Development of a flexible laboratory testing platform for assessing steady-state and transient performance of WAMS

This paper analyzes the development of an experimental setup for the steady state and transient analysis of Wide Area Measurement Systems (WAMS). The flexibility of the generated input signals for which the PMU performance is assessed represents a novel contribution of the designed setup. Transient disturbances modeled by mathematical functions or extracted from simulated networks within DigSILENT PowerFactory software are converted to COMTRADE files and uploaded into two signal generators in order to build relevant analogue waveforms for analyzing Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) steady state and transient behavior. A novel characteristic of the design consists of the automated generating, acquisition and analysis procedure capable of processing the large quantity of results on which the steady state and transient performance assessment of WAMS is based. The assessment has revealed some equipment introduced phase shift errors, but their cause has been identified and overcome through the comparison of qualitative parameters of the input and output signals.