Eigenvector assignment in power system controller design: illustration through predatory control

This work examines eigenvector assignment through feedback in a power systems application. The right eigenvector defines the physical mode shape of natural response (e.g., the grouping, phases, and magnitudes of generators´ frequency swings experienced in an electromechanical mode). Hence the ability to influence the mode shape through controller design is an important capability in power systems applications. However, while well known in the linear control literature, this design capability has received relatively little attention in the power literature. To extend eigenvector assignment toward practical power applications, we examine designs using output feedback, based on highly reduced order observers. This work concludes with a speculative, but intentionally dramatic, example of the eigenvector assignment technique; the so-called “predatory control” design. Here local output feedback control is exercised among a group of generators to intentionally destabilize another group, maximizing the concentration of energy of the unstable mode in the “target” group, while minimizing its energy in the group exercising the control