Resilient Power Inverter Network: A Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulation Case Study

In this article, we study the voltage regulation problem for an inverter-interfaced power distribution network that is subject to possible adversarial injections and/or severe fault scenarios. Different from the current literature, our aim is not just to regulate the voltage levels on the gridline within the prescribed range, but also to provide a measure of reliability for the safe operation of the grid with respect to such adversarial events. In that respect, we propose the framework of resilient control design which ensures safe operation of the grid under nominal conditions (with regard to the given voltage regulation objective) and, additionally, offers theoretical guarantees of finite-time recovery following intermittent fault/ safety violations. To validate these claims, we test the proposed resilient controller on a dedicated testbed for power inverter networks and, through hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation case studies, showcase the efficacy of the suggested control scheme.