Minimal Input Cardinality Disturbance Decoupling of Coupled Oscillators via Output Feedback with Application to Power Networks

TL;DR

This paper presents a method to identify minimal control input nodes and design output feedback laws for disturbance decoupling in coupled oscillator networks, with applications to power grid stability.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical framework for minimal actuator placement and disturbance decoupling in linearized power network models, ensuring stability and effective disturbance rejection.

Findings

Minimal actuator placement achieves effective disturbance rejection.

The methodology preserves internal stability of the power system.

Numerical simulations validate the approach on IEEE 39-bus system.

Abstract

In this paper, we identify the smallest set of control input nodes and an associated output feedback law that achieves complete disturbance decoupling for a class of coupled oscillator networks. The focus is specifically on systems linearized around a stable phase-locked synchronized state. The proposed theoretical framework is applied to the linearized swing dynamics of power grids operating near synchronization. In this context, the disturbance decoupling problem corresponds to isolating subsets of nodes from exogenous disturbances by means of batteries that can both add or withdraw active power. Numerical simulations carried out on the IEEE New England 39-bus system show that the proposed methodology not only yields a minimal actuator placement ensuring effective disturbance rejection, but also preserves the internal stability of the closed-loop system.