Distributed Control

Systems for Small-Scale

Power Networks
Using multiagent cooperative control theory

background art © corel

E
xisting electric power distribution networks are operating near full capacity
Ali Bidram,
and facing rapid changes to address environmental concerns and improve
Frank L. Lewis,
their reliability and sustainability. These concerns are satisfied through
and Ali Davoudi
the effective integration and coordination of distributed generators (DGs),
which facilitate the exploitation of renewable energy resources, including
wind power, photovoltaics, and fuel cells [1]. Although DGs can be of rotating ma-
chinery type, more recently, DGs have been designed to support renewable energy
resources by electronic interfacing through voltage source inverters (VSI). Each DG
corresponds to one energy source, and its control inputs are given to the interface
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MCS.2014.2350571 VSI [1]–[5]. The successful coordination of DGs can be realized through microgrids,
Date of publication: 13 November 2014 which are small-scale power systems consisting of local generation, local loads, and

56  IEEE CONTROL SYSTEMS MAGAZINE  »  DECEMBER 2014 1066-033X/14©2014ieee

energy storage systems. Microgrids are autonomous sub- Central controllers issue global commands based on infor-
systems with dedicated control systems that provide guar- mation gathered from the entire system and require a com-
anteed power quality for local loads such as hospitals, eco- plex, and, in some cases, two-way communication network
nomic centers, apartments, and universities. The microgrid that adversely affects system flexibility, configurability, and
concept, with its local control and power quality support, reliability [11], [12]. Centralized control structures rely on a
allows for the scalable integration of local power resources central entity that manages a large amount of data and, as
and loads into the existing power grid and enables a high such, are vulnerable to a single point of failure. Advanced
penetration of distributed generation [5]–[10]. distributed control structures can be used to increase the
Microgrids can operate in both grid-connected and reliability of the hierarchical control system [15].
islanded operating modes. In the grid-connected mode, the This article considers the secondary control level of
microgrid is connected to the main grid, while in the microgrids with balanced loads. The secondary control
islanded mode, the microgrid is disconnected from the level is critical for ensuring the operation of the microgrid
main grid. Appropriate microgrid control is of particular components at the nominal conditions and increasing the
importance for stable and economically efficient operation. quality of the power delivered to the consumers. Therefore,
The microgrid control system regulates voltage and fre- the reliable operation of the secondary control level is of
quency for either operating modes, properly shares the particular importance. Distributed cooperative control of
load among DGs, controls the power flow
between the microgrid and the main grid, and
optimizes the microgrid operating cost. In Tertiary Control
grid-connected mode, frequency synchroniza-
tion and voltage support are provided by the Optimal Operation in Both Operating Modes
main power grid, which has synchronous gen- Power Flow Control in Grid-Tied Mode
erators and large rotating inertia reserves. A
microgrid switches to islanded operation in the
event of disturbances and faults. In this mode,
the microgrid can provide power support for Secondary Control
critical loads in the event of upstream network Compensating the Voltage Deviation
power outages. In islanded mode, control sys- Caused by Primary Control
tems must provide frequency and voltage syn-
chronization and restore prefault power condi- Compensating the Frequency Deviation
Caused by Primary Control
tions. Transients while switching between
modes must be regulated [11]–[14].
These operating requirements are realized in
Feedback Signals

current microgrids through a hierarchical con-

Primary Control
trol structure [5], [6], [11]. The hierarchical con-
trol strategy consists of three levels, namely, the Voltage Stability Provision
primary, secondary, and tertiary controls, as
Frequency Stability Preserving
shown in Figure 1. These three levels can be
viewed as operating at three different times- Plug-and-Play Capability of DGs
cales. The primary control operates on a fast tim-
Circulating Current Avoidance Among DGs
escale and maintains the voltage and frequency
stability of the microgrid during load or genera-
tion changes or subsequent to the islanding pro-
cess. Secondary control compensates for voltage Microgrid
and frequency deviations during fault condi-
tions, while switching between modes, or due to Tie
load or generation changes. Ultimately, the high-
Main Power Grid
level tertiary control manages the power flow
between the microgrid and the main grid and
facilitates economically optimal operation over Figure 1  The hierarchical control structure of microgrids. Hierarchical control
longer timescales [11]. strategy consists of primary, secondary, and tertiary controls. The primary con-
The primary control is locally implemented trol maintains voltage and frequency stability of the microgrid subsequent to
the islanding process. Secondary control compensates for the voltage and fre-
at each DG while the secondary and tertiary quency deviations caused by the operation of the primary controls. Tertiary
control levels conventionally exploit a central- control manages the power flow between the microgrid and the main grid and
ized control structure, as shown in Figure 2. facilitates economically optimal operation.

DECEMBER 2014  «  IEEE CONTROL SYSTEMS MAGAZINE  57

 Secondary
Control
- E
Islanded ! GE(s)
oref
Grid-Connected +
oref
~ref Islanded
+ ~ref
! G~(s) !
Grid-Connected
+
- ~ + D~s
PG
GP(s) ! -
+ PGref
ref
+ QG
GQ(s) ! -
QG
Tertiary Control
Figure 2  Conventional centralized secondary and tertiary control structures with a control layout of the microgrid. The microgrid is con-
nected to the main grid at the point of common coupling (PCC). Conventional secondary and tertiary controls have a centralized struc-
ture, while the primary control is decentralized and computed at each distributed generator. A phase-locked loop (PLL) is used to
synchronize the microgrid to the main grid.
multiagent systems can be used to implement a reliable sec-
ondary control structure for microgrids, where “distrib-
uted” means that the controller uses a communication net-
work by which each agent only receives the information of
its neighboring agents, and “cooperative” means that, in
contrast to competitive control, all agents act as one group
towards a common synchronization goal and follow coop-
erative decisions [16]–[18]. This article reviews the existing
distributed secondary control schemes.
A microgrid can be considered as a multiagent system
where the DGs are the energy generation nodes (agents).
Each DG corresponds to an energy source and is connected
to the microgrid through a VSI. The VSIs are intercon-
nected by the physical power network configuration.
Figure 3 shows the multiagent environment for a microgrid
system with DGs as agents. Each DG corresponds to an
energy resource. The objective of this article is to describe
how to replace the existing standard of centralized second-
ary control by a sparse and efficient distributed communi-
cation network that overlays the physical power connection
network. This communication network is a cyberinforma-
tion flow layer that can be designed separately from the
physical layer and specifies the allowed communications
between the DGs. The described secondary controller uses
cooperative multiagent control techniques and so is distrib-
uted in nature, requiring communications only from neigh-
boring nodes in the communication graph. Neighboring
nodes that directly communicate with each other in the
cyber layer are selected based on requirements for fast syn-
chronization and robust response to disturbances.
58  IEEE CONTROL SYSTEMS MAGAZINE  »  DECEMBER 2014
Measuring the Voltage
and Frequency
in the Microgrid
Primary Control
PCC
of First DG PG, QG
Microgrid Main Grid
Primary Control
of Second DG
Primary Control
of Nth DG
PLL
PG, QG
Measurement
Over the last decades, networked multiagent systems
have earned much attention due to their flexibility and com-
putational efficiency. These systems are inspired by natural
phenomena such as insect swarming, bird flocking, thermo-
dynamic laws, and synchronization and phase transitions in
physical and chemical systems. In these phenomena, distrib-
uted coordination and synchronization processes necessi-
tate that each agent exchange information with other agents
according to some restricted communication protocol [18],
[19]. Distributed cooperative control of multiagent systems is
mainly categorized into the regulator synchronization prob-
lem and the tracking synchronization problem. In the regu-
lator synchronization problem, also called leaderless consen-
sus, all agents synchronize to a common value that is not
prescribed. In the tracking synchronization problem, also
called pinning control, all agents synchronize to a leader node
that acts as a command generator. Neighboring agents can
communicate with each other. The leader is only connected
to a small number of the agents [20]–[22].
Secondary control of microgrids is similar to the tracking
synchronization problem of a multiagent system where the DG
voltages and frequencies are required to track their nominal
values (for example, the frequencies should synchronize to 50
Hz or 60 Hz). The dynamics of DGs in microgrids are nonlinear
and nonidentical. This article describes the use of the method of
input–output feedback linearization to transform the nonlinear
heterogeneous dynamics of DGs to linear dynamics. Input–
output feedback linearization transforms the secondary volt-
age control to a second-order tracking synchronization prob-
lem. The secondary frequency control is transformed to a
first-order synchronization problem
using input–output feedback linear-
ization. Based on the transformed
dynamics, fully distributed voltage DG 7 DG 6
and frequency control protocols are
derived for each DG. Distributed con- Communication
DG 8 Link
trol can be implemented through a DG 5
sparse communication network, with
only one-way communication links, DG 1 DG 4
DG 2 DG 3
where each DG requires its own
information and the information of Cyber
its neighbors [23]–[25]. Communication
This article describes how to make Layer
the distributed secondary voltage
control adaptive with respect to
changes in the DG parameters, loads,
and microgrid operating conditions.
The adaptive distributed controller
has the following salient features.
First, the controller compensates for DG 2 DG 3
the uncertain nonlinear dynamics of DG 1
DG 4
the DGs and, hence, obviates the chal- Microgrid
lenge of identifying the nonlinear dy- DG 8 DG 5
namics of DGs. Second, the controller
is fully independent of the DG pa-
rameters and the specification of the DG 7 DG 6
connector by which each DG is con-
nected to the microgrid. Therefore,
the performance of the controller
does not deteriorate with changes in Physical Layer
DG parameters, such as due to aging
and thermal effects, or changes in the Figure 3  A multiagent environment for a microgrid system with distributed generators (DGs)
connector specifications. The adap- as agents, illustrating the distributed control framework. Each DG corresponds to an energy
tive distributed controller appropri- resource. The DGs are interconnected by the microgrid physical electric power network.
ately responds to changes in the Above this is a cyberlayer consisting of a communication network between the DGs, which
system operating conditions, without is sparse and distributed so that it is less susceptible to a single point of failure.
manual intervention, and adjusts the
microgrid control parameters in real time [26]. affect system stability, secondary control being responsible
The next section discusses the hierarchical control struc- for restoration of microgrid voltage and frequency, and ter-
ture of microgrids. Then, the dynamical models for tiary control acting over longer horizons responsible to opti-
inverter-based DGs are detailed. Understanding these mize the economic operation of the microgrid. These control
models allows for the application of many methods of con- levels are elaborated below.
trol system design familiar to the control systems commu-
nity. Distributed control protocols are next used to design Primary Control
the secondary voltage and frequency control. Then, the dis- Primary control responds quickly and is designed to stabi-
tributed and adaptive voltage control of microgrids is dis- lize the voltage and frequency of the microgrid. Subse-
cussed. Finally, the microgrid distributed control protocols quent to an islanding event, the microgrid may lose its
are verified through a microgrid test system. voltage and frequency stability due to the mismatch
between the power generated and consumed. Primary
Hierarchical Control control offers plug-and-play capability for DGs and prop-
Structure of Microgrids erly shares the active and reactive power among them,
Current standard practice in microgrid control is a hierarchy preferably without any communication links. This control
of three layers: primary, secondary, and tertiary control. level must mitigate circulating currents that can cause
These layers operate on different timescales, with primary over-current phenomenon in the power electronic devices
control being responsible for the control of transients that and damage the dc-link capacitor [6], [11], [13].

DECEMBER 2014  «  IEEE CONTROL SYSTEMS MAGAZINE  59

 voltage control [11]. The principles of the
E conventional droop techniques are dis-
Q E cussed next using an equivalent circuit
oo
Reference model of a VCVSI connected to an ac bus, as
Q Voltage
Power oo* shown in Figure 7. Neglecting the switch-
Calculator ~ ing ripples and high-frequency harmonics,
io ~ 2 Esin(~t)
P the VCVSI is modeled as an ac source, with
voltage E+d. It is assumed that the DG is
P
connected to a microgrid bus with the volt-
age Vcom +0, and the DG output imped-
Figure 4  The reference voltage in voltage control mode. Voltage and frequency droop
techniques are used to generate the voltage reference.
ance and the line impedance are lumped as
a single effective line impedance of Z+i.
The complex power delivered to the
microgrid bus is calculated as
VCVSI Renewable
Energy V E+i - d V 2com +i
Resource S = Vcom I ) = com -
Z Z
(1)
Output
LC Filter from which the real and reactive powers
*
ildi *
, ilqi ili Connector
Voltage Current are achieved, respectively, as
Controller Controller Inverter Rfi Lfi Rci Lci
Bridge Cfi Z 2
obi ]] P = Vcom E cos (i - d) - V com cos (i),
Z Z
[ 2 
] Q = Vcom E sin (i - d) - V com sin (i) .
ildi, ilqi
abc/dq
ooi ioi \ Z Z
iodi, ioqi
(2)
oodi, ooqi
~i If the effective line impedance, Z+i, is
* , o*
oodi assumed to be purely inductive, i = 90c,
oqi
Power Controller then (2) can be reduced to
Z
]] P = Vcom E sin d,
Z
~i* *
Ei [ Vcom E cos d - V 2com (3)
]Q = .
\ Z
Figure 5  The block diagram of a distributed generator in the voltage-controlled volt-
age-source inverter (VCVSI) mode. Power, voltage, and current controllers dictate the If the phase difference between the
voltage and frequency of the converter. converter output voltage and the
common ac bus, d, is small enough, then,
Primary control provides the reference points for the volt- sin d . d and cos d . 1. Thus, the frequency and voltage
age and current control loops of the DGs. These inner control droop characteristics can be used to fine-tune the voltage
loops are commonly referred to as zero-level control, which is reference of the VCVSI, as shown in Figure 6, based on the
generally implemented in either active-reactive power (PQ) or droop control equations
voltage control modes [13]. In the PQ control mode, the DG
'
~ = ~ - D P P,
)
active and reactive powers are regulated on predetermined (4)
E = E - D Q Q,
)
reference points. The control strategy is implemented with a
current-controlled VSI (CCVSI) [13]. In the voltage control where E ) and ~ ) are the primary control references. The
mode, the DG operates as a voltage-controlled VSI (VCVSI), droop coefficients, D P and D Q, can be adjusted either
where the reference voltage, v )o, is determined by the primary heuristically or by tuning algorithms (for example, parti-
control, conventionally via droop characteristics [11], [13], as cle swarm optimization). In the former approach, D P and
shown in Figure 4. The internal voltage and current control D Q are determined based on the converter power rating
loops in the voltage control mode are shown in Figure 5. and the maximum allowable voltage and frequency devia-
The droop control is an autonomous control that operates at tions. For instance, in a microgrid with N DGs, the con-
each DG and does not require intercommunication links straints [11]
between the DGs. The conventional active power control (fre-
)
quency droop characteristic) and reactive power control (volt- D P1 Pn1 = D P2 Pn2 = g = D PN PnN = D~ max
(5)
age droop characteristic) in Figure 6 are used for frequency and D Q1 Q n1 = D Q2 Q n2 = g = D QN Q nN = DE max

60  IEEE CONTROL SYSTEMS MAGAZINE  »  DECEMBER 2014

must be satisfied, where  D~ max  and
DE max  are the maximum allowable E*
angular frequency and voltage devia- +
Low-Pass Q - !
tions, respectively, and Pni and Q ni are io # DQ
Filter
the nominal active and reactive power of
E
the i th DG. oo*
2 Esin(~t)
The droop equations (4) are a feed-
~
back control scheme giving the required -90°
Low-Pass P
frequency ~ and voltage E of the DG oo # DP !
Filter -
depending on the current power condi- +
tions P and Q observed by DG and the ~*
prescribed primary control reference
frequency ~ ) and voltage E ) . The pri- Figure 6  Conventional droop techniques. Filtered active and reactive powers are used
mary control reference frequency ~ ) to dictate the voltage and frequency of the converter.
and voltage E ) are set by the secondary
control level, as discussed below. age of microgrid, v nominal. In the grid-connected mode, ~ ref
During the grid-tied operation of the microgrid, the DG and v ref are dictated by the tertiary controller. Secondary
voltage and angular frequency, E and ~, are enforced by control hierarchy has a lower dynamic response than that
the grid. The DG output active and reactive power refer- of the primary control. This timescale separation justifies
ences, P ref and Q ref, can hence be adjusted through E ) and considering the dynamics of the primary and secondary
~ [11] as
)
control loops to be decoupled and facilitates their individ-
Z ref ~ ) - ~ ual designs [12]. Figure 2 represents the block diagram of
]] P = ,
DP the conventional secondary control, which uses a central-
[ (6)
ref
]Q = E )
- E . ized control structure. As seen in the figure, the frequency
\ DQ
of the microgrid and the terminal voltage of a given bus are
The conventional droop method can be implemented compared with the corresponding reference values, ~ ref
with no communication links, which improves reliability. and v ref, respectively. Then the error signals are processed
However, this method has some drawbacks [11]: by individual controllers according to
»» The conventional droop method is developed assum-
ing highly inductive effective impedance between d~ = K P~ (~ ref - ~) + K I~ # (~ ref - ~) dt + D~ s,
the VCVSI and the ac bus. However, this assumption * (7)
dE = K PE (v ref - E) + K IE # (v ref - E) dt,
is challenged in microgrid applications since low-
voltage transmission lines are mainly resistive.
»» As opposed to the frequency, the voltage is not a where K P~, K I~, K PE, and K IE are the secondary controller
global quantity in the microgrid. Thus, the reactive parameters. The resulting signals d~ and dE are sent to the
power control in (4) may adversely affect the voltage primary controller as changes to ~ ) and E ) in the droop
regulation for critical loads. control (4) of the DG primary controller to compensate for
»» For nonlinear loads, the conventional droop method the frequency and voltage deviations [11].
is unable to distinguish the load current harmonics An additional term, D~ s, is considered in the frequency
from the circulating current. Moreover, the current controller in (7) to facilitate synchronization of the microgrid to
harmonics distort the DG output voltage. The con- the main grid. In the islanded operating mode, this additional
ventional droop method can be modified to reduce term is zero. However, during synchronization, a phase-locked
the total harmonic distortion of the output voltages. loop (PLL) module is required to measure D~ s [11]. During
These potential drawbacks are widely discussed in the grid-tied operation, the voltage and frequency of the main grid
literature. A comprehensive survey on primary control [v ref and ~ ref, in (7)] are considered as the references.
schemes that correct these issues is provided in [11].

Secondary Control
AC Bus

Primary control ensures stability of the DG but may cause ZEi

frequency and voltage deviations. Secondary control
restores the microgrid voltage and frequency to their EEd S = p + jQ V E0
com
desired reference values ~ ref and v ref and compensates for
deviations caused by the primary control. In islanded Figure 7  A simplified diagram of a converter connected to the
mode, ~ ref is set to the nominal angular frequency, that is, microgrid. This system is used to derive the conventional droop
2r # 50 or 2r # 60 rad/s, and v ref is set to the nominal volt- techniques.

DECEMBER 2014  «  IEEE CONTROL SYSTEMS MAGAZINE  61

 contains an inverter bridge
~i* connected to a primary dc
power source (for instance,
Low-Pass renewable energy resources
oodi oodi iodi + ooqi ioqi ~i* - DPiPi ~i
Filter such as photovoltaic panels or
ooi ooqi Pi fuel cells). The control loops,
abc/dq i including the power, voltage,
odi
ioi Qi
ioqi and current controllers, adjust
Low-Pass
oodi ioqi - ooqi iodi Ei *- DQiQi *
oodi the output voltage and fre-
Filter
quency of the inverter bridge
*
[27]–[29]. Given the relatively
Ei *
0 o oqi high switching frequency
of the inverter bridge, the
Figure 8  The block diagram of the power controller. Droop techniques are implemented in the switching artifacts can be
power controller. safely neglected via average-
value modeling.
This standard secondary control (7) is implemented by a The voltage and frequency control design use the non-
centralized node that has access to all the required information linear dynamical model of a DG. The nonlinear dynamics
in the microgrid. This implementation requires an extensive of each DG are formulated in the DG direct-quadrature
communication network, generally with two-way communica- (d - q) reference frame. It is assumed that the reference
tion links. As such, this method is expensive, unreliable, and frame of the ith DG is rotating with frequency ~ i . The ref-
vulnerable to a single point of failure. This article describes how erence frame of one DG is considered as the common refer-
to replace (7) by distributed control structures using coopera- ence frame with the rotating frequency of ~ com. The angle
tive control techniques, which rely on sparse, inexpensive com- of the ith DG reference frame, with respect to the common
munication networks; see Figure 3. reference frame, is denoted as d i and satisfies the differen-
tial equation
Tertiary Control
Tertiary control is the highest (and the slowest) control level do i = ~ i - ~ com. (9)
and is meant to optimize economic performance of the
microgrid and manage the power flow between microgrid The power controller block, shown in Figure 8, contains
and main grid [6], [11]. In the grid-tied mode, the power the droop technique in (4) and provides the voltage refer-
flow between microgrid and main grid can be managed by ences v )odi and v )oqi for the voltage controller, as well as the
adjusting the amplitude and frequency of the DG voltages. operating frequency ~ i for the inverter bridge. Two low-pass
The block diagram of this process is shown in Figure 2. The filters with the cutoff frequency of ~ ci are used to extract the
active and reactive output powers of the microgrid, PG and fundamental component of the output active and reactive
Q G, are compared with the corresponding reference values, powers, denoted as Pi and Q i, respectively. The differential
P Gref and Q ref
G , to obtain the frequency and voltage refer- equations of the power controller can be written as
ences, ~ ref and v ref based on
Po i =-~ ci Pi + ~ ci (v odi i odi + v oqi i oqi), (10)
# (P - PG) dt, Qo i =-~ ci Q i + ~ ci (v oqi i odi - v odi i oqi), (11)
*
ref ref
~ ref = K PP (P G - PG) + K IP G
(8)
v ref = K PQ (Q ref
G - Q G) + K IQ # (Q ref
G - Q G) dt,
where v odi, v oqi, i odi, and i oqi are the direct and quadrature
components of v oi and i oi in Figure 5. As seen in Figure 8,
where K PP, K IP, K PQ, and K IQ are the controller parameters. the primary voltage control strategy for each DG aligns the
The values ~ ref and v ref are further used as the reference output voltage magnitude on the d-axis of the correspond-
values for the secondary control, as in (7). ing reference frame. Therefore,

)
v )odi = E )i - D Qi Q i,
Large-Signal Dynamical Model (12)
v )oqi = 0.
of an Inverter-based DG
This section details the dynamic models used in microgrid The block diagram of the voltage controller is shown in
control. Understanding these models allows the applica- Figure 9. The differential algebraic equations of the voltage
tion of many control system design methods that are famil- controller are
iar to the control systems community.
zo di = v odi - v odi, (13)
)
This article assumes that DGs are connected to the
microgrid by VCVSIs. As seen in Figure 5, a VCVSI-based DG zo qi = v oqi - v oqi, (14)
)

62  IEEE CONTROL SYSTEMS MAGAZINE  »  DECEMBER 2014


i )ldi = Fi i odi - ~ b C fi v oqi + K PVi (v )odi - v odi) + K IVi z di,
(15)
* KIVi
oodi ! KPVi + ! ! *
ildi
i )lqi = Fi i oqi + ~ b C fi v odi + K PVi (v )oqi - v oqi) + K IVi z qi, s
+ + +
(16) - - +
oodi ~bCfi Fi
where z di and z qi are the auxiliary state variables
defined for the proportional-integral (PI) con-
trollers in Figure 9 and ~ b is the nominal angu- ooqi iodi
lar frequency. Other parameters are shown in oodi ioqi
Figures 5 and 9.
The block diagram of the current controller is
shown in Figure 10 [23]. The differential alge- ooqi ~bCfi Fi
braic equations of the current controller are - + +
+ KIVi + +
* ! *
ooqi KPVi + ! ! ilqi
co di = i ldi - i ldi, (17)
)
s

co qi = i lqi - i lqi, (18)

)

Figure 9  The block diagram of the voltage controller, which sets the refer-
v )idi =-~ b L fi i lqi + K PCi (i ldi
)
- i ldi) + K ICi c di, (19)
ences for the current controller.
v )iqi = ~ b L fi i ldi + K PCi (i )lqi - i lqi) + K ICi c qi, (20)

where c di and c qi are the auxiliary state variables defined Distributed Secondary
for the PI controllers in Figure 10, and i ldi and i lqi are the Voltage Control of Microgrids
direct and quadrature components of i li in Figure 5. Other In this section, the distributed cooperative control of multia-
parameters are shown in Figures 5 and 10. gent systems is used to design the secondary voltage control
The differential equations for the output LC filter and of microgrids. The secondary voltage control of the ith DG in
output connector are a microgrid selects E )i in (4) such that the terminal voltage
amplitude of each DG, v o,magi, approaches the reference value,
R fi
io ldi =- i + ~ i i lqi + 1 v idi - 1 v odi, (21) v ref. The microgrid operator chooses v ref. If v ref is set to the
L fi ldi L fi L fi nominal voltage of microgrid, v nominal, the output voltage
R fi magnitude of DGs synchronizes to the nominal voltage of
io lqi =- i - ~ i i ldi + 1 v iqi - 1 v oqi, (22)
L fi lqi L fi L fi microgrid. However, v ref can be chosen such that the voltage
magnitude of a critical bus of the microgrid synchronizes to
vo odi = ~ i v oqi + 1 i ldi - 1 i odi, (23) v nominal (the critical bus of the microgrid is the bus to which a
C fi C fi
sensitive load is connected). In this case, v ref is defined by
vo oqi =-~ i v odi + 1 i lqi - 1 i oqi, (24)
C fi C fi v ref = k pc (v nominal - v c,mag) + k ic # (v nominal - v c,mag) dt, (29)
R ci
io odi =- i + ~ i i oqi + 1 v odi - 1 v bdi, (25)
L ci odi L ci L ci
R ci KICi
io oqi =- i - ~ i i odi + 1 v oqi - 1 v bqi . (26)
* ! ! *
lldi KPCi + vidi
L ci oqi L ci L ci + s +
- -
Equations (9)–(26) form the dynamical model of the i th ildi ~bLfi
DG. This large-signal dynamical model is nonlinear and
can be written in a compact form as
ilqi

)
xo i = fi (x i) + k i (x i) D i + g i (x i) u i, ildi
(27)
y i = h i (x i),

where the state vector is ilqi ~bLfi

- +
x i = [d i Pi Q i z di z qi c di c qi i ldi i lqi v odi v oqi i odi i oqi] T. (28) + KICi +
* *
lqi ! KPCi + ! oiqi
s
The term D i is D i = [~ com v bdi v bqi] T . The detailed
expressions for fi (x i), g i (x i), and k i (x i) can be extracted Figure 10  The block diagram of the current controller, which sets
from (9) to (26). the references for the inverter bridge.

DECEMBER 2014  «  IEEE CONTROL SYSTEMS MAGAZINE  63

 Preliminaries of Graph Theory

T he communication network of a multiagent cooperative
system can be modeled by a directed graph (digraph). A
digraph is expressed as Gr = (VG, E G, A G) with a nonempty
finite set of N nodes VG = {v 1, v 2, f, v N}, a set of edges or
arcs E G 1 VG # VG, and the associated adjacency matrix
A G = [a ij] ! R N # N . In a microgrid, DGs are the nodes of the
communication digraph. The edges of the corresponding
digraph of the communication network represent the commu-
nication links.
An edge from node j to node i is denoted by (v j, v i), which
means that node i receives the information from node j. a ij is
the weight of edge (v j, v i), and a ij 2 0 if (v j, v i) ! E G, otherwise
a ij = 0. Node i is called a neighbor of node j if (v i, v j) ! E G . The
set of neighbors of node j is denoted as N j = { i (v i, v j) ! E G} .
For a digraph, if node i is a neighbor of node j, then node j
can get information from node i but not necessarily vice versa.
The in-degree matrix is defined as D = diag {d i} ! R N # N with
d i = / j ! Ni a ij . The Laplacian matrix is defined as L = D - A G .
A directed path from node i to node j is a sequence of edges,
expressed as {(v i, v k), (v k, v l), f, (v m, v j)} . A digraph is said to
have a spanning tree if there is a root node with a directed
path from that node to every other node in the graph [S1]–[S2].
A digraph is strongly connected if there is a directed path
between any two nodes in the graph.
References
[S1] W. Ren and R. W. Beard, Distributed Consensus in Multi-Vehicle
Cooperative Control. Berlin, Germany: Springer, 2008.
[S2] F. L. Lewis, H. Zhang, K. Hengster-Movric, and A. Das, Coopera-
tive Control of Multiagent Systems: Optimal and Adaptive Design Ap-
proaches. New York: Springer-Verlag, 2014.

frame, the synchronization of the voltage

*
i ldqi amplitude can be achieved by choosing
Voltage Current the control input E )i such that v odi syn-
Controller Controller Rfi Lfi Rci Lci
Cfi chronizes to v ref. Therefore, for the sec-
i ldqi vbi ondary voltage control, the output and
abc/dq control inputs in (27) are set to y i = v odi
ili
* voi ioi
vodqi vodqi iodqi and u i = E )i , respectively.
wi
The dynamics of DGs in a microgrid are
Power Controller
nonlinear and may be nonidentical. There-
fore, the secondary voltage control resem-
Ei* w*i bles the tracking synchronization problem
vref of a multiagent system with nonlinear and
y0 = nonidentical dynamics. To design a distrib-
-vi ei 0
1 uted secondary voltage control, the tracking
! cK ! aij(yi - yj) + gi(yi - y0)
Lgi LFi hi - j synchronization problem for a nonlinear
- vodj
vodi yj = v: and nonidentical multiagent system must
odj
yi = v be solved. In a distributed control structure,
2 odi
LF hi j ! Ni each DG is allowed to communicate with its
i
Information from
:
vodi Neighboring DGs neighbors only. The required communica-
vodi tion network can be modeled by a commu-
xi in (6) v: odi Calculator
nication graph. For details on the graph
Secondary theory, see “Preliminaries of Graph Theory.”
Voltage Input–output feedback linearization
Control voqi iLdi iodi wi
can be used to facilitate the secondary
voltage control design. In input–output
Figure 11  The block diagram of the proposed secondary voltage control. The sec- feedback linearization, a direct relation-
ondary voltage control at each distributed generator (DG) only requires its own and ship between the dynamics of the output
neighboring DGs’ terminal voltage amplitude and first derivative.
y i (or equivalently v odi ) and the control
input u i (or equivalently E )i ) is generated
where v c,mag is the critical bus voltage magnitude and k pc by repetitively differentiating y i with respect to time. The
and k ic are the control gains. application of feedback linearization to distributed sec-
Since the amplitude of the DG output voltage is ondary voltage control of multiagent systems was devel-
oped in [23].
v o,magi = v 2odi + v odi 2
, (30)
For the dynamics of the ith DG in (27), the direct rela-
and the primary voltage control aligns the output voltage tionship between the y i and u i is generated after the second
magnitude on the d-axis of the corresponding reference derivative of the output y i,

64  IEEE CONTROL SYSTEMS MAGAZINE  »  DECEMBER 2014

 Sparse Communication Topology to Implement the Distributed Control
T he controllers designed in this article must be supported by
a local communication network. This network can be imple-
mented by a TCP/IP communication protocol with optical fiber
links [S3]. The sampling time of the secondary control can be
chosen to be much larger than the sampling time of the commu-
nication network. Communication links contain an intrinsic delay
(for example, around 1 ms for optical fiber links [S3]). Since the
time scale of the secondary control is large enough, the commu-
nication link delays can be safely assumed to be zero [12]. The
software and hardware infrastructure required to implement the
discussed distributed control protocols is quite modest. Voltage-
source inverters can be accompanied with commercial digital
signal processors (DSPs) to implement internal voltage and cur-
rent control loops,‑ as shown in Figure 5. The distributed control
protocols embedded on each DG would not require dedicated
signal processing units and do not impose a heavy processing
burden on the existing DSP. The distributed adaptive controllers
can be deployed on the existing processors, with a slight soft-
ware update to pre-existing codes.
The distributed controllers presented here can admit both
time-invariant and time-varying communication networks. For
time-invariant communication networks, the adjacency matrix
A G is fixed. The communication topology must be a graph con-
taining a spanning tree in which the controller of each DG only
requires information about that DG and its immediate neighbors
on the communication graph. Therefore, the communication
yp i = L 2Fi h i + L g i L Fi h i u i, (31)
where
Fi (x i) = fi (x i) + k i (x i) D i, (32)
L Fi h i is the Lie derivative [30] of h i with respect to Fi, which
is defined by L Fi h i = dh i Fi = ^2h i /2x ih Fi, and L 2Fi h i is defined
by L 2Fi h i = L Fi (L Fi h i) = ^2 (L Fi h i) /2x ih Fi .
An auxiliary control v i is defined as
v i = L 2Fi h i + L g i L Fi h i u i . (33)
Equations (31) and (33) result in the second-order linear system
yp i = v i, for all i. (34)
By choosing appropriate v i, the synchronization for y i
is provided. The control input u i is implemented by v i as
u i = (L g i L Fi h i) -1 (- L 2Fi h i + v i). (35)
To design v i, first (34) and the first derivative of y i are
written as
yo i / z i,
'
for all i
(36)
zo i = v i, for all i
requirements to implement the controller with a time-invariant
communication network are rather mild. However, the controller
could be susceptible to communication link failures or data loss.
In time-varying communication structures, each DG can
send its own information to the neighboring DGs intermittently.
The communication network is piecewise constant; that is, the
adjacency matrix A G changes intermittently at prespecified
time instants. Therefore, the secondary control is robust against
data loss and communication link failures [S4]–[S6]. Accord-
ing to [S6], a time-varying communication network can provide
the synchronization if the sequential completeness condition is
satisfied. The sequential completeness condition means that,
given an infinite sequence of finite intervals, the resulting graph
over each finite interval must contain a spanning tree.
References
[S3] Q. Yang, J. A. Barria, and T. C. Green, “Communication infrastruc-
tures for distributed control of power distribution networks,” IEEE Trans.
Ind. Inform., vol. 7, pp. 316–327, May 2011.
[S4] R. Olfati-Saber and M. Murray, “Consensus problems in networks
of agents with switching topology and time-delays,” IEEE Trans. Autom.
Contr., vol. 49, pp. 1520–1533, Sept. 2004.
[S5] W. Ren and R. W. Beard, “Consensus seeking in multiagent sys-
tems under dynamically changing interaction topologies,” IEEE Trans.
Autom. Contr., vol. 50, pp. 655–661, May 2005.
[S6] H. Xin, Z. Qu, J. Seuss, and A. Maknouninejad, “A self-organiz-
ing strategy for power flow control of photovoltaic generators in a dis-
tribution network,” IEEE Trans. Power Syst., vol. 26, pp. 1462–1473,
Aug. 2011.
where z i is defined as the first derivative of y i. The compact
form of (36) can be written as
yo i = Ay i + Bv i, for all i, (37)
where y i = [y i z i] T, B = [0 1] T, and A = ; E.
0 1
0 0
Using input–output feedback linearization, the nonlin-
ear dynamics of each DG in (27) are transformed to (37) and
a set of internal dynamics. The commensurate reformu-
lated dynamics of the reference can be expressed as
yo 0 = Ay 0, (38)
where y 0 = [y 0 yo 0] T . Since y 0 = v ref is constant, yo 0 = 0.
It is assumed that DGs can communicate with each other
through a communication network described by the digraph
Gr. Based on the digraph Gr, the i th DG may need to trans-
mit y i in (37) through the communication network. It is
assumed that only one DG has access to the reference y 0 in
(38) by a weight factor known as the pinning gain b i . The
secondary voltage control problem is to find a distributed v i
in (35) such that DG output voltage magnitudes and their
first derivatives synchronize to y 0 in (38), that is, y i synchro-
nizes y 0 for all i. To solve this problem, the cooperative team
objectives are expressed in terms of the local neighborhood
tracking error
DECEMBER 2014  «  IEEE CONTROL SYSTEMS MAGAZINE  65
 ei = / a ij (y i - y j) + b i (y i - y 0), (39) e = ^^L + B h 7 I 2h^Y - Y0 h / ^^L + B h 7 I 2 h d, (40)
j ! Ni

where N i denotes the set of DGs neighboring the ith DG, and
a ij denotes the elements of the communication digraph adja-
cency matrix. The pinning gain b i is nonzero for only one DG.
For a microgrid including N DGs, the global error
vector for graph Gr is written from (39) as [31]
where Y = [y T1 y T2 fy NT ] T, e = [e T1 e T2 fe NT ] T, Y0 = 1 N y 0 (1 N
is the vector of ones with the length of N ), B = diag {b i}, I 2 is
the 2 # 2 identity matrix, d is the global disagreement
vector, the Kronecker product is shown as 7 [32], and Yo can
be written as

Yo = (I N 7 A) Y + (I N 7 B) v, (41)

where v = [v 1 v 2 fv N] T is the global

~ref
auxiliary control vector, and Yo 0 can
! aij(~i - ~j) + gi(~i - ~ref)
j be written as
~j
j!Ni - ui ~*i
~i Yo 0 = (I N 7 A) Y0 . (42)
! c 1 DG i
s Pi
- Lemma 1 [23], [33]
Let the digraph Gr have a span-
! aij(DPiPi - DPjPj) ning tree and b i ! 0 for one DG
Pj j
placed on a root node of the
j!Ni digraph Gr. It is assumed that the
internal dynamics of each DG are
Figure 12  The block diagram of the distributed secondary frequency control. The secondary
asymptotically stable. Let the
frequency control at each distributed generator (DG) only requires its own frequency and active auxiliary control v i in (35) be
power, and the frequency and active power of neighboring DGs on the communication network.
v i =-cKe i, (43)

where c ! R is the coupling gain

Primary
and K ! R 1 # 2 is the feedback con-
Power
Rfi Lfi Rci Lci trol vector. Then, all y i in (37)
Source Cfi
iL vb synchronize to y 0 in (38) and
voi ioi hence the direct term of DG
*
ooqdi output voltages v odi synchronizes
Voltage and Current
Controller to v ref, if the feedback gain K is
chosen as

K = R -1 B T P1, (44)

~i where P1 is the unique posi-

Power Controller tive-definite solution of the
control algebraic Riccati equa-
~*i Ei*
tion (ARE) [34]

Yi = [vodi vodi]T
:
1 A T P1 + P1 A + Q
ri Calculator c ! # zfi
:
Y-i = [vod(-i) vod(-i)]T - - di + bi - P1 BR -1 B T P1 = 0, (45)
- ^ T
Wfi
Information from : and
Neighboring DGs 1 ^ =F z r -l F W
W fi fi fi i
^
fi fi fi
c$ 1 , (46)
di + bi 2m min
Adaptive ^ T
W where m min = min i ! N Re (m i), where
gi :
Secondary zgi # ^ =F z r -l F W
W ^ m i (i ! {1, 2, f, N}) are the eigen-
gi gi gi i gi gi gi
Voltage values of L + B.
Control
The block diagram of second-
ary voltage control based on dis-
Figure 13  The block diagram of the adaptive and distributed secondary control. In this figure, tributed cooperative control is
zrfi and z gi are the neural network basis functions introduced in (70) and (71). The proposed
r
control is fully independent of the distributed generator (DG) parameters and the connector
shown in Figure 11. As seen, the
specifications. Therefore, the performance of the secondary control does not deteriorate with control input E )i is implemented
changing DG parameters (for example, due to aging effects or thermal variations). using (35). Each DG has a vo odi

66  IEEE CONTROL SYSTEMS MAGAZINE  »  DECEMBER 2014

calculator block based on (23). Choosing
the coupling gain c and the feedback con- oo1 ob1 ob4 oo4
trol vector K based on (44) and (46) ensures PCC
DG 1 DG 4
the asymptotic stability of the controller. Rc1 Lc1 Lc4 Rc4
Moreover, these controller parameters can
adjust the response speed of the secondary Rl1 Rl3 Load 2
voltage control. This secondary voltage Load 1
control must be supported by a local com- ob2 Ll1 Ll3 ob3
oo2 oo3
munication network corresponding to
the prescribed digraph. For details, see DG 2 DG 3
“Sparse Communication Topology to Rc2 Lc2 Lc3 Rc3
Rl2 Ll2
Implement the Distributed Control.” Critical Bus

Figure 14  A single line diagram of the microgrid test system. The microgrid is con-
Distributed Secondary nected to the main grid at the point of common coupling (PCC).
Frequency Control
of Microgrids
In this section, the distributed cooperative control of mul-
tiagent systems is used to design the secondary frequency Table 1 The specifications of the microgrid test system
in Figure 14.
control of microgrids. Input–output feedback linearization
is used to transform the nonlinear heterogeneous dynam- DGs
ics of DGs to linear dynamics. Once input–output feedback
linearization is applied, the secondary frequency control DG 1 and 2 (9-kVA rating) DG 3 and 4 (7-kVA rating)
leads to a first-order synchronization problem. Fully dis-
mP 9.4 # 10 -5 mP 12.5 # 10 -5
tributed frequency control protocols are derived for each
DG that synchronize the DG frequencies to the nominal nQ 1.3 # 10 -3 nQ 1.5 # 10 -3
value and allocate the active power of DGs based on their
active power ratings [25], [35]. The work in this section was Rc 0.03 X Rc 0.03 X
first presented in [25].
Lc 0.35 mH Lc 0.35 mH
The primary frequency control is considered,

~ i = ~ i - D Pi Pi, (47)
) Rf 0.1 X Rf 0.1 X

where ~ )i is the primary frequency control reference and D Pi Lf 1.35 mH Lf 1.35 mH

is the frequency-active power droop coefficient. The second-
Cf 50 nF Cf 50 nF
ary frequency control chooses ~ )i such that the angular fre-
quency of each DG, ~ i, synchronizes to the nominal angular K PV 0.1 K PV 0.05
frequency, ~ ref, that is, 2r # 50 or 2r # 60 rad/s. Once the
secondary frequency control is applied, the DG output K IV 420 K IV 390
powers are allocated according to the same pattern used for
K PC 15 K PC 10.5
primary control [35]. After applying the primary control, the
DG output powers satisfy the following equality K IC 20,000 K IC 16,000

D P1 P1 = g = D PN PN . (48) Lines

Line 1 Line 2 Line 3

Since the active power droop coefficients D Pi are chosen
based on the active power rating of DGs, Pmaxi, (48) is equiv- R l1 0.23 X R l2 0.35 X R l3 0.23 X
alent to
L l1 318 nH L l2 1847 nH L l3 318 nH
P1 PN
=g = . (49)
Pmax 1 PmaxN Loads
Therefore, the secondary frequency control must also sat- Load 1 Load 2
isfy (48) or (49).
Differentiating the frequency-droop characteristic in R L1 3X R L2 2X
(47) yields (per phase) (per phase)

L L1 0.0064 H L L2 0.0032 H
~o i = ~o i + D Pi Po i = u i, (50)
)

DECEMBER 2014  «  IEEE CONTROL SYSTEMS MAGAZINE  67

 Simulation Results for Distributed Secondary Voltage Control

T he effectiveness of the distributed voltage protocol in (43) is chosen according to (29), where v c,mag in (29) denotes the volt-
verified through the microgrid test system in Figure 14. Loads 1 age magnitude of the critical bus. The value of v nominal in (29) is
and 2 are modeled as constant impedance loads. The resistances
of loads 1 and 2 are 3 Ω and 2 Ω, respectively. The inductances
of loads 1 and 2 are 6.4 and 3.2 mH, respectively. Simulation 1.05
results are provided for both time-varying and fixed communica-
tion networks. In both cases, the microgrid is assumed to be dis- 1

Vo,mag(pu)
connected from the main grid and switches to the islanded mode
at t = 0. The distributed secondary voltage control is switched on 0.95
at time t = 0.6 s. For the distributed secondary voltage control in
(43), the coupling gain is c = 4, which satisfies (46). The solution 0.9
of the ARE in (45) is used to calculate the feedback control vector
0.85
K in (43). In (38), the ARE parameters are chosen as 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8
Time (s)
Q =; E
50000 0
(a)
0 1

and R = 0.01. DG1

1.05 DG2
To show the effectiveness of the secondary voltage control DG3
DG4
Vo,mag(pu)
in the presence of a fixed communication network, it is assumed
1
that DGs can communicate with each other according to the
communication digraph shown in Figure S1. Figure S2 shows the
0.95
simulation results when the reference voltage value is set to 0.95
per unit (pu), 1 pu, and 1.05 pu, respectively. In the field of power
systems, per unit is used to express the power system quanti- 0.9
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8
ties as the fraction of predefined base values. As seen in Figure Time (s)
S2, while the primary control keeps the voltage amplitudes in a (b)
stable range, the secondary control returns all terminal voltage 1.1
amplitudes to the prespecified reference values in 0.2 s.
The secondary voltage control can also be defined to con- 1.05
trol the voltage magnitude of the critical bus of microgrid. The
Vo,mag(pu)

critical bus is highlighted in Figure 14. In this case study, v ref is 1

0.95
DG 1 DG 4
Reference 0.9
Value 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8
Time (s)
(c)

Figure S2  Distributed generator output voltage magnitudes

when (a) v ref = 0.95 pu, (b) v ref = 1 pu, and (c) v ref = 1.05 pu. As
DG 2 DG 3 seen, while the primary control keeps the voltage amplitudes
stable, the distributed voltage control returns all terminal volt-
Figure S1  A topology of the communication digraph. age amplitudes to the prespecified reference values in 0.2 s.

Z
where u i is an auxiliary control to be designed. Equation (50) ] ~o 1 + D P1 Po 1 = u 1,
is a dynamic system for computing the control input ~ )i ] ~o 2 + D P2 Po 2 = u 2,
[ 
from u i . The auxiliary control must be designed such that ] h
DG frequencies synchronize to the reference frequency ~ ref ] ~o N + D PN Po N = u N . (51)
\
and (48) is satisfied. According to (50), the secondary fre-
quency control of a microgrid including N DGs is trans- To achieve synchronization, it is assumed that DGs
formed to a synchronization problem for a first-order and can communicate with each other through the pre-
linear multiagent system scribed communication digraph Gr. For details, see

68  IEEE CONTROL SYSTEMS MAGAZINE  »  DECEMBER 2014

 1.05 1.1
DG1
DG2
1.05 DG3
1 DG4
Vc,mag(pu)

Vo,mag(pu)
1
0.95
0.95

0.9 0.9
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 0 0.5 1 1.5 2
Time (s) Time (s)

Figure S3  The critical bus voltage magnitude. As seen, the dis- Figure S5 The distributed generator output voltage magni-
tributed voltage control is applied at t = 0.6 s and returns the tudes with a time-varying communication network.
voltage magnitude of critical bus to v nominal in fewer than 0.2 s.

The distributed voltage control can also

DG 1 DG 4 DG 1 DG 4 be associated with time-varying communi-
Reference Reference cation networks. Figure S4 shows the three
value value
communication network structures used to
verify the effectiveness of secondary volt-
age control in the presence of a time-varying
communication network. Each structure is
adopted at a specific time. The communi-
DG 2 DG 3 DG 2 DG 3
cation digraph in Figure S4(a) models the
(a) (b) communication network on the time inter-
DG 1 DG 4 val [(0.6 + 0.15k) s, (0.6 + 0.15k) + 0.05 s],
for k = 0, 1, f . The communication
digraph in Figure S4(b) models the
communication network on the time
interval [(0.65 + 0.15k) s, (0.65 + 0.15k) +
0.05 s], for k = 0, 1, f . The communica-
tion digraph in Figure S4(c) models the
DG 2 DG 3
communication network on the time interval
(c)
[(0.7 + 0.15k) s, (0.7 + 0.15k) + 0.05 s], for
k = 0, 1, f . It is seen that, over each 0.15-s
Figure S4  Topologies of the time-varying communication network.
period, the sequential completeness condi-
tion is satisfied. The reference voltage is set
set to 1 pu and K pc and k ic in (29) are set to 4 and 100, respec- to v ref = 1 pu. As seen in Figure S5, while the primary control keeps
tively. As seen in Figure S3, once the microgrid is islanded, the the voltage amplitudes stable, the secondary control returns all ter-
critical bus voltage magnitude drops. However, the secondary minal voltage amplitudes to This simulation result verifies the effec-
control is applied at t = 0.6 s and returns the voltage magnitude tiveness of the proposed voltage control in the case of time-varying
of critical bus to v nominal in fewer than 0.5 s. communication networks and communication link failures.

“Preliminaries of Graph Theory.” The auxiliary controls where c f ! R is the coupling gain. It is assumed that the
u i are chosen based on each DG’s own information and pinning gain b i $ 0 is nonzero for only one DG that has the
the information of its neighbors in the communication reference frequency ~ ref.
digraph as
Lemma 2 [35]
u i =- c f ( / a ij (~ i - ~ j)
j ! Ni
Let the digraph Gr have a spanning tree and b i ! 0 for

+ b i (~ i - ~ ref) + / a ij (D Pi Pi - D Pj Pj)),  (52) only one DG placed as a root node of digraph Gr. Let the
j ! Ni auxiliary control u i be chosen as in (52). Then, the DG

DECEMBER 2014  «  IEEE CONTROL SYSTEMS MAGAZINE  69

frequencies ~ i in (47) synchronize to ~ ref, and the active
power among DGs is shared based on their power ratings
satisfying (49).
The block diagram of the secondary frequency control
based on the distributed cooperative control is shown in
Figure 12. As seen in this figure, the control input ~ )i to the
primary control level is
)
~i = # u i dt. (53)
Distributed and Adaptive Secondary
Voltage Control of Microgrids
This section extends the previously discussed distributed
secondary voltage control and proposes an adaptive and dis-
tributed secondary voltage control for microgrids with
inverter-based DGs. This work was first presented in [26].
The voltage control in (35) depends on the DG parameters
and nonlinear dynamics through the Lie derivatives. The Lie
derivatives may be complicated to compute or may depend
on some unknown dynamics. The adaptive and distributed
control design presented here compensates for the nonlinear
and uncertain dynamics of DGs and, hence, obviates the
need to compute Lie derivatives or know the nonlinear
dynamics of DGs [36]–[42]. This adaptive control is fully
independent of the DG parameters and the specification of
the connector by which each DG is connected to the
microgrid. Therefore the controller can be deployed on any
DG regardless of the DG parameters and the connector spec-
ifications, and the closed-loop performance does not deterio-
rate by a change in DG parameters (for example, due to aging
and thermal effects). The adaptive controller appropriately
responds to changes in the system operating conditions,
without manual intervention, and adjusts the control param-
eters in real time.
Linear-in-parameter neural networks (NNs) are used to
design an adaptive and distributed secondary voltage con-
trol. NNs are used to compensate for the uncertainties
caused by the unknown dynamics of DGs [43]–[45]. The
NN weights are the control parameters and are calculated
in real time. The DGs are considered as agents that can
communicate with each other through a communication
network. This communication network is modeled by a
digraph. The DG nonlinear dynamical model and param-
eters are assumed to be unknown. The Lyapunov tech-
nique is adopted to derive fully distributed control proto-
cols for each DG.
The dynamics of inverter-based DGs in (27) are nonlin-
ear. In this section, input–output feedback linearization
and NNs are used to compensate for the nonlinear dynam-
ics of DGs. Using input–output feedback linearization, the
direct relationship between the y i and u i is generated after
the second derivative of the output y i . This direct relation-
ship is shown in (31). The reformulated dynamics of each
DG in (31) can be written as
70  IEEE CONTROL SYSTEMS MAGAZINE  »  DECEMBER 2014
)
yo i, 1 / y i, 2, for all i
(54)
yo i, 2 = fi (x i) + g i (x i) u i, for all i
where y i / y i, 1, fi (x i) / L 2Fi h i, and g i (x i) / L g i L Fi h i .
Remark 1
The function g i (x i) is equal to 1/L fi C fi . Therefore, a posi-
tive constant g 0i exists such that (d/dt) (1/g i (x i)) # g 0i .
Using the input–output feedback linearization, each
agent’s dynamics are decomposed into the second-order
dynamical system in (54) and a set of internal dynamics.
Since y 0 = v ref is constant, yo 0 = 0. Define Yi = [y i, 1 y i, 2] T and
Y0 = [y 0, 1 y 0, 2] T = [v ref 0] T . The secondary voltage control is
solved if a distributed u i in (54) is found such that Yi syn-
chronizes to Y0, for all i. To design a controller independent
of DG parameters, it is assumed that the nonlinear dynamics
of DGs and, hence, functions fi (x i) and g i (x i) are unknown.
Therefore, NNs must be exploited to design an adaptive con-
troller that compensates for the nonlinear and uncertain
functions fi (x i) and g i (x i) .
The next section defines the sliding-mode error. Then
the sliding-mode errors are used to design adaptive and
distributed secondary controls for each DG using the
Lyapunov function technique.
Sliding-Mode Error
For each DG, the cooperative team objective is expressed in
terms of the local neighborhood tracking error
e i, m = / a ij ( y i, m - y j, m) + b i ( y i, m - y 0, m), (55)
j ! Ni
where a ij is the weight of the edge by which the jth DG is con-
nected to the ith DG, and b i is the pinning gain by which the
ith DG is connected to the leader node. For the secondary
voltage control, the leader node contains the information of
the voltage reference and, hence, Y0 = [y 0, 1 y 0, 2] T =[v ref 0] T .
Only a small portion of DGs need to be pinned to the leader
node. Define e i = [e i, 1 e i, 2] T, d i, m = y i, m - y 0, m, d i = Yi - Y0 ( d i
is called the local disagreement vector and Y0 is the leader node
dynamics), e = [e 1 e 2 g e N] T, and d = [d 1 d 2 g d N] T .
The global neighborhood tracking error e can be written as
e = (L + B) d, (56)
where B = diag " b i , .
Lemma 3 [19]
Let the digraph Gr have a spanning tree and b i ! 0 for at
least one root node. Then
e
d # , (57)
v (L + B)
and e = 0 if and only if all nodes synchronize.
The sliding-mode error ri for each DG is defined as
ri = m 1 e i, 1 + m 2 e i, 2 . (58)
The parameters m i are chosen such that the polynomial is a function of the local information available at the i th
m 1 + m 2 s is Hurwitz. Therefore, on the sliding surface ri = 0, DG, and
e i exponentially goes to zero. The derivative of the sliding-
mode error can be written as / a ij ( f j + g j u j)
j ! Ni
gr i =- (69)
gi
ro i = m 1 e i, 2 + / a ij ( fi + g i u i - f j - g j u j) + b i ( fi + g i u i) . (59)
j ! Ni is a function of the state variables of the i th DG and the
state variables of its neighboring DGs on the communica-
Defining d i = / a ij, (59) can be reformulated as tion digraph.
j ! Ni
To facilitate the adaptive control design, NNs are used
ro i = m 1 e i, 2 + (d i + b i) ( fi + g i u i) - / a ij ( f j + g j u j) . (60) to compensate for the nonlinear dynamics of rfi and gr i in
j ! Ni
(68) and (69) instead of the functions fi and g i in (54). The
Define unknown nonlinear function rfi is approximated on a pre-
scribed compact set Xrf by the linear-in-parameter NN,
E i, 1 = [e i, 1 e i, 2] / e Ti , (61)
rfi = WrTf zrf (e i,1, e i,2, x i) + frf , (70)
K =; E, (62)
0 1 i i i

-m 1 -m 2
where the NN weight vector is Wrfi ! R lrf ; frfi is the NN esti- i

then, mation error; zrfi ! R lrf consists of a set of lrfi basis functions;
i

e i, 1, e i, 2, and x i are the NN inputs; and W t rTfi zrfi is the NN

Eo i, 1 = E i, 1 K T + ri . (63) t rfi .
output. The estimates of weight vectors are denoted as W
Note that K is Hurwitz. Therefore, given any symmetric The error of the NN weights is defined as W u rTfi = Wt rTfi - WrTfi .
positive-definite matrix Pi, a positive real number b i exists The unknown nonlinear function gr i is approximated by
such that linear-in-parameter NNs,

K T Pi + Pi K =-b i I, (64) t rf-i, Wt rg-i) + frgi, (71)

gr i = WrTgi zrgi (x i, r-i, x -i, W
where I is the identity matrix.
where the NN weight vector is Wrgi ! R lrg ; frgi is the NN esti- i

The Adaptive and Distributed Controller Design mation error; zrgi ! R lrg consists of a set of lrgi basis functions;
i

The energy function [48] t rf-i, and Wt rg-i are the NN inputs; and Wt rTgi zrgi is
x i, r-i, x -i, W
the NN output. The estimates of weight vectors are denoted
r2
Vri = 1 i (65) as W t r.gi . The terms r-i, x -i, Wt rf-i, and Wt rg-i are the sliding-
2 gi
mode error, the states, and the NN estimated weight vec-
is used to design the adaptive control input u i and develop tors of the neighbors of i th DG on the communication
a Lyapunov function, which is exploited to prove that the digraph, respectively. The error of the NN weights is
designed control input synchronizes the output voltage defined as W u rTgi = Wt rTgi - WrTgi .
magnitudes of DGs. The adaptive control input u i must be
chosen such that the derivative of the Lyapunov function is Remark 2
locally negative definite. Considering Stone-Weierstrass approximation theorem
M M
Differentiating Vri and substituting ro i from (60) yields [49], positive numbers Wrfi , frfi , WrM M
g i , and f g i exist such that
r M
M M M
Wrfi # Wrfi , frfi # frfi , Wrgi # Wrgi , and frgi # frgi .
-go i
Vo ri = 1 e -g i0 + 2 o r 2i + ri g i-1 (- / a ij ( f j + g j u j))
2 gi j ! Ni
Definition 1

The Yi are cooperative uniformly ultimately bounded
+ ri g i c m 1 e i, 2 + (d i + b i) ( fi + g i u i) + m,
-1 g i g i0 ri
(66)
2 (UUB) with respect to Y0 if there exists a compact set
X 1 R r such that, for all (Yi (t 0) - Y0 (t 0)) ! X, there exists a
or equivalently, bound B and a time t f (B, (Yi (t 0) - Y0 (t 0))), both indepen-
-go i dent of t 0, where Yi (t 0) - Y0 (t 0) # B, for all t > t 0 + t f [43].
Vo ri = 1 e -g i0 + 2 o r i2
2 gi 
Lemma 4 [26]
+ rirfi + ri gr i + ri (d i + b i) u i, (67)
The commensurate reformulated dynamics of DGs in (54)
where are considered. Let the digraph Gr contain a spanning tree
and b i ! 0 for at least one root node. The internal dynamics
rfi = m 1 e i,2 +g(d i + b i) fi + g i20 ri (68) are assumed to be asymptotically stable. Suppose that the
i control inputs are chosen as

DECEMBER 2014  «  IEEE CONTROL SYSTEMS MAGAZINE  71

 Simulation Results for Distributed Secondary Frequency Control

T he effectiveness of the discussed frequency control proto-
col in (52) is verified by simulating the microgrid test sys-
tem shown in Figure 14. The resistances of loads 1 and 2 are
3 Ω and 2 Ω, respectively. The inductances of loads 1 and 2
are 6.4 and 3.2 mH, respectively. The simulation results are
performed in the presence of both fixed and time-varying com-
munication networks depicted in Figures S1 and S4. In both
cases, the microgrid is disconnected from the main grid and
switched to islanded mode at t = 0. As a result, the frequency
synchronization to the nominal frequency is lost. The distrib-
uted secondary control is switched on at t = 0.6 s and is seen
to restore the frequency to the nominal frequency and share the
active power among DGs based on their active power ratings.
The reference value for the microgrid frequency fref = ~ ref /2r is
50 Hz. The coupling gain c f is set to 400. It is assumed that the
microgrid is islanded from the main grid at t = 0, and the sec-
ondary frequency control is applied at t = 0.6 s. Figures S6 and
S7 show frequencies and active powers of DGs in the presence
of fixed and time-varying communication networks, respectively.
As seen in Figures S6(a) and S7(a), once the primary control is
applied, DG operating frequencies all go to a common value that
is the operating frequency of microgrid. However, the secondary
frequency control returns the operating frequency of microgrid
to its nominal value. Figures S6(b) and S7(b) show that the DG
output powers all satisfy (48) and (49) and are set according to
the power rating of DGs.

50.5 50.5
DG1 DG1
DG2 DG2
DG3 DG3
DG4 DG4
f(Hz)

f(Hz)
50 50

49.5 49.5
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 0 0.5 1 1.5 2
Time (s) Time (s)
(a) (a)
4
5
3.5
4
3
3
Dp*P

Dp*P

2.5
2
2
1
1.5
1 0
0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2
Time (s) Time (s)
(b) (b)

Figure S6  The secondary frequency control in the presence of
a fixed communication network: (a) distributed generator (DG)
frequencies and (b) DG active power ratios. As seen in (a), the
secondary frequency control returns the operating frequency
of microgrid to its nominal value. Graph (b) shows that the DG
output powers all satisfy (48) and (49) and are set according to
the power rating of DGs.
Figure S7  The secondary frequency control in the presence of
a time-varying communication network: (a) distributed genera-
tor (DG) frequencies and (b) DG active power ratios. As seen in
(a), the secondary frequency control returns the operating fre-
quency of microgrid to its nominal value. Part (b) shows that
the DG output powers all satisfy (48) and (49) and are set
according to the power rating of DGs. These simulation results
verify the effectiveness of the secondary frequency control in
the presence of time-varying communication networks.

Wt rfi zrfi Wt Tgi z gi

T
to rgi = Frgi zrgi ri - lrgi Frgi Wt rgi, (74)
W
u i =-c i ri - - r r , (72)
di + bi di + bi
where the arbitrary positive-definite matrices Frfi ! R lrf # lrf i i

where c i is the coupling gain, and the tuning laws are and Frgi ! R lrg # lrg and the coefficients lrfi and lrgi > 0 are
i i

chosen as design parameters. Then, Yi is cooperative UUB with

respect to Y0 and, hence, the direct term of DG output volt-
to rfi = Frfi zrfi ri - lrfi Frfi Wt rfi, (73)
W ages v odi synchronizes to v ref, if c i is chosen as

72  IEEE CONTROL SYSTEMS MAGAZINE  »  DECEMBER 2014

 v
2
r (Pi) , (75) Since G 1$ G 2$g$ G 3 , the inequality H >
ci >
2b i (d i + b i) G / v (S) holds if

G
where vr (Pi) denotes the maximum singular value of Pi in E i1 > 1
,
v (S)
(64), and b i is calculated from (64).
G
u rfi >
W 1
,
v (S)
Proof 
G 1
The Lyapunov function candidate for each agent is u rgi >
W ,
v (S)
G 1
r2 ri > , (86)
Vi = 1 i + 1 W
u T F -1 Wu + 1 Wu T F -1 Wu + 1 E P E T . (76) v (S)
2 g i 2 rfi rfi rfi 2 rgi rgi rgi 2 i1 i i1

The derivative of Vi is written as hold for all i, where v (S) is the minimum singular
value of S.
-go i
Vo i = 1 e -g i0 + 2 o r i2 + rirfi + ri gr i + ri (d i + b i) u i Therefore, the sliding-mode error and the NN weight
2 gi approximation errors are UBB by G 1 /v (S) . Since the
u rfi Frfi Wto rfi + Wu rTgi Fr-gi1 Wto rgi + Eo i1 Pi E iT1 .
+W
T -1
(77) sliding-mode errors are ultimately bounded, the local neigh-
borhood tracking errors in (55) are also bounded [37]. Accord-
Substituting (72)–(74) and (63) into (77) yields ing to Lemma 3, the d i are also ultimately bounded and,
hence, all Yi are cooperative UUB with respect to Y0 . There-
-go i fore, the direct term of DG output voltages v odi synchronizes
Vo i = 1 e -g i0 + 2 o r 2i - c i (d i + b i) r 2i - lrfi W
2
u rTfi Wrfi - lrfi Wu rfi to v ref, which completes the proof.
2 gi
2
u rTgi Wrgi - lrgi Wu rgi + E i1 K T Pi E Ti1 + ri Pi E Ti1 + frfi + frgi .
- lrgi W
Remark 3
(78)
The coupling gain affects the controller speed; larger
Substituting (64) into (78) yields values of c i increase the controller synchronization speed.
Additionally, the synchronization speed is affected by m 1
-go i
Vo i = 1 e -g i0 + 2 o r 2i - c i (d i + b i) r 2i - lrfi W
2
u rTfi Wrfi - lrfi Wu rfi and m 2 in (58). Greater values of m 2 with respect to m 1 force
2 gi
the local neighborhood tracking error e i, m in (39) to con-
2 bi
u rTgi Wrgi - lrgi Wu rgi - E i1 E Ti1 + ri Pi E Ti1 + frfi + frgi .
- lrgi W verge to zero faster and, hence, increases the synchroniza-
2
(79) tion  speed.  The NN weight estimates, W t rfi and Wt rgi, are
the adaptive weights in the control law in (72). By contrast,
According to Remarks 1 and 2 Frfi ! R lrf # lrf , Frgi ! R lrg # lrg , lrfi, and lrgi in the tuning laws in
i i i i

2 2 (73) and (74) are fixed design constants that are selected by
Vo # - c i (d i + b i) r i2 + lrfi W
u rfi Wrfi - lrfi Wu rfi + lrgi Wu rgi WrMgi
M
the designer to obtain suitable convergence properties for
2 bi
u rgi -
- lrgi W E i1 + ri vr (Pi) E i1 + frfi + frM
gi .
M
(80) the adaptive tuning laws.
 2
The block diagram of the adaptive and distributed sec-
Equation (80) can be written as ondary voltage control is shown in Figure 13. The discussed
control is fully independent of the DG parameters and the
Vo # -H T SH + G T H, (81)
connector specifications. Therefore, the performance of the
where secondary control does not deteriorate due to changing DG
H = 6 E i1 ri @ , (82)
u rfi u rgi T parameters (for example, due to aging and thermal effects.).
W W
Additionally, extensive studies are not required to tune the
R bi V r (Pi)
v control parameters. It should be noted that, despite the
S 0 0 W
S 2 2 W mentioned advantages of the adaptive and distributed volt-
S 0 lrfi 0 0 W age control over the conventional distributed voltage con-
S =S 0 0 lrgi 0 W, (83)
S W trol, the conventional method is simpler to implement.
SS vr (Pi) 0 0 c i (d i + b i)WW
T 2 X Case Studies
G = 80 lrfi Wrfi lrgi WrM
g i 0B . (84)
M T
The effectiveness of the discussed control protocols is veri-
fied by simulating the distributed control methods in this
If the matrix S is positive definite, and H > G / v (S), article for a microgrid test system in Matlab. The control
then Vo i < 0. According to Sylvester’s criterion, the matrix S protocols introduced in (43), (52), and (72) were applied to
is positive definite if the microgrid test system in Figure 14, which consists of
v r 2 (Pi) . (85) four DGs. The lines between buses are modeled as series
ci >
2b i (d i + b i) RL branches. The specifications of the DGs and lines are

DECEMBER 2014  «  IEEE CONTROL SYSTEMS MAGAZINE  73

 Simulation Results for Distributed and Adaptive Voltage Control

T he effectiveness of the distributed and adaptive voltage
control in (72) is verified by simulating the microgrid test
system in Figure 14. The resistances of loads 1 and 2 are 3 Ω
and 2 Ω, respectively. The inductances of loads 1 and 2 are 6.4
and 3.2  mH, respectively. The microgrid is disconnected from
the main grid at t = 0, and, hence, the voltage synchronization
is lost. The distributed and adaptive secondary voltage control
is switched on and restores the voltage magnitude of DGs or
a critical bus of the microgrid. For the distributed and adaptive
voltage control in (72), the coupling gain is c i = 4, which satisfies
(75). The values of m 1 and m 2 in (58) are chosen as m 1 = 10 and
m 2 = 1. The NN tuning parameters are set to Frfi = 10Irfi, Fgi = 10I gi
r r
(I N is an N # N identity matrix.), with lrfi = 10 and l gi = 10. The
r 1.05
distributed and adaptive voltage control in (72) is fully indepen-
dent of the DG parameters. Simulation results are presented for
each DG, rc and L c, are assumed to change from 0.03 Ω and
0.35 mH to 0.06 Ω and 0.7 mH at t = 1 s. As seen in Figure
S9, the performance of the adaptive voltage control does not
deteriorate as a result of the changes in rc and L c and the
voltage synchronization is satisfied.
The secondary voltage control can be defined to control the
voltage magnitude of the critical bus of microgrid. The critical
bus is shown in Figure 14. In this case study, the reference
voltage v ref is chosen according to (29), where v c,mag in (29)
denotes the voltage magnitude of the critical bus. The value of
1

Vo,mag(pu)
both fixed and time-varying communication networks.
In the first case, the adaptive and distributed voltage con-
trol are assumed to be associated with the fixed communica- DG1
0.95 DG2
tion network shown in Figure S1. DG 1 is the only DG con- DG3
DG4
nected to the leader node with the pinning gain b 1 = 1. The
0.9
microgrid is islanded from the main grid at t = 0, and the sec- 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2
ondary voltage control is applied at t = 0.6 s. Figure S8 shows Time (s)
the simulation results when the reference voltage value v ref
is set to 1 pu. As seen in Figure S8, while the primary control Figure S9  The performance of adaptive and distributed volt-
keeps the voltage stable, the secondary control returns all ter- age control subsequent to changes in distributed generator
minal voltage amplitudes to the prespecified reference value. (DG) parameters. The resistance and inductance of the output
To show that the proposed distributed and adaptive voltage connector of each DG, rc and L c, change from 0.03 Ω and
0.35 mH to 0.06 Ω and 0.7 mH. The performance of the adap-
control is fully independent of the changes in DG parameters,
tive voltage control does not deteriorate as a result of the
the resistance and inductance of the output connector of changes in rc and L c .

1.05 1.05

1
1
Vc,mag(pu)
Vo,mag(pu)

0.95
DG1
0.95 DG2
DG3 0.9
DG4
0.9 0.85
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 0 0.5 1 1.5
Time (s) Time (s)

Figure S8  The distributed generator output voltage magnitudes
before and after applying the adaptive and distributed secondary
voltage control. As seen, while the primary control keeps the volt-
age stable, the distributed and adaptive voltage control returns all
terminal voltage amplitudes to the prespecified reference value.
Figure S10  The voltage magnitude of the critical bus before
and after applying the adaptive and distributed voltage control.
The distributed and adaptive voltage control returns the volt-
age magnitude of critical bus to v nominal .

summarized in Table 1. For the simulation results for each
control protocol, see “Simulation Results for Distributed
Secondary Voltage Control,” “Simulation Results for Dis-
tributed Secondary Frequency Control,” and “Simulation
Results for Distributed and Adaptive Voltage Control.” The
distributed control protocols and test microgrid are mod-
eled in Matlab. In each case, the microgrid is initially con-
nected to the main grid, which provides frequency syn-
chronization and voltage support. At time t = 0 the
microgrid is disconnected from the main grid and switches

74  IEEE CONTROL SYSTEMS MAGAZINE  »  DECEMBER 2014

 1.05 1.05

1
1
Vo,mag(pu)

Vo,mag(pu)
0.95 DG1
DG1 DG1
DG2
DG2
DG2 0.95 DG3
DG3
0.9 DG3 DG4
DG4
DG4
0.85 0.9
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2
Time (s) Time (s)

Figure S11  A performance of adaptive and distributed voltage Figure S13  The distributed generator output voltage magni-
control subsequent to load changes. tudes when a time-varying communication network is used.

0.2 s. As seen in Figure S11, once the voltage control is stopped,

DG 1 DG 4 DG 1 DG 4 the voltage magnitudes drop due to the sudden load changes.
Reference Reference
However, at t = 1.2 s, the voltage control is applied again and
Value Value
returns the voltage magnitude of DGs to 1 pu, as seen in Figure
S11. Therefore, the performance of the adaptive voltage control
does not deteriorate as a result of the load changes, and the
DG 2 DG 3 DG 2 DG 3 adaptive voltage control effectively restores the output voltage
(a) (b) magnitude of the DGs to the nominal voltage.
DG 1 DG 4 In the second case, the adaptive voltage controller is
Reference assumed to be implemented through a time-varying commu-
Value
nication network. The microgrid is islanded from the main grid
at t = 0, and the secondary control is applied at t = 0.6 s. Fig-
ure S12 shows the three communication network structures
DG 2 DG 3 that are used in simulation. Each structure is adopted over a
(c) specific time interval. The communication digraph in Figure
S12(a) models the communication network over the time inter-
Figure S12  The digraphs for modeling the time-varying commu- val [(0.6 + 0.15k) s, (0.6 + 0.15k) + 0.05 s], for k = 0, 1, f .
nication network. The communication digraph in Figure S12(b) models the com-
munication network over the time interval [(0.65 + 0.15k) s,
v nominal in (29) is set to 1 pu, and k pc and k ic in (29) are set to (0.65 + 0.15k) + 0.05 s], for k = 0, 1, f . The communication
40 and 100, respectively. As seen in Figure S10, the secondary digraph in Figure S12(c) models the communication network
control returns the voltage magnitude of critical bus to v nominal. over the time interval [(0.7 + 0.15k) s, (0.7 + 0.15k) + 0.05 s], for
Figure S11 shows the simulation results considering the k = 0, 1, f . DG 1 is the only DG that is connected to the leader
load changes in the microgrid. It is assumed that the initial node with the pinning gain b 1 = 1. The weight of all edges in the
resistance of Loads 1 and 2 are 5 Ω, and the initial inductance communication digraphs is one. Figure S13 shows the simulation
of Loads 1 and 2 are 16 mH. At t = 1 s, Load 1 resistance and results when the reference voltage value is set to 1 pu. As seen,
inductance change from 5 Ω and 16 mH to 3 Ω and 6.4 mH, the secondary control returns all terminal voltage amplitudes to
respectively, and Load 2 resistance and inductance change the prespecified reference value. Compared with the simulation
from 5 Ω and 16 mH to 2 Ω and 3.2 mH, respectively. To show results shown in Figure S8, Figure S13 shows that the adaptive
the effectiveness of the adaptive voltage control under load voltage control appropriately works with time-varying communi-
changes, it is assumed that the voltage control is halted for cation networks.

to islanded mode. As a result, the frequency synchroniza- Conclusions

tion to the reference value is lost, and the voltage synchro- This article discusses and reviews the distributed and
nization to the desired value is lost. Then the distributed adaptive secondary control for microgrids containing
secondary control is switched on, and is seen to restore fre- inverter-based DGs and balanced loads. The main draw-
quency and voltage to the reference values. back of conventional secondary control schemes with

DECEMBER 2014  «  IEEE CONTROL SYSTEMS MAGAZINE  75

centralized structure is the single point of failure. The
single point of failure means that the whole secondary
control fails by the failure of the central control. The dis-
tributed control structure obviates this drawback and
improves the reliability of the microgrid secondary con-
trol. By using NNs, the distributed controllers are made
adaptive and independent of the DG parameters and the
connector specifications. Therefore, the performance of
the distributed secondary control does not deteriorate
with changes in DG parameters. All of discussed control
schemes are associated with a communication network.
To be controllable, the communication topology must be
a graph containing a spanning tree. Given the physical
structure of the microgrid, it is not difficult to select a
graph with a spanning tree that connects all the DGs in
an optimal fashion. Such optimal connecting graphs can
be designed using operations research or assignment
problem solutions. The optimization criteria can include
minimal lengths of the communication links, maximal
use of existing communication links, and minimal
number of links.
Alternative control strategies, such as centralized and
decentralized control methods, can also exhibit unique advan-
tages. For example, in a centralized structure, the central node
has direct and full access to all system information. Moreover,
centralized controllers act on systemwide information and
provide a global reference point that simplifies the controller
functionality. Decentralized controllers are even more reliable
since there is no communication among constituent inverters.
However, information exchange, even limited, can help shape
the global reference signals and is indispensable given the
hierarchical nature of the microgrid control systems.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work is supported by the National Science Foundation
under grants ECCS-1137354 and ECCS-1128050 and China
NNSF grant 61120106011.
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Ali Bidram (ali.bidram@mavs.uta.edu) received the B.S. and
M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Isfahan University
of Technology, Iran, in 2008 and 2010, respectively. He is pur-
suing the Ph.D. degree at the University of Texas at Arlington.
His research interests include renewable energy resources,
microgrid control, distributed control systems, and power
system dynamics. He can be contacted at the University of
Texas at Arlington Research Institute, University of Texas at
Arlington, 7300 Jack Newell Blvd. S., Ft. Worth, TX 76118 USA.
Frank L. Lewis is a Fellow of the IEEE, the National Acad-
emy of Inventors, the International Federation of Automatic
Control, and the U.K. Institute of Measurement and Control;
a Professional Engineer in Texas; a U.K. Chartered Engi-
neer; a University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) distinguished
scholar professor; a UTA distinguished teaching profes-
sor; and Moncrief-O’Donnell Chair at the UTA Research
76  IEEE CONTROL SYSTEMS MAGAZINE  »  DECEMBER 2014
Institute. He earned the bachelor’s in physics/electrical
engineering and the M.E.E. at Rice University, the M.S. in
aeronautical engineering from the University of West Flor-
ida, and the Ph.D. in electrical engineering at the Georgia
Institute of Technology. He works in feedback control, intel-
ligent systems, cooperative control systems, and nonlinear
systems. He has authored six U.S. patents, numerous journal
special issues, journal papers, and 14 books, including Opti-
mal Control, Aircraft Control, Optimal Estimation, and Robot
Manipulator Control, which are used as university textbooks
worldwide. He received the Fulbright Research Award, the
American Society for Engineering Education’s Frederick
Emmons Terman Award, the International Neural Network
Society’s Gabor Award, the U.K. Institute of Measurement
and Control’s Honeywell Field Engineering Medal, and the
IEEE Computational Intelligence Society’s Neural Networks
Pioneer Award. He received the Outstanding Service Award
from the Dallas IEEE Section, was selected as Engineer of the
Year by the Ft. Worth IEEE Section, and was listed in the Ft.
Worth Business Press’ Top 200 Leaders in Manufacturing.
He is a distinguished visiting professor at Nanjing Univer-
sity of Science and Technology and Project 111 Professor at
Northeastern University in Shenyang, China, and a found-
ing member of the Board of Governors of the Mediterranean
Control Association.
Ali Davoudi received the Ph.D. in electrical and computer
engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana, in 2010.
He is currently an assistant professor in the Electrical Engi-
neering Department of the University of Texas at Arlington.
He worked for Solar Bridge Technologies, Texas Instruments
Inc., and Royal Philips Electronics. He has served as the edi-
tor or guest editor of IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics,
IEEE Transactions on Energy Conversion, IEEE Transactions on
Smart Grids, IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, IEEE
Transactions on Industrial Informatics, and IEEE Transactions on
Vehicular Technology. His research interests are various control
aspects of power electronics, energy conversion, and finite-
inertia power systems.
References
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investigation of the medium and low voltage grids,” IEEE Trans. Smart Grid,
vol. 2, pp. 538–547, Sept. 2011.
[2] P. Fairley, “The unruly power grid,” IEEE Spectr., vol. 41, no. 8, pp. 22–27,
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