Experience with a Matlab toolbox for multiple-control coordination in large power systems

This paper reports on our experience with a toolbox specifically developed for computer-aided control system design in large power systems. It significantly alleviates the burden of tuning many damping controllers simultaneously, considering several practical factors such as the large size of actual bulk power systems, the complicated information pattern involved in multiple-control scenarios and the effective use of flexible controller architecture to achieve robustness. The toolbox is an attempt by Hydro-Quebec to apply to its many routine and advanced control problems the more rigorous model-based design approach which is so familiar to control system engineers but so difficult to apply on a bulk power system without a supporting computer-aided environment.