The development of a smart distribution grid testbed for integrated information management systems

This paper presents a smart distribution grid testbed to test or compare designs of integrated information management systems (I2MSs). An I2MS extracts and synthesizes information from a wide range of data sources to detect abnormal system behaviors, identify possible causes, assess the system status, and provide grid operators with response suggestions. The objective of the testbed is to provide a modeling environment with sufficient data sources for the I2MS design. The testbed includes five information layers and a physical layer; it generates multi-layer chronological data based on actual measurement playbacks or simulated data sets produced by the physical layer. The testbed models random hardware failures, human errors, extreme weather events, and deliberate tampering attempts to allow users to evaluate the performance of different I2MS designs. Initial results of I2MS performance tests showed that the testbed created a close-to-real-world environment that allowed key performance metrics of the I2MS to be evaluated.