Development and Application of a Real-Time Test Bed for Cyber–Physical System

Abstract

Enhanced integration of information and communication technologies in the smart grid has led to an increase in the number of cyber assets and has also opened up the possibility of a cyberattack. It is necessary to understand the complex relationship between the cyber and physical domains, and its potential impact on the power grid because of a successful cyber–physical attack. A cyber–physical test bed that can model and simulate the smart grid is necessary to test and validate algorithms and devices. This paper presents the development of an end-to-end, real-time cyber–physical test bed using Real-Time Digital Simulator and Network Simulator 3 (ns-3). A methodology for integrating the hardware phasor measurement unit and the phasor data concentrator in the test bed is presented along with the detailed modeling of the communication network for the power system. The developed test bed is validated and used to demonstrate the impact of different cyberattacks on the power system and tested algorithms.