Designing Robust Networks of Coupled Phase-Oscillators with Applications to the High Voltage Electric Grid

We propose a mathematical framework for designing robust networks of coupled phase-oscillators by leveraging a vulnerability measure proposed by Tyloo et al. that quantifies the impact of a small perturbation at an individual phase-oscillator's natural frequency to the system's global synchronized frequencies. Given a complex network topology with specific governing dynamics, the proposed framework finds an optimal allocation of edge weights that minimizes such vulnerability measure(s) at the node(s) for which we expect perturbations to occur by solving a tractable semi-definite programming problem. We specify the mathematical model to high voltage electric grids where each node corresponds to a voltage phase angle associated with a bus and edges correspond to transmission lines. Edge weights are determined by the susceptance values along the transmission lines. In this application, frequency synchronization is increasingly challenged by the integration of renewable energy, yet is imperative to the grid's health and functionality. Our framework helps to alleviate this challenge by optimizing the placement of renewable generation and the susceptance values along the transmission lines.