Nonlinear adaptive back-stepping controller design for power system stabilizer in multi-machine power systems

This paper proposes a nonlinear adaptive back-stepping controller to damp the oscillations and improve the transient stability in multi-machine power systems. The designed controller is adaptive to unknown generator parameters. The proposed controller is designed based on a fourth order nonlinear model of a synchronous generator and the automatic voltage regulator model is considered so as to decrease the steady state voltage error. The construction of both control law and associated Lyapunov function is consistently systematic within the design methodology. A 3-machine power system is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed controller over other two controllers: one is the conventional damping controller (power system stabilizer) and the other is the one designed by the feedback linearization technique.