F F

Abstract-- HVDC and FACTS devices have been widely

applied in power systems for their excellent and flexible control
abilities. Their contributions to the damping of system
oscillations are of great importance for achieving satisfactory
system performance. This paper demonstrates a multi-objective
robust damping control design for interarea mode damping in
the power system using global stabilizing signals. Global signals
have greater observability and controllability compared with
the local ones, and in this paper eigenvalue analysis method is
adopted to choose the most suitable one. The power system is a
very nonlinear system, so the HB

B method of the robust control is

used to design the controller. The damping of the system is
satisfied by additional constraints on the closed-loop pole
location. Both the robust index constraint and the pole location
constraint combine a multi-objective problem, and they are
transferred into linear matrix inequalities and solved by Matlab
toolbox. The method of the controller design is applied to a
four-machine two-area system, both the eigenvalue analysis
result and the nonlinear time domain simulations conform the
effectiveness of the method.
Index Terms--HVDC supplementary control; WAMS; multi-
objective robust control; linear matrix inequalities; PSS/E.
I. INTRODUCTION
he power grid of China nowadays is a complex AC/DC
parallel one. In recent years, Chinese power system is
increasing in both size and complexity due to the
widespread interconnections of the regional systems. At the
same time, the oscillation between two areas becomes the
main reason that constrains the power transfer capability, and
the serious oscillation can even cause cascading blackout.
The oscillations of one or more generators in an area with
respect to the rest of the system are called local modes,
which can be damped by the traditional methods such as
power system stabilizers [1]. However, damping in the
system is always insufficient for the oscillation between two
areas, which becomes the main restriction on the transfer of
the power.
With the progress of the new technology of PMUs
since the 1990s, it is found that the system dynamic

This work was Project 50277034 supported by National Natural Science
Foundation of China
Yong Chang, Hairong Chen, Fan Zhang are with the Department of
Electrical Engineering of Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027 P. R.
China (e-mail: hvdc@zju.edu.cn).
performance can be enhanced significantly if the remote
signals are applied to the damping controller. With the
advent of the high power electronic devices and the
microprocessors in the past decade, many utilities and
manufacturers have taken the initiative to develop new
Flexible AC Transmission System (FACTS) controllers and
demonstrate their potential benefits in the operation of power
systems. HVDC transmission system can be used as a means
of dynamic adjustment in power systems due to its fast
response characteristics. It is already proved that HVDC
systems can be applied to damp low frequency oscillations,
increase the power transfer capability and improve the
transient stability of AC/DC hybrid systems[1][2]. In the
AC/DC parallel system, supplementary controllers can be
added to HVDC system in order to damp the inter-area
frequency oscillation. Most of the supplementary controllers
which are used or discussed now are PI lead-lag controllers.
The feedback signals are the active power of the tie line or
the frequency deviation on the rectifier side of the HVDC
system. The controllers only based on local signals may not
adequately act out its supplementary damping effect. In
contrast the controllers based on global signals have greater
observability and controllability, and so they can damp the
angle oscillations better than the ones based on local signals.
The power system is a typical high-order, strongly
nonlinear and time variable one. There are many equipments
that we havent got their detail state equations. Further there
are great uncertainties in the parameters of these models. H
is one of the robust performances in common use that can
deal with the so-called multivariable problem. Many classical
control objectives such as disturbance attenuation, robust
stabilization of uncertain systems or shaping the open-loop
response can be expressed in term of H synthesis
techniques. It represents the robustness of the plant to the
parametric uncertainties and the modeling imprecision in
frequency domain. H control can accommodate not only
the multivariable problem but also the modeling imprecision
and the parametric uncertainties and unknown disturbance
input. However, H design mostly deals with frequency-
domain aspects and provide little control over the transient
behavior and close-loop pole location. In contrast,
satisfactory time response and close-loop damping can often
be achieved by forcing the closed-loop poles into a suitable
subregion of the left-half plane. Both the performance index
constraints in the H design and the time domain pole
placement constraints combine a multi-objective problem.
Design of Multi-objective Robust HVDC
Supplementary Controller Based on Global
Signal
Yong Chang, Hairong ChenFan Zhang
T
2146 142440178X/06/$20.002006IEEE PSCE2006
For the H/HB
2
Bproblem, it has been proposed to specify the
closed-loop objectives in terms of a common Lyapunov
function. This still guarantees the desired specifications at
the expense of conservatism. As a benefit, the controller
design can be reduced to a convex optimization problem. The
same technique has proved to be valuable in design
procedures for various state-feedback control problems.
Linear Matrix Inequality (LMI) has been widely used as a
powerful tool for the linear control problems. Since solving
the LMI problem is a convex problem, the computation
complexity and the formulation give us a numerically
tractable means to deal with problems which lack the
analytical solution. And there have been mature math tools
which can solve the LMI problem easily.
The theory of the H mixed-sensitivity controls and the
pole placement constraint are provided in section II. The
multi-objective control design is also synthesize in this
section. Then the design method is applied to a test system in
section III. The effectiveness and robustness of the controller
are discussed based on a test system in section IV and the
conclusions are presented in section V.
II. MULTI-OBJECTIVE ROBUST CONTROLLER DESIGN
Multi-objective synthesis of the linear output feedback
controllers is a common problem in control design. The
design objectives can be H performance, HB
2
B performance,
time domain constraints and the constraints on the close loop
pole location. When all objects are formulated in terms of a
common Lyapunov function, the whole controller design
problem amounts to solving a system of linear matrix
inequalities.
A. H Performance Index in This Paper
Oscillations in power systems are triggered by sudden
variations in the load demand or actions of the voltage
regulators due to faults, etc. The primary function of the
damping controllers is to minimize the impacts of these
disturbances on the system. This can be looked on as the
output disturbance rejection problem in the standard mixed-
sensitivity configuration.
( ) G s
( ) K s
1
W( ) s
1
Z
2
W ( ) s
2
Z
e
r

u
f y
+

Fig.1. Mixed-sensitivity design problem
The state equations of the plant shown in Fig.1 can be
written as:
1 2
1 11 12
2 21 22
x Ax B B u
z C x D D u
y C x D D u
e
e
e
= + +

= + +

= + +

(1)
Where, G(s) is the open loop plant. K(s) is the controller
to be designed. The x is the state variable vector of the G(s)
and weights (
1 2
( ), ( ) W s W s ). z is the regulated output. y is the
plant output, e is the input signals including disturbances
and u is the plant control input. The aim is to find a regular
controller K(s) to make the close-loop system stable. And the
H norm of the transfer function
( , )
l
F P K
reaches minimum.
min ( , )
l
F P K

(2)
Consider the disturbance in power system, and the
oscillation controller design problem can be reduced to the
H Standard control problem as shown in Fig.2.
+
1
W
WG
WK
2
W
u
2
Z
1
Z
+
y
e
K
P

TFig.2. Equivalent Mixed-sensitivity design problem

The generalized control plant here is
1 1
2
0
W WG
P W G
I G
(
(
=
(
(

(3)
The transfer functions from e to
1
z uud
2
z are
1
WS uud
2
W T respectively. According to the small gain theorem, the
mixed-sensitivity design objective is represented as
1
1 1
1
2
2
( )
min min min 1
( )
WS W I GK
J
W T
W GK I GK

( + (
= = <
(
(
+ (

4
In fact, the transfer function
1
( ) ( ( ) ( )) S s I G s K s

= +
ensures
the disturbance rejection, and
1
( ) KS K I GK

= +
handles the
robustness issues and minimizes the control effort.
B. The Pole Placement Constraint
H design mostly deals with frequency-domain aspects
and provides little control over the transient behavior and closed
loop pole location. The pole of the close loop system shall be
placed in the left-half plane. The time-domain response of a
system is decided by its close-loop pole. Just as what is shown in
Fig.3, confining the closed-loop poles to this region ensures a
minimum decay rate o , a minimum damping ratio
cos u =
,
and a maximum undamped natural frequency. These variables in
turn bound the maximum overshoot, the frequency of oscillatory
modes, the delay time, the rise time, and the settling time. The
pole placement area can be described by a series of LMI. The
plant A has its poles in S (0, 0, u ) if and only if there exists
0 X
A
> such that
2147
sin ( ) cos ( )
0
cos ( ) sin ( )
T T
T T
AX X A AX X A
X A AX AX X A
u u
u u
A A A A
A A A A
| | +
<
|
+
\ .
(5)
a
Im
Re
u
0
Fig.3. Region S (0, 0, u )
C. Multi-objective Robust Controller design formulation
The state-space representation of the controller in Fig.1 is
given by
k k k
k k k
x A x B y
u C x D y
= +

= +

(6)
Based on Eqn.4, it can be drawn that
1 1
2
( )
cl cl cl cl
WS
J C sI A B D
W T

(
= = +
(

(7)
Here
2 2 2
2
k k
cl
k k
A B D C B C
A
B C A
+ (
=
(

(8)

1 2 21
21
k
cl
k
B B D D
B
B D
+ (
=
(

(9)
| |
1 12 2 12 cl k k
C C D D C D C = + (10)

11 12 21 cl k
D D D D D = + (11)
The conclusion (4) is equivalent to that the closed-
loop system in (7) is asymptotically stable if there exists an
0
T
X X

= >
such that
2
0
T T
cl cl cl cl
T T
cl cl
cl cl
A X X A B X C
B I D
C X D I

| | + +
|
<
|
|

\ .
(12)
Then the H optimization control design is also
transformed into a LMI problem.
The goal is to compute a single LMI controller K that
internally stabilizes the close-loop and meets the pole
placement specification (5). Consider the two LMIs (5) and
(12) comprehensively, then the controller optimizing
problem is deduced to solve a series of LMIs. To recover
convexity, the two specification ((5)(12)) must be enforced
by a single closed-loop Lyapunov function. This amounts to
imposing the constraint
0 X X P
A
= = > . (13)
This restriction is stringent and brings conservatism into
the design. Nevertheless, the resulting synthesis technique
has valuable merits and can be applied in real engineering
designs.
Another problem in the design process is the nonlinear
element in the LMIs. Elements such as
T
cl
A X

T
cl
X C

and so
on are nonlinear. To convert the problem into a linear one, a
change of controller variables is necessary. This can be
found in detail in [12].
III. CENTRALIZED DESIGN OF DAMPING CONTROLLER FOR
HVDC
A. Feedback Signal Choosing
Owing to the technology of the optical fiber
communication and GPS [9], [10], synchronous phasor
measurement can be realized by WAMS. In this paper the
coordinate control input for a two-area, four-machine system
is identified by comparing some kinds of wide area signals.
The single line diagram of the system is shown in the Fig.4.
G1 1
2
3
4
5 6
7
8
9
10 11
G2
G3
G4
L7
L9
WMRC
1 Area 2 Area
Fig. 4. A two-area, four-machine system with parallel dc and ac ties

The parameters can be found in [7]. The input signal of
the controller will be selected from the following ones: the
speed deviations of the generators G1 and G3, the active
power flow in tie-line
A
, and the angular difference
between the generators G1 and G3. By changing the loads at
buses 7 and 9, small signal stability of the power system is
analyzed using the PSS/E. The magnitude and the phase
angle of residue, the inter-area oscillating frequency, the
synthetic damping ratio and the synthetic residue ratio under
nominal operating conditions are summarized in Table I.
TABLE I
SUMMARY OF OSCILLATION MODE IN NORMAL OPERATION WITH DAMPING
RATIO LESS THAN 10%
No. Eigenvalue Frequency (Hz) Damping Ratio (%)
1 -0.5450j6.3309 1.0076 8.5766
2 -0.5372j6.1229 0.97448 8.7397
3 -0.0172j3.4385 0.547 -0.5000
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Table 2 shows the eigenvalue relation to , of mode 3.
TABLE II
SUMMARY OF EIGENVALUE OF MODE 3
And Fig.5 shows the shape of the oscillation of the two-
area system. It can be found that the oscillation is between
area1 (including G1and G2) and area2 (including G3 and
G4). So the global signals are selected from the two areas
respectively.
3
G
2
G
4
G
1
G
Re
Im
Fig.5. Shape of oscillation
Table 3 shows the participation factors of , in relation to
the oscillation mode 3.
TAB. III SUMMARY OF PARTICIPATION FACTOR OF MODE 3
B1B B1B B2B B2B
participation
factor
0.1486 0.1485 0.0671 0.0658
B3B B3B B4B B4B
participation
factor
1.0000 0.9998 0.6497 0.6496
Its clear that the participation factors of B
1
B in area 1 and B
3
Bin area 2 are bigger than the others. So they are chosen as the
feedback signals.
B. Design of the Controller
The design method is as what mentioned in section
2.The transfer function of the whole HVDC supplementary
controller is as follows.
_

_ 1
K
s
K
2
_
0
P A
+
+
_
d
I
+
+
max
o
min
o
o
max
I
min
I
max
P A
min
P A
0
P
d
V
d
V
WMRC
1
e
2
e
T
Fig. 6. Transfer function diagram of HVDC control with WMRC
supplementary controller
In the design what shall be paid attention to is the
choice of the weight
1
W(s) ,
2
W (s)
.The standard practice is
to choose the weight 1
W(s) as a high-gain low-pass filter for
the output disturbance rejection. The weight
2
W (s) should be
chosen as a high-pass filter in order to reduce the control
effort and ensure the robustness against additional
uncertainties in the plant model in the high-frequency range.
In this paper they are chosen as follows.
1
2
1
( )
1.5
20
( )
12
W s
s
s
W s
s

+
(14)
The pole placement constraint is (0.2, 0, ) u . It means
that the damping ratio of the close-loop system is greater
than 10%.
In the model analysis the CDC4 model in the PSS/E is
adopted to simulate the HVDC main control. The generator
is modeled by a six-order detail model. The exciter is the
IEEET1 model as a four-order one. Total of the linearized
system plant is a 42-order one. To expedite the process in the
LMI routine, the plant order is reduced to 6. Schur balanced
truncation is used for the reduction of the plant model. The
Robust Control Toolbox available in Matlab is used to
perform the necessary computations. An order of 6 is found
to be satisfactory in both prefault and postfault operating
conditions. The function hinfmix of the LMI Toolbox in
Matlab is used to carry out the calculation. The order of the
controller obtained from the LMI solution is equal to the
reduced plant order plus the order of the weights, which is
equal to 8. This is quite high from a practical point of the
view. So the controller is reduced to a two-order system by
the Schur balanced truncation again. The control plant is as
follows.
| |
12.1 5.3
0.5 15.3
1.28 1.3
5.53 3.3
30.3 25.2
[0 0]
k
k
k
k
A
B
C
D
(
=
(

(
=
(

=
=
. (15)
To eliminate the static interference of the real operation state,
a washout stage is added to the controller. The whole
WMRC transfer function diagram is as follows.
1
u
2
u
+
10
1 10
s
s + P A
min
P A
max
P A
2
c
12
a
1
C
22
b
12
b
21
b
11
b
21
a
11
a
)
)
22
a
1
x
2
x
Fig. 7. Transfer function diagram of WMRC HVDC supplementary
controller
No. 1 2 3 4
0.00121.12 0.0011.13 0.008-!.88 0.007-1.88
0.120-0.47 0.073-0.45 0.792.79 0.722.80
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IV. ROBUSTNESS VALIDATION AND PERFORMANCE
EVALUATION
A. Eigenvalue analysis
In order to investigate the robustness of the controller
designed in this paper, the small signal stability of the
systems under various operating conditions is analyzed using
Prony method. Table IV summarizes the frequencies and the
damping ratios of the inter-area oscillation modes of the
systems with and without HVDC supplementary controller
under various operating conditions. The data in Table IV
shows that the damping ratios of the systems under various
conditions are all enhanced when the HVDC supplementary
controller is added. Thus, the designed controller has good
robustness characteristics.
TAB.IV
COMPARISON OF INTERAREA OSCILLATORY MODE IN DIFFERENT
OPERATION CASES WITH WMRC
nter-area Mode
(Without Controller)
Inter-area Mode
(With Controller)
Power Flow
of AC ties
(MW)
Disturbance
Frequency
(Hz)
Damping
Ratio (%)
Frequency
(Hz)
Damping
Ratio (%)
200
8-
9(Disconnec
tion)
0.516 -0.521 0.515 16.1
200 8Grounding 0.520 -0.5150 0.517 15.6
230
8-
9(Disconnec
tion)
0.539 -0.6895 0.536 14.7
230 8Grounding 0.535 -1.5425 0.531 13.4
From the analysis result it can be found that the controller
can damp the oscillation well at the normal operation point or
at a little shift (30MW) of it. The same conclusion can be
drawn when there are different types of disturbances occur.
B. Nolinear Time Domain Simulation
To validate the proposed HVDC supplementary controller
based on multi-objective robust control under extreme
condition, time-domain simulations using PSS/E are
performed. And the PI controller in reference [18] is also
adopted here for comparison. The selected fault is a three-
phase grounded fault on bus 8 for 0.083 s. The Fig. 9-11
show the simulation curves after the fault in the study system.
The curves are the rotor angle of G1 relative to G3, the active
power of one AC tie line. Fig. 11 shows the modulated active
power of the HVDC rectifier. It is verified that the damping
of the system is enhanced and the inter-area oscillations are
now well damped by adding the HVDC supplementary
controller.
w
w
sT
sT
+ 1
3
2
1
1
1
|
|
.
|

\
|
+
+
sT
sT
K
0
P A
max
P A
min
P A
R
sT + 1
1
u
Fig.8. Transfer function diagram of HVDC supplementary controller in
reference [18]
-18
-16
-14
-12
-10
-8
-6
0 5 10 15 20
A
n
g
l
e
Time ( s)
WMRC controller in [18]
Fig.9. Rotor angle response of G3 relative to G1
0
50
100
150
0 5 10 15 20
P
a
c
(
M
W
)
Time ( s)
WMRC Controller in [18]
Fig .10. Active power of the AC tie line
0.0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
0 5 10 15 20
P
d
c
(
p
u
)
Time ( s)
WMRC Controller in [18]
Fig. 11. Modulated HVDC rectifier active power
V. CONCLUSION
In this paper, a novel HVDC supplementary controller
based on PMU is presented. Global signals have greater
observability and controllability compared with the local
ones, and in this paper eigenvalue analysis method is adopted
to choose the most suitable one as the feedback signal. HB

B
method of the robust control is used to design the controller
to accommodate the model imprecision and parametric
uncertainties. The damping of the system is satisfied by
additional constraints on the closed-loop pole location. Both
2150
the robust index constraint and the pole location constraint
combine a multi-objective problem. LMI method is used to
design a robust supplementary controller. Both the
eigenvalue analysis and the time domain simulations have
shown that the inter-area mode is well damped with the
supplementary controller.
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VII. BIOGRAPHIES
Yong Chang was born in Wuhan in Auguest 1979. He
received his B.S. degree in electrical engineering from
Wuhan University, China in 2001, and M.S. degree in
electrical engineering from NARI ,China in 2004.Then he
works as an engineer in NARI. He is currently a graduate
student in the Electrical engineering department in
Zhejiang University ,China working toward his Ph.D.
degree. His primary areas of interest is power system
dynamics and operation, HVDC and FACTS.
Hairong Chen was born in Zhejiang, China, in July
1973. He received the BS Degrees from Shenyang
Agriculture University, China in 1997 and received the
MS degrees from Zhejiang University, China in 2002, all
in Electrical Engineering. Since 2002 he is an instructor of
Jinhua college of profession & technology, China. He now
is a Ph.D student of Zhejiang University. His main field of
interest includes HVDC and FACTS.
Fan Zhang was born in Jilin, China, in January 1980. She
received B.S from Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China in
1998. She is now a Ph.D. student in the E.E. Department of
Zhejiang University. Her main field of interest includes
HVDC Light and FACTS.
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