An Adaptive Controller Using Output Feedback

for Improving Dynamic Stability of Synchronous

Power System
D. Raton Kumar Nandy1, A S M Forhadul Alam2, Md. Monjurul Islam3, Md. Shahid Iqbal4 , Md. Noor Hossain5,*
1,2,3,4

Faculty Member (Mymensingh Engineering College, Mymensingh, Bangladesh)

Student, Dept. of EEE (Mymensingh Engineering College, Mymensingh, Bangladesh)
1
Fellow IEB
*
e-mail: noor_mec@yahoo.com

Abstract - this paper presents a new adaptive control

approach using output state feedback for improving
dynamic stability of power systems. The adaptive control
structure is based on hyper stability theory. The eigenvalues
of electromechanical mode of the system is shifted to a pre
specified vertical strip. The control is constructed so that the
closed loop system is hyper stable, guaranteeing the dynamic
stability improvement of power systems. The changeable
gains generated specifically but not uniquely by a nonlinear
time varying function act as adaptive mechanism. An output
feedback control is preferred and physically possible to
implement the control system is synthesized by the measured
feedback signals. Compared with MRAC or STAC, the
proposed control structure avoids the difficulty of choosing
an appropriate reference model and the burden of
implementing an online parameter estimator. The power
system under investigation consists of a synchronous
machine connected to an infinite bus. It has both voltage
regulator and speed governor controls. The effectiveness of
the controller for damping machine oscillations caused by
power system small disturbances is verified by simulation
studies.
Keywords:
power system, adaptive control, output
feedback, hyper stability theory, dynamic stability

I.

INTRODUCTION

Power System Stabilizers (PSSs) have been widely

used to enhance the system damping and to improve the
dynamic stability of power systems for many years [1-4,
7-9, 14]. Power systems are generally nonlinear and
highly dynamical systems. The linearized model of
power system is used with linear control theory to
design the fixed parameter conventional PSS. When the
operating point changes under a disturbance, the fixed
parameter controller cannot maintain the power system
dynamical stability. Thus the parameters of these
controllers must be retuned so that they can provide the
desired performances. The additional damping signal is
introduced through the excitation system by the extra
damping torque modulation. To improve the dynamic
characteristics of the system over a wide range of

operating points, adaptive controls have been proposed

[3, 9].
Two main approaches to adaptive control have been
reported by power system engineers: Self Timing
Adaptive Control (STAC) and Model Reference
Adaptive Control (MRAC) [4]. In the STAC scheme,
parameter identification techniques, such as the
recursive least squares method is used to identify
system parameters online and these parameter estimates
are then incorporated in the control policy. In the
MRAC scheme, a reference model exhibiting the
desired system response is included in the control
strategy. The error between the output of the actual
system and that of the reference model is used to update
the controller parameters with the objective of the
system output converging to the model output.
Although adaptive PSSs based on STAC or MRAC
have been reported to be effective, the inherent
assumptions and the nonlinearities associated with the
adaptive controllers raise a number of basic questions
that may complicate the control structure. The estimator
of parameter in STAC and the appropriate selection of
reference model in MRAC often meet with difficulties
in practical implementation. The adaptive Controller in
power systems is often incorporated as a supplementary
controller in conjunction with a conventional fixed
controller. While the conventional controllers regulate
the normal voltage and frequency adjustments, the
supplementary controller is used to enhance the
dynamical stability as restoring the system to normal
operating conditions after suffering a disturbance. In
power system it is necessary to control the output states
rather than the input states of the system. A new design
approach for the supplementary adaptive PSSs using
output feedback is proposed herein for a higher order
power system based on hyper-stability theory [5].
Feedback is basically used in power system control to
reject the effect of disturbances upon the controlled
variables and to bring them back to their desired values
according to certain Performance Index (PI). The
adaptive control loop appears as an additional feedback

loop to be used when monitoring of the performance of

the basic feedback control system is needed. In
practice, for the selection of weighting matrices in the
PI, designers mainly use engineering experience and a
"trial and error" approach by considering good
compromise between minimization of the deviations of
some variables overshoots. In large power systems, to
avoid these difficulties, the eigenvalues of the
electromechanical mode of the system is shifted to a
pre specified vertical strip situated in the left half
complex s-plane [10, 11, and 12]. In this paper the
design method of the closed loop system of the
adaptive controller does not need the specification of
the weighting matrices. An adaptive control structure is
obtained that makes the closed loop system hyper stable
so that the system will be controlled to be stable for
small disturbances. A numerical example is presented
to illustrate this approach

J=0 ( + ),
Without supplementary control, a modern power
system cannot achieve this goal, for example, because
of lack of damping. If a control can be found to make
the closed loop system hyper stable, as in Figure 1, the
system will be controlled to be stable to the type of
small disturbances mentioned earlier. One writes,
= ()
Where K (t) is the nonlinear time varying gain that
works as the adaptive mechanism.
Hence output of the system as
=

II. CONTROLLER DESIGN

The usual mathematical model of power system for
dynamic stability studies enables the nonlinear power
system to be written in the affine form as
=() + () + ,

(1)

Where f and g are smooth vector fields. Linearizing

equation (1) around an acceptable operating point gives
= + + , (2)
= 0 ,

Fig. 1 Closed-loop system.

(3)

where is the change of the system state,

is the change of control, and is a disturbance
vector that includes any un modelled term,
nonlinearities, parameter variations, and external
disturbances. Under normal conditions, a power system
is subjected to small disturbances at random. It is
important that synchronism shall not be lost under these
conditions. The system behavior is a measure of
dynamic stability, as the system adjusts to small
disturbances or parameter variations. The nonlinearities
in the power system usually lead to energy storage.
Energy storage is a frequent cause of instability and
self-sustained oscillations. When a power system
operating at a normal condition X0, suffers some kinds
of small perturbation, it is desirable that it returns to the
original normal conditions Xo as closely and as soon as
possible. Thus, the objective of the controller is to
guarantee that tends asymptotically to zero; that is,
lim( 0 ) = 0,

When the Linear Optimal Control (LOC) theory is

applied to the stabilizer design of power system, the
objective function that is to be minimized is of the
Linear Quadratic (LQ) form; that is,

For X to tend asymptotically to zero after a

disturbance, the following conditions of hyper stability
theory must be satisfied by an equivalent nonlinear
closed loop system as shown in Figure 1:
1.

The transfer function

( )1
The time invariant block must be strictly positive
real.

2. The Popov Integral Inequality Condition (PIIC)

of the nonlinear time varying block

2
0

Must be satisfied for any T, where 2 is a

positive number independent of time.
To satisfy the first condition of hyper stability choosing
C to make {ABC} a hyper stable linear block, C can be
obtained as
=

Where P is a Positive Definite Symmetric Matrix

(PDSM) which is the solution of the Lyapunov equation
+ =
H is any PDSM, where eigenvalues of A all have
negative real parts. Equation (10) shows the closeness
of the positivity and stability concepts of the Power
System, given compatible choices of inputs and
outputs. The Lyapunov matrix P is PDSM when P =
and all its eigenvalues are strictly positive.
It is noted that more general adaptive mechanisms are
developed by Landau [15] based upon hyper stability
theory of Popov [5]. These adaptive mechanisms have
been tested in simulation and implementation studies
and have been shown to be robust in the face of
external disturbances and plant parameter variations.
To satisfy the second condition, the gain changes can
be constructed specifically but not uniquely as

t approaches infinity. In other words,2 ()) is a memory

less term? The parameters and are adaptive scalars
that are selected empirically. By substituting equations
(6), (7), and (12) in (9), we obtain

= () () () ()
0

+ () () ()()
0

Here ()() and are least semi positive. If

the adaptive weights and are chosen to be negative,
then condition 2 is satisfied. The control structure is
shown in Figure 2.
III.

STRIP EIGENVALUE ASSIGNMENT

() = 1 () + 2 ()
0

Where
1 () = ()()
2 () = ()()
In equation (12), () is a proportional plus integral
type adaptive gain. If the change of control 0 and
the change of output 0 for all t, the condition
lim = 0 as implies that the adaptive mechanism
K (t) has memory. Once 1 () is found, this value must
be conserved when becomes null in order to assure
asymptotic stability of the system. This memory is
obtained by using integrator in the adaptive mechanism
in equation (12). The integrator sums up past input to
form its present output, and hence it is a memory. Thus
the first term of K (t) assures the memory of the
adaptive mechanism, and the second term, which is a
function of () and () becomes null when
tends to zero, as

In conventional optimal controller, the PI in equation (5)

is designed by roughly selecting weighting matrices.
Because of complexity, the Q and R are commonly
chosen as diagonal matrices. Eigenvalues of the closed
loop system are denoted by A (A - BF) = [ 1 ,
m , m+1 , , n ] where F (= 1 0 ), Po is the solution
of the 0 + 0 0 1 0 + = 0 . improving
system performance, the eigenvalues 1 through m will
be selected and shifted to a desired region. To achieve
this, the weighting matrix R is set to be a unity matrix
for equal weighting of control inputs.
The weighting matrices usually are determined by
trial and error to obtain satisfactory performance [2]. In
a large power system it is not easy to determine the
weighting matrices. To avoid this difficulty, the strip
eigenvalue assignment approach [10] for designing the
optimal closed loop system is used in this paper. The
design method shifts closed loop eigenvalues to a pre
specified vertical strip without the burden of selecting
weighting matrix Q.
Let (A, B) be the pair of the uncontrolled or open loop
system matrices and h 0 represent the prescribed
degree of relative stability. Then the closed-loop system
matrix = (A - 1 1 ) has all its eigenvalues lying
at the left of the -h vertical line as shown in Figure 3,
where 1 is the solution of the following Riccati
equation [11]:
( + ) 1 + 1 ( + ) 1 1 1 + Q =0

Letting Q = 0 in equation (14), the unstable eigenvalues

of ( + ) are shifted to their mirror image positions
Fig.3.respect
Strip eigenvalues
h>0 vertical
Fig.4.line,
Strip which
eigenvalues
with
to the -h
are inthe
vertical strip
eigenvalues of closed loop system matrix.

Assuming that 1 and 2 are two positive real values to

represent an open vertical strip of [ 2 , 1 ] on the
negative real axis as shown in Figure 4, and giving n x n
matrix 1 = (A + 1 I), the matrix PI is the solution of
the following Modified Riccati Equation (MRE):
1 1 + 1 1 1 1 = 0
If tr indicates trace, the gain is selected by [10, 12]
1

= +
2

2 1

2(+
1)

2 1

(1 )

= +

The output feedback matrix 1 corresponds to the desired

closed loop system matrix (A - B1 ). Equation (18)
exists if there is a matrix 1 such that
1 = 1 +
Where + the Pseudo inverse matrix of C if there is exists
only one feedback signal, 1 is simply a constant. If we
choose a different vertical strip in the negative s-plane, a
difference output control gain can be obtained.
IV.

SYSTEM DESCRIPTION

Where
1 = 1 1
&
+

(1+ )

1
= +
= (1 )
2

The design methodology proposed in this paper is

applied to a single-machine infinite bus power system
as shown in the appendix. The system data and terminal
conditions are also given in the appendix. The system
matrix is as in references [2] and [16].

=1

&

+ ( = 1, , + )

Are the eigenvalues of 1 in the right half plane of the

complex s-plane? The optimal closed loop system
becomes
X = (A -1 )

The control matrix B is

0
B=[
0

0
0

0
0

0
0

1
0

0
0

0
1

0]
0

And the state vector is,

X = [ , , , , , , , ]

Where A -1 = Ac is the closed-loop system matrix.

Equation (17) consists of a set of eigenvalues that lie
inside the vertical strip of [2 , 1 ], as shown in Figure
4. In equation (15), for equal weighting of the m control
inputs, we can let R be a unity matrix. Thus, solving the
Rickety (15) does not need a Q matrix, so it is easy to
design an optimal closed-loop system for power system
oscillation damping. One basic difficulty of the sate
feedback control is that, it is generally impractical since
some of the system states cannot be measured. In power
system it is necessary to control output rather than the
state of the input system. And output feedback controller
is preferred and physically possible to implement. The
control signal is synthesized by the measured feedback
signals. The output feedback control signal is
U (t) = - 1 Y (t) (18)
Where, Y (t) = CX (t)
Then,
U (t) = - 1 CX (t)
U (t) = - 1 X (t)

Where the state variables are torque angle ( ) ,

speed () , field flux linkage , field voltage ( ) ,
feedback voltage ( ) gate opening () , governor
feedback loop signal ( ), and water head (h).
V.

SIMULATION RESULTS

The eigenvalues of the uncontrolled system a [16] are

() = [- 0.0105 j 0.7947, -0.1969, -0.0572,0.0672 0.1947, 0.274, 13.70].
The first pair of eigenvalues related to rotor oscillations
are known as Electromechanical Mode (EM). The
damping ratio of this mode is 0.0132, which is very low
and is not lying within the acceptable range 0.1 t, 0.5
[12], [14]. So it is expected to improve the damping
ratio by strip eigenvalues assignment. To do this, one
gives -h1=-0.05, -h2=-0.45; eigenvalues of (A1 ) =
[0.0395 j 0.7191, 0.1569, 0.0173, 0.0372
j 0.1947, 0.234, 13.66]

Trace (B1 ) = 0.1581, eigenvalues of

(Ac )
= [13.7, 0.25 j 0.7701, 0.0672
j 0.1947, 0.274, 0.0572, 0.1969]

The first pair of eigenvalues is EM and damping ratio of

this mode is improved to be 0.3451, which is well
within the expectable range 0.1 to 0.5 [12], [14]. For
positive characterization of P matrix in equation (11),
we choose H = 103 , where I is the identity matrix.
Solving Lyapunov equation (11), the P matrix is found
to be a PSDM. The eigenvalues of the Lyapunov
matrix, () = [0.14994, 0.1078, 0.0534, 0.0095,
0.0001, 0.0026, 0.0015, 0.0010]. The steady state value
of K (t) is
K(t) = 103 [0.1369 0.0007 2.0510 0.2894
0.1843 0.0829 0.0012
0.0024]

The performance of the control mechanism is

investigated by computer simulation. In this example,
the value of are taken to be negative. The
controller works well for
Ranges from 0 to -20.53,
Ranges from 0 to -10.98
In this study, the values of that give the best
response are found empirically to be = 20.53 and
= 10.98. Responses for different disturbances and
parameter variations are shown in "Fig.5 to 7". Under
the normal operating condition, a small signal
disturbance = [0, .02, 0 ,0 ,0 , 0, 0, 0] is applied to
the system, and it is found from "Fig.5" that the
proposed controller damps out the low frequency
oscillations very quickly. Next a unit step input is
applied to the first input (excitation) of the system. It is
seen from "Fig.6" that the proposed controller gives
excellent damping of oscillations to that sudden
disturbance, although the uncontrolled system is highly
oscillatory. Next, it is possible to change the
electromagnetic parameters of the generator by hanging
the rotor angle and by mounting additional flywheel on
the shaft of the model generator, as well as by
connecting additional reactance at the generator
terminal. The system is simulated for 30% change of M,

and the responses are shown in "Fig.7". It is seen from

"Fig.7" that the controller works well in the face of
parameter changes. The results
demonstrate the effectiveness of
the
proposed adaptive controller.

For an initial load and a terminal voltage of the

synchronous machine, Po =
0.735, Qo = 0.034, Vto = 1.05;
The initial currents, voltages, flux linkages, and torque
angle are ido = 0.286,
iqo = 0.640, Vdo = 0.384, Vqo = 0.977, vF = 1.263, v0 =
1.058, 0 = 9.491,
0 = 0.887, = 7.30.

VIII.

VI. CONCLUSION
An adaptive controller based on hyper stability theory and
state output feedback has been developed for higher-order
power systems. The design method is simple and it avoids the
difficulty of choosing weighting matrices. The eigenvalues of
electromechanical mode of the system is shifted to a pre
specified vertical strip. The control is constructed so that the
closed loop system is hyper stable, which guarantees the
dynamical stability improvement of the power systems. The
changeable gains generated by a nonlinear time varying
function act as the adaptive mechanism. The adaptation
mechanism has both memory and transient terms. When the
power system becomes asymptotically stable after suffering a
disturbance, the transient term becomes null. The controller is
very simple, and less computation is required. The numerical
example shows that the proposed control works well in the
face of system parameter changes, variation of operating
conditions, and different disturbances. Work is continuing to
extend the proposed adaptive scheme to a decentralized
structure for large scale multi machine power systems, and
these developments will be outlined in a forthcoming
paper.

VII.

APPENDIX

The single machine infinite bus power system is shown

in "Fig.8". The system under investigation has the
following parametric values [2]:

= 10

Transmission line, x = 0.7417, B = 0.1339;

Synchronous machine unit,
xd = 1.0, x'd = 0.270, xq= 0.600 0 = 9.0, M=
0.2122, D = 0.00537;
Exciter and Voltage regulator system, = 10.0, =
1.0,
= 0.500;
Governor and hydraulic system, = 0.045, = 0.100,
= 0.010, = 1.0;

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