Power system stability analysis based on descriptive study of electrical indices

In a power network, when a propagation energy wave caused by a disturbance hits a weak link, a reflection is appeared and some of energy is transferred across the link. In this work, an analytical descriptive methodology is proposed to study the dynamical stability of a large scale power system. For this purpose, the measured electrical indices (angle, or voltage/frequency) following a fault in different points among the network are used, and the behaviors of the propagated waves through the lines, nodes and buses are studied. This work addresses a new tool for power system stability analysis based on a descriptive study of electrical measurements. The proposed methodology is also useful to detect the contingency condition and synthesis of an effective emergency control scheme.

Mitigating sandwich attacks against a secure key management scheme in wireless sensor networks for PCS/SCADA

Alzaid et al. proposed a forward & backward secure key management scheme in wireless sensor networks for Process Control Systems (PCSs) or Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems. The scheme, however, is still vulnerable to an attack called the sandwich attack that can be launched when the adversary captures two sensor nodes at times t1 and t2, and then reveals all the group keys used between times t1 and t2. In this paper, a fix to the scheme is proposed in order to limit the vulnerable time duration to an arbitrarily chosen time span while keeping the forward and backward secrecy of the scheme untouched. Then, the performance analysis for our proposal, Alzaid et al.’s scheme, and Nilsson et al.’s scheme is given.

A multicast routing scheme for efficient safety message dissemination in VANET

Vehicular ad hoc network (VANET) is a wireless ad hoc network that operates in a vehicular environment to provide communication between vehicles. VANET can be used by a diverse range of applications to improve road safety. Cooperative collision warning system (CCWS) is one of the safety applications that can provide situational awareness and warning to drivers by exchanging safety messages between cooperative vehicles. Currently, the routing strategies for safety message dissemination in CCWS are scoped broadcast. However, the broadcast schemes are not efficient as a warning message is sent to a large number of vehicles in the area, rather than only the endangered vehicles. They also cannot prioritize the receivers based on their critical time to avoid collision. This paper presents a more efficient multicast routing scheme that can reduce unnecessary transmissions and also use adaptive transmission range. The multicast scheme involves methods to identify an abnormal vehicle, the vehicles that may be endangered by the abnormal vehicle, and the latest time for each endangered vehicle to receive the warning message in order to avoid the danger. We transform this multicast routing problem into a delay-constrained minimum Steiner tree problem. Therefore, we can use existing algorithms to solve the problem. The advantages of our multicast routing scheme are mainly its potential to support various road traffic scenarios, to optimize the wireless channel utilization, and to prioritize the receivers.

GPS fault detection with IMU and aircraft dynamics

Approaches with Vertical Guidance (APV) can provide greater safety and cost savings to general aviation through accurate GPS horizontal and vertical navigation. However, GPS needs augmentation to achieve APV fault detection requirements. Aircraft Based Augmentation Systems (ABAS) fuse GPS with additional sensors at the aircraft. Typical ABAS designs assume high-quality inertial sensors with Kalman filters but these are too expensive for general aviation. Instead of using high-quality (and expensive) sensors, the purpose of this paper is to investigate augmenting GPS with a low-quality MEMS IMU and Aircraft Dynamic Model (ADM). The IMU and ADM are fused together using a multiple model fusion strategy in a bank of Extended Kalman Filters (EKF) with the Normalized Solution Separation (NSS) fault detection scheme. A tightly-coupled configuration with GPS is used and frequent GPS updates are applied to the IMU and ADM to compensate for their errors. Based upon a simulated APV approach, the performance of this architecture in detecting a GPS ramp fault is investigated showing a performance improvement over a GPS-only “snapshot” implementation of the NSS method. The effect of fusing the IMU with the ADM is evaluated by comparing a GPS-IMU-ADM EKF with a GPS-IMU EKF where a small improvement in protection levels is shown.

Managing the winds of change

Environmental impacts caused during Australia's comparatively recent settlement by Europeans are evident. Governments (both Commonwealth and States) have been largely responsible for requiring landholders – through leasehold development conditions and taxation concessions – to conduct clearing that is now perceived as damage. Most governments are now demanding resource protection. There is a measure of bewilderment (if not resentment) among landholders because of this change. The more populous States, where most overall damage has been done (i.e. Victoria and New South Wales), provide most support for attempts to stop development in other regions where there has been less damage. Queensland, i.e. the north-eastern quarter of the continent, has been relatively slow to develop. It also holds the largest and most diverse natural environments. Tree clearing is an unavoidable element of land development, whether to access and enhance native grasses for livestock or to allow for urban developments (with exotic tree plantings). The consequences in terms of regulations are particularly complex because of the dynamic nature of vegetation. The regulatory terms used in current legislation – such as 'Endangered' and 'Of concern' – depend on legally-defined, static baselines. Regrowth and fire damage are two obvious causes of change. A less obvious aspect is succession, where ecosystems change naturally over long timeframes. In the recent past, the Queensland Government encouraged extensive tree-clearing e.g. through the State Brigalow Development Scheme (mostly 1962 to 1975) which resulted in the removal of some 97% of the wide-ranging mature forests of Acacia harpophylla. At the same time, this government controls National Parks and other reservations (occupying some 4% of the State's 1.7 million km2 area) and also holds major World Heritage Areas (such as the Great Barrier Reef and the Wet Tropics Rainforest) promulgated under Commonwealth legislation. This is a highly prescriptive approach, where the community is directed on the one hand to develop (largely through lease conditions) and on the other to avoid development (largely by unusable reserves). Another approach to development and conservation is still possible in Queensland. For this to occur, however, a more workable and equitable solution than has been employed to date is needed, especially for the remote lands of this State. This must involve resident landholders, who have the capacity (through local knowledge, infrastructure and daily presence) to undertake most costeffectively sustainable land-use management (with suitable attention to ecosystems requiring special conservation effort), that is, provided they have the necessary direction, encouragement and incentive to do so.

Fold back current control and admittance protection scheme for a distribution network containing distributed generators

Islanded operation, protection, reclosing and arc extinguishing are some of the challenging issues related to the connection of converter interfaced distributed generators (DGs) into a distribution network. The isolation of upstream faults in grid connected mode and fault detection in islanded mode using overcurrent devices are difficult. In the event of an arc fault, all DGs must be disconnected in order to extinguish the arc. Otherwise, they will continue to feed the fault, thus sustaining the arc. However, the system reliability can be increased by maximising the DG connectivity to the system: therefore, the system protection scheme must ensure that only the faulted segment is removed from the feeder. This is true even in the case of a radial feeder as the DG can be connected at various points along the feeder. In this paper, a new relay scheme is proposed which, along with a novel current control strategy for converter interfaced DGs, can isolate permanent and temporary arc faults. The proposed protection and control scheme can even coordinate with reclosers. The results are validated through PSCAD/EMTDC simulation and MATLAB calculations.

Adaptive instantaneous frequency estimation: Techniques and algorithms

This thesis deals with the problem of the instantaneous frequency (IF) estimation of sinusoidal signals. This topic plays significant role in signal processing and communications. Depending on the type of the signal, two major approaches are considered. For IF estimation of single-tone or digitally-modulated sinusoidal signals (like frequency shift keying signals) the approach of digital phase-locked loops (DPLLs) is considered, and this is Part-I of this thesis. For FM signals the approach of time-frequency analysis is considered, and this is Part-II of the thesis. In part-I we have utilized sinusoidal DPLLs with non-uniform sampling scheme as this type is widely used in communication systems. The digital tanlock loop (DTL) has introduced significant advantages over other existing DPLLs. In the last 10 years many efforts have been made to improve DTL performance. However, this loop and all of its modifications utilizes Hilbert transformer (HT) to produce a signal-independent 90-degree phase-shifted version of the input signal. Hilbert transformer can be realized approximately using a finite impulse response (FIR) digital filter. This realization introduces further complexity in the loop in addition to approximations and frequency limitations on the input signal. We have tried to avoid practical difficulties associated with the conventional tanlock scheme while keeping its advantages. A time-delay is utilized in the tanlock scheme of DTL to produce a signal-dependent phase shift. This gave rise to the time-delay digital tanlock loop (TDTL). Fixed point theorems are used to analyze the behavior of the new loop. As such TDTL combines the two major approaches in DPLLs: the non-linear approach of sinusoidal DPLL based on fixed point analysis, and the linear tanlock approach based on the arctan phase detection. TDTL preserves the main advantages of the DTL despite its reduced structure. An application of TDTL in FSK demodulation is also considered. This idea of replacing HT by a time-delay may be of interest in other signal processing systems. Hence we have analyzed and compared the behaviors of the HT and the time-delay in the presence of additive Gaussian noise. Based on the above analysis, the behavior of the first and second-order TDTLs has been analyzed in additive Gaussian noise. Since DPLLs need time for locking, they are normally not efficient in tracking the continuously changing frequencies of non-stationary signals, i.e. signals with time-varying spectra. Nonstationary signals are of importance in synthetic and real life applications. An example is the frequency-modulated (FM) signals widely used in communication systems. Part-II of this thesis is dedicated for the IF estimation of non-stationary signals. For such signals the classical spectral techniques break down, due to the time-varying nature of their spectra, and more advanced techniques should be utilized. For the purpose of instantaneous frequency estimation of non-stationary signals there are two major approaches: parametric and non-parametric. We chose the non-parametric approach which is based on time-frequency analysis. This approach is computationally less expensive and more effective in dealing with multicomponent signals, which are the main aim of this part of the thesis. A time-frequency distribution (TFD) of a signal is a two-dimensional transformation of the signal to the time-frequency domain. Multicomponent signals can be identified by multiple energy peaks in the time-frequency domain. Many real life and synthetic signals are of multicomponent nature and there is little in the literature concerning IF estimation of such signals. This is why we have concentrated on multicomponent signals in Part-H. An adaptive algorithm for IF estimation using the quadratic time-frequency distributions has been analyzed. A class of time-frequency distributions that are more suitable for this purpose has been proposed. The kernels of this class are time-only or one-dimensional, rather than the time-lag (two-dimensional) kernels. Hence this class has been named as the T -class. If the parameters of these TFDs are properly chosen, they are more efficient than the existing fixed-kernel TFDs in terms of resolution (energy concentration around the IF) and artifacts reduction. The T-distributions has been used in the IF adaptive algorithm and proved to be efficient in tracking rapidly changing frequencies. They also enables direct amplitude estimation for the components of a multicomponent

Identification and control of induction machines using artificial neural networks

The use of artificial neural networks (ANNs) to identify and control induction machines is proposed. Two systems are presented: a system to adaptively control the stator currents via identification of the electrical dynamics, and a system to adaptively control the rotor speed via identification of the mechanical and current-fed system dynamics. Both systems are inherently adaptive as well as self-commissioning. The current controller is a completely general nonlinear controller which can be used together with any drive algorithm. Various advantages of these control schemes over conventional schemes are cited, and the combined speed and current control scheme is compared with the standard vector control scheme

Identification and control of induction machines using artificial neural networks

This paper proposes the use of artificial neural networks (ANNs) to identify and control an induction machine. Two systems are presented: a system to adaptively control the stator currents via identification of the electrical dynamics; and a system to adaptively control the rotor speed via identification of the mechanical and current-fed system dynamics. Various advantages of these control schemes over other conventional schemes are cited and the performance of the combined speed and current control scheme is compared with that of the standard vector control scheme

Property damage crash equivalency factors to solve crash frequency-severity dilemma: Case study on South Korean rural roads

Safety interventions (e.g., median barriers, photo enforcement) and road features (e.g., median type and width) can influence crash severity, crash frequency, or both. Both dimensions—crash frequency and crash severity—are needed to obtain a full accounting of road safety. Extensive literature and common sense both dictate that crashes are not created equal, with fatalities costing society more than 1,000 times the cost of property damage crashes on average. Despite this glaring disparity, the profession has not unanimously embraced or successfully defended a nonarbitrary severity weighting approach for analyzing safety data and conducting safety analyses. It is argued here that the two dimensions (frequency and severity) are made available by intelligently and reliably weighting crash frequencies and converting all crashes to property-damage-only crash equivalents (PDOEs) by using comprehensive societal unit crash costs. This approach is analogous to calculating axle load equivalents in the prediction of pavement damage: for instance, a 40,000-lb truck causes 4,025 times more stress than does a 4,000-lb car and so simply counting axles is not sufficient. Calculating PDOEs using unit crash costs is the most defensible and nonarbitrary weighting scheme, allows for the simple incorporation of severity and frequency, and leads to crash models that are sensitive to factors that affect crash severity. Moreover, using PDOEs diminishes the errors introduced by underreporting of less severe crashes—an added benefit of the PDOE analysis approach. The method is illustrated with rural road segment data from South Korea (which in practice would develop PDOEs with Korean crash cost data).

Modelling issues on the railway resource management process using multi-agent system

Many infrastructure and necessity systems such as electricity and telecommunication in Europe and the Northern America were used to be operated as monopolies, if not state-owned. However, they have now been disintegrated into a group of smaller companies managed by different stakeholders. Railways are no exceptions. Since the early 1980s, there have been reforms in the shape of restructuring of the national railways in different parts of the world. Continuous refinements are still conducted to allow better utilisation of railway resources and quality of service. There has been a growing interest for the industry to understand the impacts of these reforms on the operation efficiency and constraints. A number of post-evaluations have been conducted by analysing the performance of the stakeholders on their profits (Crompton and Jupe 2003), quality of train service (Shaw 2001) and engineering operations (Watson 2001). Results from these studies are valuable for future improvement in the system, followed by a new cycle of post-evaluations. However, direct implementation of these changes is often costly and the consequences take a long period of time (e.g. years) to surface. With the advance of fast computing technologies, computer simulation is a cost-effective means to evaluate a hypothetical change in a system prior to actual implementation. For example, simulation suites have been developed to study a variety of traffic control strategies according to sophisticated models of train dynamics, traction and power systems (Goodman, Siu and Ho 1998, Ho and Yeung 2001). Unfortunately, under the restructured railway environment, it is by no means easy to model the complex behaviour of the stakeholders and the interactions between them. Multi-agent system (MAS) is a recently developed modelling technique which may be useful in assisting the railway industry to conduct simulations on the restructured railway system. In MAS, a real-world entity is modelled as a software agent that is autonomous, reactive to changes, able to initiate proactive actions and social communicative acts. It has been applied in the areas of supply-chain management processes (García-Flores, Wang and Goltz 2000, Jennings et al. 2000a, b) and e-commerce activities (Au, Ngai and Parameswaran 2003, Liu and You 2003), in which the objectives and behaviour of the buyers and sellers are captured by software agents. It is therefore beneficial to investigate the suitability or feasibility of applying agent modelling in railways and the extent to which it might help in developing better resource management strategies. This paper sets out to examine the benefits of using MAS to model the resource management process in railways. Section 2 first describes the business environment after the railway 2 Modelling issues on the railway resource management process using MAS reforms. Then the problems emerge from the restructuring process are identified in section 3. Section 4 describes the realisation of a MAS for railway resource management under the restructured scheme and the feasible studies expected from the model.

Encyclopedia contributions: entries C-G in Oxford Companion to Australian Gardens

Caulfield, Harold William; p.131 Cowan, Alexander; p.164 Cowley, Ebenezer; p.164 East Talgai Station; p.193 Eaves, S.H.; p.193-194 Edgar, J.S.; p.196 Everist, Selwyn; p.206 Experimental Farms and Gardens; pp.207-208 Government Houses - Queensland; pp.267-268

A novel load transfer scheme for peak load management in rural areas

This paper proposes a novel peak load management scheme for rural areas. The scheme transfers certain customers onto local nonembedded generators during peak load periods to alleviate network under voltage problems. This paper develops and presents this system by way of a case study in Central Queensland, Australia. A methodology is presented for determining the best location for the nonembedded generators as well as the number of generators required to alleviate network problems. A control algorithm to transfer and reconnect customers is developed to ensure that the network voltage profile remains within specification under all plausible load conditions. Finally, simulations are presented to show the performance of the system over a typical maximum daily load profile with large stochastic load variations.