A Resilient-by-Design Distributed Control Framework for Cyber-Physical DC Microgrids

Much like any other cyber-physical systems, direct current (dc) microgrids are at risk of cyberattacks that aim to disrupt their normal operation. To enhance the security and resilience of dc microgrids against cyberattacks, the development of resilient control strategies is crucial. This article develops a distributed control approach for dc microgrids with an emphasis on resilience against a strategic cyberattack, where an attacker selects a subset of computational nodes in microgrids’ control systems to inject bounded false attack signals and change their update rules. By means of the proposed resilient distributed control mechanism interconnected with dc microgrids, the adverse effects of the false data injection (FDI) cyberattack on average voltage regulation and proportional current sharing are mitigated. Furthermore, the stability of dc microgrids in the presence of such attacks is guaranteed via a Lyapunov-based framework. Using the proposed distributed control approach, attack detection mechanisms are developed. Furthermore, it is shown that the proposed distributed controller is able to mitigate the adverse impacts of stealthy strategic FDI attacks that can bypass the attack detection system. The effectiveness of the proposed attack-resilient distributed control approach is evaluated by simulation case studies.