A Multi Agent-System Approach for the Optimal Placement of PMUs in Power Systems

The ability of Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU) to measure time synchronized phasors, allows to make use of linear state estimation algorithms, who compute the state vector from a single iteration, being useful for real time applications. In order to enable the PMU based state estimation, firstly, the power network must be observed, which is accomplished by solving the problem of optimal placement of PMUs (OPP). In this paper, the multi agent-system technology is investigated as a possible algorithm for solving the OPP for transmission and distribution networks. The proposed algorithm models the PMUs as mobile agents, where each one of them is focusing on interactions and collaborations with its neighbour PMU agents, while being subjected to a set of constraints, like: network topology, common busses observed, etc. The goal of each PMU agent is to achieve a local observability of the network, or conclude that he has no use in the solution, and therefore delete itself. The algorithm stops when the network observability is achieved.