# Control Allocation for Wide Area Coordinated Damping

## TL;DR

This paper introduces a modal-based sparse control allocation method for wide-area damping controllers that enhances fault tolerance and communication efficiency in complex power systems.

## Contribution

It presents a novel control allocation approach that improves fault tolerance and modularity in wide-area damping controllers without redesigning the primary controller.

## Key findings

- Effective coordination of multiple actuators demonstrated in simulations.
- Enhanced resilience to actuator failures shown in WECC system tests.
- Communication efficiency improved through sparse control allocation.

## Abstract

In this work, a modal-based sparse control allocation (CA) is proposed for coordinated and fault-tolerant wide-area damping controllers (WADCs). In our proposed method, the supervisory CA only communicates with necessary actuators to achieve the required damping performance and in case of actuator failures (e.g., due to loss of communication or scheduling), capabilities of the remaining actuators are fully used before the nominal performance is degraded. This method offers the advantages of modular design where WADC is initially designed to achieve satisfactory damping without the detailed knowledge of actuators. In the next step, CA is designed to manage actuator failures and limitations without the need to redesign the nominal WADC. The proposed approach is applied to a modified $286$-bus Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) system to verify the feasibility on a complex power system. Simulation results indicate the effectiveness of the proposed method in coordinating multiple actuators and building resiliency.