Feedback control of overloaded networks

The network control problem in this paper is motivated by a class of emergency control problems in power systems for which the objective is to alleviate overloads in the transmission network. The state variables of the network are the flows and remaining overload capacities in the branches and the controls are the rates of change in the node injections. The control objective is to clear all overloads in the network without violating any of the branch overload capacities. A feedback algorithm is proposed which is suitable for real-time on-line control of large networks as well as for off-line studies. Properties of the algorithm are characterized and demonstrated by simulation of a power system example.