In nature, through millions of years of evolution, fish and cetaceans have developed fast efficient and highly manoeuvrable methods of marine propulsion. A recent explosion in demand for sub sea robotics, for conducting tasks such as sub sea exploration and survey has left developers desiring to capture some of the novel mechanisms evolved by fish and cetaceans to increase the efficiency of speed and manoeuvrability of sub sea robots. Research has revealed that interactions with vortices and other unsteady fluid effects play a significant role in the efficiency of fish and cetaceans. However attempts to duplicate this with robotic fish have been limited by the difficulty of predicting or sensing such uncertain fluid effects. This study aims to develop a gait generation method for a robotic fish with a degree of passivity which could allow the body to dynamically interact with and potentially synchronise with vortices within the flow without the need to actually sense them. In this study this is achieved through the development of a novel energy based gait generation tactic, where the gait of the robotic fish is determined through regulation of the state energy rather than absolute state position. Rather than treating fluid interactions as undesirable disturbances and `fighting' them to maintain a rigid geometric defined gait, energy based control allows the disturbances to the system generated by vortices in the surrounding flow to contribute to the energy of the system and hence the dynamic motion. Three different energy controllers are presented within this thesis, a deadbeat energy controller equivalent to an analytically optimised model predictive controller, a $H_\infty$ disturbance rejecting controller with a novel gradient decent optimisation and finally a error feedback controller with a novel alternative error metric. The controllers were tested on a robotic fish simulation platform developed within this project. The simulation platform consisted of the solution of a series of ordinary differential equations for solid body dynamics coupled with a finite element incompressible fluid dynamic simulation of the surrounding flow. results demonstrated the effectiveness of the energy based control approach and illustrate the importance of choice of controller in performance.

abstract: The Solid State Transformer (SST) is an essential component in the FREEDM system. This research focuses on the modeling of the SST and the controller hardware in the loop (CHIL) implementation of the SST for the support of the FREEDM system demonstration. The energy based control strategy for a three-stage SST is analyzed and applied. A simplified average model of the three-stage SST that is suitable for simulation in real time digital simulator (RTDS) has been developed in this study. The model is also useful for general time-domain power system analysis and simulation. The proposed simplified av-erage model has been validated in MATLAB and PLECS. The accuracy of the model has been verified through comparison with the cycle-by-cycle average (CCA) model and de-tailed switching model. These models are also implemented in PSCAD, and a special strategy to implement the phase shift modulation has been proposed to enable the switching model simulation in PSCAD. The implementation of the CHIL test environment of the SST in RTDS is described in this report. The parameter setup of the model has been discussed in detail. One of the dif-ficulties is the choice of the damping factor, which is revealed in this paper. Also the grounding of the system has large impact on the RTDS simulation. Another problem is that the performance of the system is highly dependent on the switch parameters such as voltage and current ratings. Finally, the functionalities of the SST have been realized on the platform. The distributed energy storage interface power injection and reverse power flow have been validated. Some limitations are noticed and discussed through the simulation on RTDS. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Electrical Engineering 2014

The issue of angle instability has been widely discussed in the power engineering literature. Many control techniques have been proposed to provide the complementary synchronizing and damping torques through generators and/or network connected power apparatus such as FACTs, braking resistors and DC links. The synchronizing torque component keeps all generators in synchronism while damping torque reduces oscillations and returns the power system to its pre-fault operating condition. One of the main factors limiting the transfer capacity of the electrical transmission network is the separation of the power system at weak links which can be understood by analogy with a large spring-mass system. However, this weak-links related problem is not dealt with in existing control designs because it is non-trivial during transient period to determine credible weak links in a large power system which may consist of hundreds of strong and weak links. The difficulty of identifying weak links has limited the performance of existing controls when it comes to the synchronization of generators and damping of oscillations. Such circumstances also restrict the operation of power systems close to its transient stability limits. These considerations have led to the primary research question in this thesis, "To what extent can the synchronization of generators and damping of oscillations be maximized to fully extend the transient stability limits of power systems and to improve the transfer capacity of the network?" With the recent advances in power electronics technology, the extension of transfer capacity is becoming more readily achievable. Complementary to the use of power electronics technology to improve transfer capacity, this research develops an improved control strategy by examining the dynamics of the modes of separation associated with the strong and weak links of the reduced transmission network. The theoretical framework of the control strategy is based on Energy Decomposition and Unstable Equilibrium Points. This thesis recognizes that under extreme loadings of the transmission network containing strong and weak links, weak-links are most likely to dictate the transient stability limits of the power system. We conclude that in order to fully extend the transient stability limits of power system while maximizing the value of control resources, it is crucial for the control strategy to aim its control effort at the energy component that is most likely to cause a separation. The improvement in the synchronization amongst generators remains the most important step in the improvement of the transfer capacity of the power system network.