summer Meeting, Seattle, WA, July 1620, 2000.
[8] J. Mahseredjian and F. Alvarado, Creating an electromagnetic transient
program in MATLAB: MatEMTP, IEEE Trans. Power Delivery, vol.
12, pp. 380388, Jan. 1997.
[9] E. Allen, N. LaWhite, Y. Yoon, J. Chapman, and M. Ilic, Interactive
object-oriented simulation of interconnected power systems using
simulink, IEEE Trans. Educ., vol. 44, pp. 8795, Feb. 2001.
[10] J. Chow, Power system toolbox 2.0, in Cherry Tree Scientific Software,
Colborne, ON, Canada, 2000.
[11] Hydro-Quebec and TEQSIM International, Power system blockset for
use with Simulink, The Mathworks Inc., Natick, MA, 2001.
[12] K. Schoder, A. Hasanovic, and A. Feliachi, Load-flow and dynamic
model of the Unified Power Flow Controller (UPFC) within the Power
System Toolbox (PST), in Proc. IEEE Midwest Symp. Circuits Syst.,
Lansing, MI, August 811, 2000.
[13] R. Graham, Power System Oscillation, M. A. Pai, Ed. Norwell, MA:
Kluwer, 2000.
[14] K. Schoder, A. Hasanovic, and A. Feliachi, Power system damping
using fuzzy controlled unified power flow controller, in Proc. IEEE
Power Eng. Soc. Winter Meeting, Columbus, OH, 2001.

V. CONCLUSION
A power system simulation environment in MATLAB/
Simulink is presented in this paper. The developed PAT is a
very flexible and modular tool for load flow, transient, and
small-signal analysis of electric power systems. Standard power
system component models and a wide range of FACTS devices
are included. Its data structure and block library have been
tested to confirm its applicability to small-to-medium-sized
power systems. Its advantages over existing commercial
packages are given. The software presented complements
existing commercial packages such as PST and it has been
demonstrated on test systems that it is faster and has more
FACTS device models. Two systems have been given to
illustrate the capabilities of PAT. The first test system is the
New England/New York power system and illustrates basic
features of the toolbox, such as speed of simulation, interfacing
of FACTS devices, and extraction of linearized model around
an operating point. The second system is the well-known
two-area system and demonstrates the implementation of
fuzzy-logic-based damping controller for the UPFC within the
simulation environment. This software library has not been
released to the public at this time.
REFERENCES
[1] N. G. Hingorani and L. Gyugyi, Understanding FACTS. Piscataway,
NJ: IEEE Press, 2000.
[2] PSS/E, Power system simulator for engineering, Power Technologies
Inc., Schenectady, NY, 2001.
[3] EUROSTAG, Software for the simulation of power system dynamics,
Tractebel Energy Engineering, Brussels, Belgium, 2001.
[4] PSAPAC, The power system analysis package, Powertech Labs Inc.,
Vancouver, BC, Canada, 2001.
[5] MATLAB, High-performance numeric computation and visualization
software, The Mathworks Inc., Natick, MA, 2001.

Karl Schoder received the M.S.E.E. (Dipl.-Ing. der Elektrotechnik) degree

from Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, Austria, in 1997, and the Ph.D.
degree from the Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
at West Virginia University, Morgantown, in 2002.
Currently, he is a visiting Research Assistant Professor at West Virginia
University.

Amer Hasanovic was born in Tuzla, Bosnia-Herzegovina, in 1976. He received

the B.S. degree from the University of Tuzla, Bosnia-Herzegovina, in 1999,
and the M.S. degree in electrical engineering from West Virginia University,
Morgantown, in 2001. He is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree at West Virginia
University, Morgantown.
Currently, he is a Graduate Research Assistant at West Virginia University.

Ali Feliachi (SM86) received the Diplme dIngnieur en electrotechnique degree from Ecole Nationale Polytechnique of Algiers, Algeria, in 1976, and the
M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, in 1979 and 1983, respectively.
Currently, he is full Professor and the holder of the Electric Power Systems
Chair endowed position at West Virginia University, Morgantown. He has been
a faculty member in the Lane Department of Computer Science and Electrical
Engineering at West Virginia University since 1984.

Azra Hasanovic received the electrical engineering degree from the University of Tuzla, Bosnia-Herzegovina, in 1997, and the M.S.E.E. degree from West
Virginia University, Morgantown, in 2000.
Currently, she is with AEP Transmission Planning/System Dynamics Analysis Group, Columbus, OH.