Enabling a Resilient and Self-healing PMU Infrastructure Using Centralized Network Control

Abstract

Many of the emerging wide-area monitoring protection and control (WAMPAC) applications in modern electrical grids rely heavily on the availability and integrity of widespread phasor measurement unit (PMU) data. Therefore, it is critical to protect PMU networks against growing cyber-attacks and system faults. In this paper, we present a self-healing PMU network design that considers both power system observability and communication network characteristics. Our design utilizes centralized network control, such as the emerging software-defined networking (SDN) technology, to design resilient network self-healing algorithms against cyber-attacks. Upon detection of a cyber-attack, the PMU network can reconfigure itself to isolate compromised devices and re-route measurement data with the goal of preserving the power system observability. We have developed a proof-of-concept system in a container-based network testbed using integer linear programming to solve a graph-based PMU system model. We also evaluate the system performance regarding the self-healing plan generation and installation using the IEEE 30-bus system.