Real-time controller hardware-in-the-loop co-simulation testbed for cooperative control strategy for cyber-physical power system

Abstract Various distributed cooperative control schemes have been widely utilized for cyber-physical power system (CPPS), which only require local communications among geographic neighbors to fulfill certain goals. However, the process of evaluating the performance of an algorithm for a CPPS can be affected by the physical target characteristics and real communication conditions. To address this potential problem, a testbed with controller hardware-in-the-loop (CHIL) is proposed in this paper. On the basis of a power grid simulation conducted using the real-time simulator RT-LAB developed by the company OPAL-RT, along with a communication network simulation developed with OPNET, multiple distributed controllers were developed with hardware devices to directly collect the real-time operating data of the power system model in RT-LAB and provide local control. Furthermore, the communication between neighboring controllers was realized using the cyber system model in OPNET with an Ethernet interface. The hardware controllers produced a real-world control behavior instead of a digital simulation, and precisely simulated the dynamic features of a CPPS with high speed. A classic cooperative control case for active power output was studied to explain the integrated simulation process and validate the effectiveness of the co-simulation testbed.