How to Couple Two Networks for a Smart Grid

Smart grids, which are composed of reciprocal power grids and communication networks, have revolutionized the traditional electrical section. Interdependent smart grids have attracted many researchers to the cascade scheme. However, the strategy of coupling two networks has been neglected. The construction of a real coupled network has been infeasible due to the economic cost and network scale for researchers. Therefore, coupling two networks to simulate a real network is fundamental for a smart grid. In this paper, we propose a model for the coupled network, analyze the characteristic of power network, and focus on the coupling strategy. Next, we leverage a classic community detection algorithm to form a local network. A new local positive degree coupling algorithm was proposed based on community detection to create a coupled network. A numerical experiment demonstrates that our coupling algorithm outperforms the previous random coupling scheme. In addition, the local positive degree coupling algorithm can be extended to other cyber-physical systems with slight changes for future studies.