IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 32, NO.
5, SEPTEMBER 2017
LMI-Based Robust Predictive Load Frequency
Control for Power Systems With
Communication Delays
Pegah Ojaghi and Mehdi Rahmani, Member, IEEE
Abstract—This paper presents a robust predictive load fre-
quency control for power systems with uncertain parameters and
time delays in communication networks. The goal of the proposed
approach is to achieve good performance for the closed-loop system
under practical problems of the network including uncertainties
in the dynamic model, time delays in the system, and time-varying
model. To this end, a decentralized state-feedback control law is
obtained by solving an linear matrix inequality based optimization.
The aim of the optimization problem is to regularize the frequency
deviation with the minimum control effort. It is shown that the
stability of the system is guaranteed with respect to the Lyapunov
stability theorem. Moreover, the problem is reformulated as a cen-
tralized load frequency control (LFC) approach for single-area
power systems, and also as a non-predictive LFC method with
lower computational complexity. The performance and robustness
of the proposed strategy are studied through simulation results
in different cases of uncertain and time-varying single-area and
multi-area power systems with time delays.
Index Terms—Communication delays, lapunov stability theo-
rem, linear matrix inequalities, load frequency control, predictive
control, robust control.
NOMENCLATURE
Parameters of a power system
Δf frequency deviation (Hz)
ΔPm generator mechanical output deviation
ΔPv valve position deviation
ΔPd load disturbance
ΔPtie tie-line active power deviation
M moment of inertia of the generator
R speed drop
Tg time constant of the governor
Tch time constant of the turbine
D generator damping coefficient
β frequency bias factor
Tij tie-line synchronizing coefficient between the ith and
jth power areas
Manuscript received August 1, 2016; revised December 8, 2016; accepted
January 7, 2017. Date of publication January 17, 2017; date of current version
August 17, 2017. Paper no. TPWRS-01164-2016.
The authors are with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Imam-
Khomeini International University, Qazvin 3414916818, Iran (e-mail:
p.ojaghi68@gmail.com; mrahmani@eng.ikiu.ac.ir).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRS.2017.2654453
0885-8950 © 2017 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
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4091
I. INTRODUCTION
A. Load Frequency Control
OAD frequency control (LFC) has been effectively used
L in electrical power systems for many years to maintain
the system frequency and the power exchange between ar-
eas at desired scheduled values [1]. In the past four decades,
several LFC approaches have been proposed to guarantee the
stability, optimality and robustness of power systems [2]–[4].
One of the most applicable approaches is a proportional–
integral–derivative (PID) control [5], [6]. Besides PIDs, the
other modern and extended approaches in load frequency
control have been presented in the literature. They are re-
ported as fuzzy logic [7]; adaptive control [8]; neural net-
work [9]; active disturbance rejection control [10], [11]; lin-
ear matrix inequality (LMI) approach [12], [13]; two-level
optimal robust control [14]; robust H∞ control [2]; and
so on.
A LFC system employs dedicated communication chan-
nels for transmission of measurements from remote termi-
nal units (RTUs) to the control center. Due to the in-
troduction of open communication channel, constant and
time-varying delays have been introduced in the LFC prob-
lems [15]–[17]. It is well known that such delays could sig-
nificantly affect the performance of the control system; for
example, large time delays may cause instability of the sys-
tem, i.e. the frequency deviation will deviate far away from
zero [18].
Recently, several researchers have considered time delays in
design of load frequency controllers in deregulation and market
environments [19]. Among those studies, some of them did not
consider the delay during the design procedure, e.g. see [20],
and some others proposed a robust controller in which the time
delay is dealt as a part of model uncertainties [21]. Further to
these results, a graphical method to compute the stability region
in the parameter space of a PI controller for an LFC problem
in a single-area power system with time delay is proposed in
[22]. In [23], the delay-dependent stability of the LFC scheme
considering constant and time-varying delays is investigated.
The impact of time delays on stability of PI-based LFC systems
is presented in [24]. In [25], a delay-distribution-dependent H∞
LFC scheme is designed for power systems with probabilistic
communication delays.
4092
B. Model Predictive Control
Model predictive control (MPC) is a popular control strat-
egy which has received considerable attention due to its abil-
ity to handle hard constrains, input and output disturbances,
and uncertainties in dynamic systems. There were a number
of contributions in the field of robust model predictive control
dealing with issues like constraints, stability, efficient compu-
tation, optimization and so on. Some study in this field can
be found in [11], [26]–[28]. In [26], a method based on pseu-
doreferences to treat asymmetric output constraints in integrat-
ing SISO systems is presented. Ojaghi et al. [27], proposed
robust model predictive control for nonlinear systems with
state-dependent uncertainties. In [29], a robust distributed MPC
method for load frequency control in interconnected power sys-
tem is investigated. The entire power system is composed of
several subsystems and the problem is formulated as a con-
vex optimization problem with LMI constraints. In [30], a dis-
tributed model predictive control for load frequency control
with dynamic fuzzy valve position for a four-area hydrother-
mal interconnected power system is proposed. In [31], a model
predictive load frequency control is presented for an intercon-
nected power plant based on a simplified model of the Nordic
power system. It is remarkable that all of the above men-
tioned studies do not consider communication delays in LFC
systems.
C. Decentralized LFC
Another concern in design of LFC for large-scale power sys-
tem is computational and storage complexities of centralized
control approaches. They need all information of the system to
be available at a control center and the whole system is con-
sidered at once with the large number of equations [14]. In
order to overcome this issue, decentralized control approaches
are presented for large-scale systems. Due to the inherent struc-
ture of multi-area power systems, decentralized LFC schemes
are appealing for their simplicity in design and implementa-
tion, and also the lower computational complexity [32], [33].
In decentralized LFC, each power area can execute its control
regarding to locally available information [34]. Although most
of the LFC schemes for time delay power systems are central-
ized algorithms, decentralized PI control has been presented for
power systems with communication delays [21]. The PI con-
troller is obtained using a developed LMI-based approach that
gives a suboptimal solution for the LFC problem. In [35], an-
other decentralized controller for time delay LFC problems is
investigated. The primary aim of the algorithm is to design a
robust controller that can ensure stability of the system despite
indeterminate delays.
D. Motivation and Paper Organization
Stability assurance is the main objective in design of the afore-
mentioned LFC approaches which keeps the researchers away to
consider the optimality and robustness of the method. Optimal
operation of the system along with robustness against change
of parameters and unmodelled dynamics are two of the most
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 32, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER 2017
important and obligatory performance of a control paradigm
for a power system. Also, the data drop caused by the commu-
nication fault can be converted to an equivalent time-varying
system that is not considered in the literature so far. Moreover,
to the best of authors’ knowledge, up to now, little attention has
been paid to robust predictive control of power systems with de-
centralized LFC scheme while considering the communication
delays. This issue motivates us to present a new decentralized
robust LMI-based model predictive control for single-area and
multi-area LFC systems that can guarantee the stability of the
system for large time delays and also provide optimal perfor-
mance in presence of uncertainties, and time-varying dynamics.
In this approach, at each power area, a semi-definite program
(SDP) is derived and solved online to obtain state-feedback
control inputs that guarantee the stability of the system with re-
spect to the Lyapunov stability theorem, and also ensure robust
performance in presence of uncertainties, and other problems
in the communication network. As it is previously mentioned,
the main goal of LFC systems is to maintain the frequency de-
viation at desired scheduled values. Therefore, a semi-definite
optimization problem is introduced to regularize the frequency
deviation with the minimum control effort. Due to the predic-
tive nature of the proposed control approach, the system has
a good performance for large time delays and time-varying
dynamics.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. In Section II,
the time delayed LFC dynamic models of both one-area and
multi-area LFC systems are presented. The robust predictive
frequency control with guaranteed stability as an LMI opti-
mization problem is proposed in Section III. In this section, two
extensions of the proposed method as a centralized LFC and
non-predictive LFC are also presented. Section IV considers
several case studies to illustrate the validity and effectiveness
of the proposed LFC approach. Finally, some conclusions are
drawn in Section VI.
E. Notation
Throughout this paper, the notations x(k + i|k), u(k + i|k)
are the values of the vector x and u at a future time k + i,
predicted at time k, respectively. dig(...) denotes the block-
diagonal matrix.
II. DYNAMIC MODEL OF LFC WITH TIME DELAY
The dynamic models of power systems in LFC problems are
presented by a set of nonlinear equations. Although power sys-
tems are generally nonlinear, linearized models are permissible
in load frequency control problems because only small changes
of load are expected during a normal operation [1]. Moreover,
as discussed in [1], [24], in an open communication network,
all delays are aggregated into a constant or time-varying delay.
Then, the conventional LFC model is modified so that it includes
time delays [1]. Here, the state space model of single-area and
multi-area LFC systems including communication delays are
presented.
OJAGHI AND RAHMANI: LMI-BASED ROBUST PREDICTIVE LOAD FREQUENCY CONTROL FOR POWER SYSTEMS WITH COMMUNICATION 4093

Fig. 1. Dynamic model of the ith control area in a multi-area LFC system.

A. One-Area LFC Model In summary, the system (1) can be represented as

The dynamic model of a one-area LFC system is described
by the following state-space equation model [1], [23], [36]: 
ẋ(t) = Ax(t) + Ad x(t − d(t)) + Bu(t) + F ΔPd (t)
 (7)
˙
x̄(t) = Āx̄(t) + B̄u(t) + F̄ ΔPd y(t) = Cx(t)
(1)
ȳ(t) = C̄ x̄(t)

where where
 
x̄(t) = Δf ΔPm ΔPv  
x(t) = Δf ΔPm ΔPv ΔE (8)
ȳ(t) = ACE (2) ⎡ ⎤
⎡ D 1 ⎤ −
D 1
0 0
− 0 ⎢ M M ⎥
⎢ M M ⎥ ⎢ ⎥
⎢ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥
⎢ −1 ⎥ 1  ⎢ 0 −1 1
0⎥
1 ⎢ ⎥
Ā = ⎢
⎢ 0
⎥, B̄ = 0
⎥ 0 , A= ⎢ Tch Tch ⎥,
⎢ Tch Tch ⎥ Tg ⎢ −1 −1 ⎥
⎣ −1 ⎦ ⎢ ⎥
−1 ⎢ 0 0⎥
0 ⎣ RTg Tg ⎦
RTg Tg
β 0 0 0

−1   ⎡ ⎤
F̄ = 0 0 , C̄ = β 0 0 (3) 0 0 0 0
M 
⎢ ⎥ 1
⎢0 0 0 0 ⎥ B= 0 0 0
Considering no net tie-line power exchange in the one-area ⎢ ⎥ Tg
⎢ ⎥
LFC system and defining β as the frequency bias factor, the Ad = ⎢ ⎥
⎢ 0 0 0 −1 ⎥, F = −1


area control error (ACE) is given by ⎢ ⎥ 0 0 0

⎢ Tg ⎥ M
⎣ ⎦  
ACE = βΔf. (4) 0 0 0 0 C= 1 0 0 1

Also, ΔE is defined as
t
ΔE(t) = ACE(τ )dτ, (5) B. Multi-Area LFC Model
0
All generation units in each control area for a multi-area LFC
which demonstrates the integral of frequency deviation that scheme are simplified as an equivalent generation unit. Fig. 1
needs to go to zero at steady state [14]. illustrates the schematic diagram of the model of ith power
Due to the ACE delay, the linearized model of the governor area. The dynamic model of an N -area LFC system is given as
valve position is given by [35]: follows [1], [23]:
Δf (t) ΔPv (t) ΔE(t − d(t)) u(t)
ΔP˙v (t) = − − − + (6) 
RTg Tg Tg Tg ẋ(t) = Ax(t) + Ad x(t − d(t)) + Bu(t) + F ΔPd (t)
(9)
where d(t) denotes the delay of the system. y(t) = Cx(t)

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4094 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 32, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER 2017

where III. DECENTRALIZED ROBUST PREDICTIVE LOAD FREQUENCY

  CONTROL FOR TIME-DELAYED POWER SYSTEMS
x(t) = x1 (t) x2 (t) xN (t) ,...
In this section, a decentralized robust model predictive control
  (RMPC) is proposed for the LFC problem by using the LMI
y(t) = y1 (t) y2 (t) ... yN (t) ,
  technique. The method deals with linear dynamic models with
u(t) = u1 (t) u2 (t) ... uN (t) , known time delays. In the following, the detailed description of
  the proposed approach is presented.
ΔPd (t) = ΔPd1 (t) ΔPd2 (t) ... ΔPdN (t) ,
⎡ ⎤ A. Mathematical Model
A11 A12 ... A1N
⎢ A21 A22 ... A2N ⎥ The time-delayed discrete-time model of ith area for any
⎢ ⎥
A= ⎢ .. .. .. .. ⎥, multi-area power system could be presented as follows
⎣ . . . . ⎦
AN 1 AN 2 ... ANN xi (k + 1) = Aii xi (k) + Adi xi (k − d) + Bi ui (k) + Di zi (k)
 
B= diag B1 B2 . . . BN , xi (k) = φi (k), k ∈ [−d, 0] (13)
 
C= diag C1 C2 . . . CN , where xi ∈ Rn i , ui ∈ Rm i , and φi (k) ∈ Rn i represent the state
  vector, input vector, and the initial condition of the system,
F = diag F1 F2 . . . FN . (10) respectively and d denotes a positive integer for time delay.
Moreover, zi (k) is the interaction vector and Di is the interaction
States and matrices of ith area are presented as matrix.
  Interaction signal represents the impact of the other areas on
xi (t) = Δfi ΔPm i ΔPv i ΔEi ΔPtie−i , operation of the ith area via tie-line powers. It is given as [14]:
   
 
1 −1 zi = x 
1 , · · · , xj , · · · , xN
Bi = 0 0 0 0 , Fi = 0 0 0 0 , , j = i, j = 1, 2, · · · , N (14)
Tg i Mi Di = [Ai1 , · · · , Aij , · · · , AiN ]
⎡ ⎤
Di 1 −1 Moreover, the multi-area power system presented in (13) is
⎢ − Mi Mi
0 0
Mi ⎥ considered to be uncertain with the polytopic uncertainty. It
⎢ ⎥
⎢ −1 1 ⎥ means that the system matrix [Aii (k) Adi (k) Bi (k)] belongs to
⎢0 0 0 ⎥
⎢ ⎥ a polytope set Ωi at all times k.
⎢ Tchi Tchi ⎥
⎢ −1 −1 ⎥ 
Aii = ⎢
⎢ 0 0
⎥
0 ⎥, [Aii (k) Adi (k) Bi (k)] ∈ Ωi = Co [Ar 1 Adr 1 Br 1 ],
⎢ RTg i Tg i ⎥
⎢ ⎥ 
⎢ βi 0 0 0 1 ⎥
⎢ ⎥ [Ar 2 Adr 2 Br 2 ], · · · , [Arp Adrp Brp ] (15)
⎢  ⎥
⎣ 2π n Tij 0 0 0 0 ⎦
j =1,j = i where Co refers to the convex hull and the systems matrices
⎡ ⎤ [Ar i (k) Adr i (k) Br i (k)], for i = 1, · · · , p, are vertices of the
0 0 0 0 0 convex hull.
⎢ 0 0 0 0 0⎥
⎢ ⎥
Aij = ⎢
⎢ 0 0 0 0 0⎥ ⎥, B. Proposed Decentralized RMPC for LFC Systems
⎣ 0 0 0 0 0⎦ Suppose that xi (k + l|k) and ui (k + l|k) denote the l-step
−2πTij 0 0 0 0 ahead predicted state vector and control action at time k. The aim
⎡ ⎤ of the control problem is to find a stabilizing decentralized state-
0 0 0 0 0
⎢0 0 0 0 0⎥ feedback control ui (k) = Li (k)xi (k) to minimize the following
⎢ ⎥
⎢ −1 ⎥ separable performance index
Adi = ⎢
⎢0 0 0 0⎥⎥. (11)
⎢ Tg ⎥ 
N
⎣0 0 0 0 0⎦ J(k) = Ji (k), (16)
0 0 0 0 0 i=1

where Ji (k) is the quadratic cost function at the ith area given
Consider that all variables and parameters for ith area use the as
same notations as one-area LFC system with an additional sub- ∞
script i. Ji (k) = xi (k + l|k) Qi xi (k + l|k)
The ACE signal in a multi-area LFC system is the sum of l=0
tie-line power exchange and frequency deviation weighted by a
bias factor as follows: + ui (k + l|k) Ri ui (k + l|k), (17)
n i ×n i m i ×m i
in which Qi ∈ R and Ri ∈ R are two given sym-
ACEi = βi Δfi + ΔPtie−i . (12) metric positive definite matrices, and l is the prediction horizon.

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OJAGHI AND RAHMANI: LMI-BASED ROBUST PREDICTIVE LOAD FREQUENCY CONTROL FOR POWER SYSTEMS WITH COMMUNICATION 4095

Remark 1: The quadratic cost function in (17) is considered where

to regularize the state vector, xi , with the minimum control
effort, ui . Wi (xi (k|k)) = xi (k|k) Pi x(k|k) + xi (k − d|k)
To compute the optimal control input such that minimizes
× P1i xi (k − d|k),
Ji (k) subject to uncertain time-delayed model (13), at each
sampling time k, consider a Lyapunov function as follows
and γi is a positive scalar represents the upper bound for Wi .

d−2 Now, the original problem can be relaxed to the following
Vi (xi ) = xi (k) Pi xi (k) + xi (k − j − 2) optimization problem that minimizes the upper bound of the
j =0 original cost function Ji (k).
k −d

× P1i xi (k − j − 2) + xi (j) P1i xi (j) min γi
γ i ,P i ,P 1 i
j =0
subject to Wi (xi (k|k)) < γi (22)

d
+ xi (j) P1i xi (j) (18)
Considering Pi = γi G−1
i and P1i = γi G−1
1i and using the
j =k −1
Schur complement [38], the problem is equivalent to
where Pi , P1i are positive definite symmetric matrices. To guar-
antee the stability of the system, the above Lyapunov function min γi
γ i ,G i ,G 1 i
should be decreasing in time [37]. For this purpose, it is assumed ⎡ ⎤
that the following inequality holds for the given time-delayed I xi (k|k) xi (k − d|k)
system. subject to ⎣ xi (k|k) Gi 0 ⎦ > 0.
xi (k − d|k) 0 G1i
Vi (xi (k + l + 1)) − Vi (xi (k + l)) ≤ −xi (k + l|k) (23)
× Qi xi (k + l|k) − ui (k + l|k) Ri ui (k + l|k) (19)
Now, to guarantee the stability of the system, substituting the
Summing both sides of the inequality (19) from l = 0 to l = ∞ state space equation (13) in the stability condition (19) results
and requiring xi (∞|k) = 0 because of decreasing Lyapunov in the inequality (24) which can be presented as (25) by sub-
function, one get stituting the control input ui (k + l|k) = Li (k)xi (k + l|k). The
inequalities (24) and (25) are presented at the bottom of the page.
xi (∞|k) Pi xi (∞|k) + xi (∞|k) P1i xi (∞|k) By pre- and post-multiplying both sides of the inequality (25)
by diag(Gi , Mi , G1i , M1i ) then applying the Schur comple-
− xi (k) Pi x(k) − xi (k − d) P1i xi (k − d) ≤ −Ji . (20)
ment and denoting Yi = Li Gi , Pi = γi G−1 −1
i , P1i = γi G1i the
Consequently, the upper bound of the cost function can be ex- following LMI is achieved.
pressed as
Δ11 Δ12
Δi = > 0, (26)
Ji (k) ≤ Wi (xi (k|k)) < γi , (21) Δ21 Δ22

  
Aii xi (k + l) + Bi ui (k + l) + Adi xi (k + l − d) + Di zi (k + l) Pi Aii xi (k + l) + Bi ui (k + l) + Adi xi (k + l − d)

 
d−2 
k +l+1−d
+ Di zi (k + l) − xi (k + l) Pi xi (k + l) + xi (k + l − j − 1) P1i xi (k + l − j − 1) + xi (j) P1i xi (j)
j =0 j =0

k
+l−d 
d 
d 
d−2
− xi (j) P1i xi (j) + xi (j) P1i xi (j) − xi (j) P1i xi (j) − xi (k + l − j − 2) P1i xi (k + l − j − 2)
j =0 j =k +l j =k +l−1 j =0

≤ −xi (k + l|k) Qi xi (k + l|k) − ui (k + l|k) Ri ui (k + l|k) (24)

⎡ ⎤
(Aii + Bi Li ) Pi (Aii + Bi Li ) − Pi ⎡ ⎤
⎢ 0 (Aii + Bi Li ) Pi Adi (Aii + Bi Li ) Pi Di ⎥ xi (k + l)
⎢ +Qi + L i Ri Li ⎥ ⎢ xi (k + l − d + 1) ⎥
ζi ⎢
⎢ 0 P1i 0 0 ⎥⎢ ⎥
⎥ ⎣ xi (k + l − d) ⎦ > 0
⎣ A P
di i (A ii + B L
i i ) 0 A 
di i di − P1i
P A A P D
di i i
⎦
zi (k + l)
Di Pi (Aii + Bi Li ) 0 Di Pi Adi Di Pi Di   
   ζi
Δi >0
(25)

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4096 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 32, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER 2017

where
⎡ ⎤ Algorithm 1: Proposed decentralized robust predictive load
Gi 0 0 0 frequency control strategy.
⎢ 0 Mi 0 0 ⎥
Δ11 =⎢
⎣ 0
⎥, 1: Inputs:
0 G1i 0 ⎦ The state space equations of a multi-area power
0 0 0 M1i system.
Δ12 = Δ 2: Initialize:
21 =
⎡ Initial values of states and initial condition of the
(Aii Gi + Bi Yi ) 0 0 0 system for each area. The start time is k = 1.
⎢ 3: while k < kend ∗ do
⎢ 0 Mi Mi 0
⎢ 4: for i = 1 to N do
⎢ (A G )
⎣ di 1i 0 0 0 5: Obtain the feedback gain of ith area Li by
(Di M1i ) 0 0 M1i solving the main optimization problem presented in the
 ⎤ (27), and then compute the control input as
(Q0.5
i Gi ) (Ri0.5 Gi ) ui (k + l|k) = Li (k)xi (k + l|k).
⎥
0 0 ⎥ 6: end for
⎥,
0 0 ⎥ 7: Apply the control input to the system at time k.
⎦ 8: k = k + 1:
0 0 9: end while
* kend is the final time of running the algorithm.
Δ22 = diag(Gi , Mi , G1i , M1i , γi I, γi I).
In summary, the optimization problem at ith area that minimizes
the cost function (17), and guarantees the stability of the area in
an interconnected multi-area LFC system can be reformulated C. Non-Predictive LMI-Based Robust LFC Approach
as the following optimization problem with the LMI constraints. The proposed design algorithm can be converted to a non-
predictive LMI-based robust optimal LFC scheme with the fol-
min γi
γ i ,G i ,G 1 i ,M i ,M 1 i ,Y i lowing cost function at ith area.
subject to (23), (26). (27)
∞

The main aim of this optimization problem is to minimize the Ji = xi (k) Qi xi (k) + ui (k) Ri ui (k). (30)
upper bound of the cost function (17) in order to regularize k =0
the states of the system including the frequency deviation with
the minimum control input. It is called non-predictive, because the prediction horizon, l, is
Finally, at each sample time k, the decentralized control input omitted in the cost function.
of ith area is obtained as a state-feedback control law given by The state-feedback control input ui (k) = Li xi (k) can be
achieved by a similar procedure as presented in Section III-
ui (k + |k) = Li (k)xi (k + |k), (28)
B, and the corresponding optimization problem would also be
in which the gain Li is computed by the optimization variables the same as (27).
obtained from solving (27) as follows Remark 3: In non-predictive LMI-based RMPC, to solve the
optimization problem (27), in the LMI constraint (23), xi (k|k)
Li (k) = Yi G−1
i (29) and xi (k − d|k) should be replaced by xi (0) and xi (−d), re-
and the procedure is repeated for time k + 1. spectively.
The proposed robust predictive load frequency control can be Remark 4: In the proposed predictive LFC algorithm, the
summarized in Algorithm 1. optimization problem is solved at all times k to obtain time-
Remark 2: In the decentralized LFC approach, the optimiza- varying Li (k) and achieve l-step ahead prediction of states and
tion problem (27) is solved locally at ith area, for i = 1, · · · , N , inputs; however, in the non-predictive approach, the optimiza-
where the complexity is related to the dimension of that area. tion problem is solved once to obtain the constant state feedback
By parallel processing of areas, the computational effort of the gain Li . As a result, the non-predictive LFC approach has lower
problem for an N -area power system is in the order of a one- computational effort but it loses the time-varying property of
area’s control problem. This can significantly reduce the com- the proposed predictive LFC strategy.
putational time of the algorithm in particular when the number
of areas increases.
D. Centralized LMI-Based Robust Predictive LFC Approach
Although this control scheme is a decentralized RMPC ap-
proach for multi-area LFC systems, it can be easily changed to The proposed decentralized algorithm can be applied as a cen-
a centralized method for a single-area power system, and also tralized approach for a single-area LFC system. To this end, by
can be applied as a (non-predictive) robust LFC approach with eliminating the interaction matrix in (13), considering one Lya-
lower computational complexity. punov function for one-area, and following the same procedure,

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OJAGHI AND RAHMANI: LMI-BASED ROBUST PREDICTIVE LOAD FREQUENCY CONTROL FOR POWER SYSTEMS WITH COMMUNICATION 4097

the optimization problem is given by

min γ
γ ,G ,G 1
⎡ ⎤
I x(k|k) x(k − d|k)
subject to ⎣ x(k|k) G 0 ⎦>0
x(k − d|k) 0 G1
(31)

Δ11 Δ12
Δ= > 0, (32)
Δ21 Δ22
where
⎡ ⎤
G 0 0
Δ11 =⎣0 M 0 ⎦,
0 0 G1

Δ12 = Δ 21 =
⎡ ⎤
(AG + BY ) 0 0 (Q0.5 G) (R0.5 G) Fig. 2. Time responses of different controllers for uncertain one-area LFC
⎣ 0 M M 0 0 ⎦, system (Case I).

(Ad G1 ) 0 0 0 0

Δ22 = diag(G, M, G1 , γI, γI).

Accordingly, the control input u(k + |k) = L(k)x(k + |k)
can be computed at each sample time k, by the following state
feedback gain
L(k) = Y G−1 (33)
and the method is done again at time k + 1.
Remark 5: The centralized approach is developed for single-
are LFC systems; however, it can be applied for multi-area
LFC problems when all information of areas be available at
a control centre. In this case, the problem (31) is solved for
the whole power system with the large number of equations.
Consequently, the centralized LFC for multi-are power system
has bigger computational time than the decentralized approach.

IV. SIMULATION STUDY

The validity and performance of the proposed LMI-based
Fig. 3. Time responses of different controllers for varying one-area LFC
robust predictive LFC (LMI-PLFC), and non-predictive LFC system (Case II).
(LMI-NPLFC) schemes are investigated for one-are and multi-
are power systems. The results have been compared with the
LMI based LFC (LMI-LFC) approach presented in [35], the The polytopic uncertainty in the dynamic model is considered
popular PI-based LFC (PI-LFC) reported in [24], and decentral- because of the following variations in parameters.
ized PI-LFC (DPI-LFC) in [21]. It is remarkable that all systems 1 1
suffer from the delays, and step load demand of ΔPd = 0.01 ∈ [3.051, 7.883], ∈ [0.8, 4.5]
Tch Tg
is applied to all units. Different cases of uncertain and time-
varying systems for one-area LFC, and decentralized control 1
∈ [43.081, 60.639] (34)
structure for a multi-area LFC system are considered to show RTg
the superior performance of the proposed LFC approach.
The responses of the LFC system equipped with PI controller
[24], load frequency control method based on linear matrix in-
A. Case I–Uncertain One-Area LFC System equalities presented in [35], and the proposed LMI-based robust
The simulation is performed based on a one-area LFC system predictive and non-predictive controllers are shown in Fig. 2.
studied in [35]. The dynamic model is presented in Section II-A It demonstrates good time responses, lower fluctuations, and
and the nominal values of parameters are listed in Appendix A. more robustness of the proposed LMI-based LFC approaches.

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4098 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 32, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER 2017

Fig. 4. ΔE and Δf responses of all areas in a multi-area LFC scheme with different methods (Case III).

It is remarkable that the communication delay of the system is

assumed to be three seconds, (d = 3 sec).

B. Case II–Time-Varying One-Area LFC System

As it is mentioned, the communication fault in power sys-
tem may cause data drop and can be modelled as an equiva-
lent time-varying system. The single-area LFC system in [35]
is considered again with a constant time delay, d = 3 sec. A
sudden change in dynamic model of the system is considered
at t = 30 second.
As shown in Fig. 3, the varying model of system affected the
responses of all LFC schemes. The approaches in [35] and [24]
become unstable, whereas the proposed LMI-PLFC and LMI-
NPLFC approaches have stable and fast transient responses.
Due to the predictive nature of the LMI-PLFC, it shows better
performance compared with the non-predictive LFC approach.

Fig. 5. Applied control of all different methods (Case III).

C. Case III–Decentralized Predictive LFC Scheme for
Three-Area Power System
Consider a three-area power system reported in [35], where
the first area is modelled by two generators and the other areas
have single generator equivalents. The dynamic model is pre-
sented in Section II-B and the system parameters are listed in
Appendix A. For performance studies, the decentralized LMI-
PLFC and LMI-NPLFC are compared with the decentralized
LMI-based LFC approach in [35], and the decentralized PI con-
troller (DPI-LFC) in [21]. The time responses of frequency
deviation, Δf , and ΔE for all areas are depicted in Fig. 4. The
applied control inputs at each area are also shown in Fig. 5.
The results show two aspects of advantages for the proposed
LMI-PLFC scheme in comparison with the other decentralized
LFC approaches. First, its responses in Fig. 4 have very good
time specifications such as lower settling time and overshoot.
Second, this good performance is obtained with better control
efforts as shown in Fig. 5. It is remarkable that large control
inputs with fluctuations may cause severe problems in actuators
and governors of LFC systems. Therefore, it is very important
to consider the profile of control input along with the frequency
deviation of the system in the LFC problems.
Moreover, in the decentralized approaches for multi-area LFC
systems, by parallel processing of areas, the solution time would
be less than the centralized controllers in which the whole
system with large number of equations is considered at once.
For comparison, if the proposed centralized LFC approach in
Section III-D is applied to solve the three-area LFC system, the
solution time would be about 15.25 sec compared to 6.95 sec
obtained by the proposed decentralized LMI-PLFC and 4.85 sec
for decentralized LMI-NPLFC.

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OJAGHI AND RAHMANI: LMI-BASED ROBUST PREDICTIVE LOAD FREQUENCY CONTROL FOR POWER SYSTEMS WITH COMMUNICATION
Remark 6: The proposed predictive LFC approach solved
well in the range of real-time applications, e.g. the average time
to solve the optimization problem in (27) at each sample time
for one area is less than 0.8 sec.
It should be noted that all simulations are performed on a
same PC with an Intel Core i7 CPU and 4 GB RAM.
V. DISCUSSIONS
In the above studies, one-area and multi-area power systems
with communication delays are considered to evaluate the per-
formance of the proposed robust predictive LFC approach. For
a single-area LFC system, Figs. 2–3 show the better perfor-
mance of the proposed control strategy compared with the two
existing LFC approaches. It should be pointed out that consider-
ing the communication delay with uncertainty and time-varying
parameters in the LFC system are key features different from
some existing works. Moreover, for a multi-area LFC system,
Figs. 4–5 indicate that the proposed decentralized predictive
LFC strategy is preferable than the existing decentralized LFC
approaches. Considering decentralized control structure for a
multi-area LFC system with time-delays, uncertainty, and time-
varying parameters is the other new feature which is out of the
scope of those previous works.
VI. CONCLUSION
In this paper, a new LMI-based robust predictive LFC is
proposed for power systems with communication delays. In
this approach, the stability of the systems is guaranteed by the
Lyapunov stability theorem and state-feedback control input is
obtained by solving a semi-definite programming with LMI con-
straints. Although the algorithm is developed as a decentralized
control approach for multi-area LFC systems, it can be applied
as a centralized method for single-area power systems. This con-
trol scheme is robust with respect to uncertainties in dynamic
model and has good performance for time delays in the com-
munication network. Moreover, it is shown that the predictive
LFC (PLFC) approach is applicable to time-varying power sys-
tems caused by failures in the networks. The proposed approach
is also reformulated as a non-predictive LFC (NPLFC) method.
The NPLFC has lower computational effort, however, it loses the
good performance of the proposed predictive LFC in particular
for time-varying power systems. Simulation results for differ-
ent cases of uncertain and time-varying LFC systems with time
delays, along with the decentralized scheme for a multi-area
power system show the robustness and superior performance of
the proposed LFC approach.
APPENDIX A
The nominal values of parameters for the one-area LFC sys-
tem are given by [35]
Tch = 0.17 s, Tg = 0.4 s, R = 0.05, D = 1.5, M = 12,
4 control for multi-area power systems with communication delays,” IEEE
β= + D.
R
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4099
The system parameters of the three-area power system are
presented as follows [35].
1) First area
Tch1 = 0.3 s, Tch2 = 0.3 s, Tg 1 = 0.1 s, Tg 2 = 0.1 s
R1 = 0.05, R2 = 0.05, D1 = 1.5, M1 = 10
2
β1 = + D1 (36)
R1
2) Second area (equivalent unit of four generators)
Tch3 = 0.17 s, Tg 3 = 0.4 s, R3 = 0.05, D3 = 1.5,
4
M3 = 12, β3 = + D3 (37)
R3
3) Third area (equivalent unit of three generators)
Tch4 = 0.17 s, Tg 4 = 0.4 s, R4 = 0.05, D4 = 1.5,
3
M4 = 12, β4 = + D4 . (38)
R4
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Pegah Ojaghi received the B.Sc. degree in electrical
engineering from Hamedan University of Technol-
ogy, Hamedan, Iran, in 2012 and the M.Sc. degree in
electrical engineering from Imam Khomeini Interna-
tional University, Qazvin, Iran, in 2015.
Her current research interests include model pre-
dictive control, robust control, nonlinear systems,
load frequency control, and stability analysis and con-
trol of power systems.
Mehdi Rahmani (S’10–M’13) received the B.Sc.,
M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering
from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran,
in 2002, 2004, and 2013, respectively.
In 2013, he joined the Department of Electrical En-
gineering, Imam Khomeini International University
(IKIU), Qazvin, Iran, where he has been the Head of
the EE group since 2016. His current research inter-
ests include robust control, model predictive control,
estimation, distributed systems, and power systems’
modeling, stabilization, optimization and control.