Resilient cooperative secondary control of islanded AC microgrids utilizing inverter-based resources against state-dependent false data injection attacks

In this article, we investigate the impact of potential state-dependent false data injection cyber-attacks on frequency synchronization and active power management in islanded ac microgrids. One potential way of affecting microgrid reliability is by forcing a generation outage. Thus, the attacker could potentially aim to desynchronize inverter-based resources in microgrids by manipulating their frequency with malicious injections. The attack signals are injected to manipulate control input channels, sensor nodes, reference values, and the information exchanged through communication networks. In order to mitigate the adverse impacts of such cyber-attacks, first, the conventional distributed consensus-based secondary control approach is modified and complemented in the presence of cyber-attacks. Second, a resilient cooperative distributed secondary control scheme is proposed by utilizing the concept of a virtual layer interconnected with the main network layer. Third, theoretical stability, resilience analysis, and design considerations of interconnection matrices are also provided. Finally, simulations through MATLAB/Simulink and experimental results are presented in order to illustrate the robust performance of the proposed control scheme.