Real-time Power System Simulation with Hardware Devices through DNP3 in Cyber-Physical Testbed

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates real-time power system simulation integrated with hardware devices using DNP3 protocol in a cyber-physical testbed, enabling realistic data transfer and control in large-scale synthetic grids.

Contribution

It introduces new functionality for real-time power system data transfer via DNP3 in a cyber-physical testbed with hardware integration, advancing simulation realism.

Findings

Successful integration of DNP3 with real hardware and software.

Real-time data collection and control demonstrated on a 2000-bus synthetic grid.

Enhanced capabilities for studying communication security and control in power systems.

Abstract

Modern power grids are dependent on communication systems for data collection, visualization, and control. Distributed Network Protocol 3 (DNP3) is commonly used in supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems in power systems to allow control system software and hardware to communicate. To study the dependencies between communication network security, power system data collection, and industrial hardware, it is important to enable communication capabilities with real-time power system simulation. In this paper, we present the integration of new functionality of a power systems dynamic simulation package into our cyber-physical power system testbed that supports real-time power system data transfer using DNP3, demonstrated with an industrial real-time automation controller (RTAC). The usage and configuration of DNP3 with real-world equipment in to achieve power system monitoring and control of a large-scale synthetic electric grid via this DNP3 communication is presented. Then, an exemplar of DNP3 data collection and control is achieved in software and hardware using the 2000-bus Texas synthetic grid.