Power system damping controllers design using a backstepping control technique

The objective of this dissertation is to design and coordinate controllers that will enhance transient stability of power systems subject to large disturbances. Two specific classes of controllers have been investigated, the first one is a type of supplementary signals added to the excitation systems of the generating units, and the second is a type of damping signal added to a device called a Static Var Compensator that can be placed at any node in the system. To address a wide range of operating conditions, a nonlinear control design technique, called backstepping control, is used. While these two types of controllers improve the dynamic performance significantly, a coordination of these controllers is even more promising. Control coordination is presented in two parts. First part concerns simultaneous optimization of selected control gains of exciter and SVC in coping with the complex nature of power systems. Second part proposes a combination of reinforcement learning and a backstepping control technique for excitation control system. The reinforcement learning progressively learns and adapts the backstepping control gains to handle a wide range of operating conditions. Results show that the proposed control technique provides better damping than conventional power system stabilizers and backstepping fixed gain controllers