In many outage management systems, customer trouble calls have been used as the primary source of outages for distribution level outages. However the information from the trouble calls is not completely reliable as they lead to problems like okay-on-arrival reports, over escalation and extended outage times for the customers. But with the recent developments in communication and information technologies, utilities started to adopt Automated Meter Reading systems for their operational needs. In this thesis, an algorithm is developed and implemented that makes efficient use information available from the customers and powerline communication based AMR systems for outages. The work has taken advantage of the polling feature of powerline based AMR systems to identify the scope of the outage. The polling procedure uses the on demand read feature of the AMR systems that allows the utility to communicate directly with the customers. The meters in the neighborhood of the trouble calls are polled to identify the affected customers and the outages are located by back tracking to common point. In the first part of the algorithm, the distribution system is modeled as a tree and the meters are strategically polled based on the customers reporting the outages. The outage areas are identified and escalated to find the actual outage location. The crew can be directed to the outage scene to fix the cause of the outage. The algorithm discusses the rules to identify single outages, single customer outages and multiple outages. The algorithm was tested on different test systems representing distribution systems of various sizes. The algorithm is tested for different outage scenarios for all the test cases.

Customer load characteristics provides very critical information for power system operation. The accuracy of load forecasting and the effective cases of system generation and network planning can be enhanced by the investigation of customer load characteristics. In this thesis, the intelligent meters have been used to collect the power consumption within each 15 minutes of study customers, which have been selected by stratified sampling method. The typical load patterns of each customer class have been derived. The load composition and the power system load profile of Fengshan District in Taipower have been solved by the typical load patterns and the power consumption of each custom class. To investigate the distribution system reliability, the service territory of Fengshan district is divided into six service areas. The forecasting of yearly peak loadings for each area over the future 20 years is performed by the time series method based on the historical load data and load characteristics. By using the forced outage rate ¡]FOR¡^ of main transformers in the substations, the loss of load expectation¡]LOLE¡^ which corresponds to yearly peak loading of each service area is solved. By this way, the capacity expansion planning of main transformers to meet the service reliability can therefore be derived. To further enhance the distribution system planning, the capacity transfer capability of main transformers and the tie line flow capacity between different areas are considered too. It is found that the expansion planning of main transformers by the proposed methodology can provide better cost effectiveness of transformer investment to satisfy the service reliability as well as the system peak loading.

This dissertation studies the causes and mechanism of power system cascading outages and develops new methods and new tools to help detect, prevent and mitigate the outages. Three effective solutions: a steady state control scheme, a transient stability control scheme, and an interactive system-wide and local scheme have been proposed using those new methods and tools. A steady state control scheme can help detect and prevent the possible cascading outage at its initial slow steady state progress stage. It uses new methods and new tools to solve the line overload, congestion or bus high/low voltage problems. New methods, such as vulnerability index (VI), margin index (MI), network contribution factor (NCF), topology processing and selected minimum load shedding (SMLS), and new tools, such as transmission network control based on a network contribution factor (NCF) method, generator control based on a generator distribution factor (GDF) method, and load control based on a load distribution factor (LDF) method have been proposed and developed. A transient stability control scheme can help prevent and mitigate the possible cascading outage at its transient progress stage if there is enough time to take action. It uses one Lyapunov direct method, potential energy boundary surface (PEBS) method, and sensitivity analysis of transient energy margin for fast stabilizing control. The results are verified by the accurate time-domain transient stability analysis method. The interactive scheme takes advantage of accurate system-wide and local information and analysis results, uses some techniques from both steady state control and transient stability control, works at both the system-wide level and local substation level, monitors the system all the time, and takes actions when needed to help detect, prevent and mitigate the possible cascading outage. Comprehensive simulation studies have been implemented using the IEEE 14- bus, 24-bus, 39-bus and 118-bus systems and promising results show the ability of the proposed solutions to help detect, prevent and mitigate cascading outages.

Sharing communication resources in wireless communication networks, due to the ever increasing growth in the number of users and the growing demand for higher data rates, appears to be inevitable. Consequently, present wireless communication networks should provide service for a large number of users through a frequency selective and interference limited medium rather than a single band, noise limited channel. In this thesis, we study a Gaussian interference network with orthogonal frequency sub-bands with slow faded and frequency-selective channel coefficients. The network is decentralized in the sense that there is no central node to assign the frequency sub-bands to the users. Moreover, due to lack of a feedback link between the two ends of any transmitter-receiver pair, all transmitters are unaware of the channel coefficients. Since the channel is assumed to be static during the communication period of interest, the concept of outage probability is employed in order to assess the performance of the network. In a scenario where all transmitters distribute their available power uniformly across the sub-bands, we investigate the problem of how establishing a nonzero correlation ρ among the Gaussian signals transmitted by each user along different frequency sub-bands can improve the outage probability at each of the receivers. Specifically, we show in a general k-user interference channel over N orthogonal frequency sub-bands that , when receivers treat interference as noise, ρ=0 is a point of local extremum for the achievable rate at each receiver, for any realization of channel coefficients. Moreover, in the case of K=2 with arbitrary number of sub-bands, it is verified that there exists a finite level of Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) such that the achievable rate has a local minimum at ρ=0, which is not necessarily the case when K>2. We then concentrate on a 2-user interference channel over 2 orthogonal frequency sub-bands and characterize the behavior of the outage probability in the high SNR regime. We consider two simple decoding strategies at the receiver. In the first scenario, receivers simply treat interference as noise. In the second scenario, the receivers have the choice either to decode the desired signal treating interference as noise or to decode interference treating the desired signal as noise before decoding the interference free signal. Indeed, in both cases, we first show that the achievable rate is an increasing function of ρ in the high SNR regime, which suggests to repeat the same signal over the sub-bands. This observation, in a sense, reflects to the behavior of the outage probability, the scaling behavior of which in the high SNR regime is characterized for the Rayleigh fading scenario.

ORTEGA, Y. R. Efeito conjunto de sinais interferentes e ruído em canais Wiretap com múltiplas antenas e atraso de feedback. 2017. 90 f. Dissertação (Mestrado em Engenharia de Teleinformática)–Centro de Tecnologia, Universidade Federal do Ceará, Fortaleza, 2017. / Submitted by Hohana Sanders (hohanasanders@hotmail.com) on 2017-05-10T11:36:45Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2017_dis_yrortega.pdf: 1122277 bytes, checksum: 6393deeb3264ed485d2970e091d5a106 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marlene Sousa (mmarlene@ufc.br) on 2017-06-02T14:07:51Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 2017_dis_yrortega.pdf: 1122277 bytes, checksum: 6393deeb3264ed485d2970e091d5a106 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-02T14:07:51Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2017_dis_yrortega.pdf: 1122277 bytes, checksum: 6393deeb3264ed485d2970e091d5a106 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-02-17 / In this dissertation, the physical layer security of wiretap channels with multiple antennas and outdated channel state information (CSI) at the transmitter is investigated in terms of the secrecy outage probability. The joint effect of multiple jamming signals and noise at the eavesdropper is studied. In parallel, it is analyzed the special case where only the transmitter is equipped with multiple antennas. On such models, the transmitter employs a transmit antenna selection (TAS) technique; the legitimate receiver uses either a selection combining (SC) or a maximal-ratio combining (MRC) scheme; and the eavesdropper adopts the MRC technique. Exact closed-form expressions for the non-zero secrecy rate and secrecy outage probability for arbitrary number of power distributed jamming signals are derived, by assuming both perfect and imperfect CSI. The attained expressions are simplified for two special cases: distinct and equal power distributed jamming signals. An asymptotic secrecy outage analysis is conducted, which shows that the expected diversity gain cannot be realized for imperfect CSI, and full diversity order can only be achieved under perfect CSI condition. In addition, those results reveal that the number of jamming signals as well as the number of antennas at the eavesdropper do not affect the system diversity order. Representative numerical examples are presented to illustrate the effects of the key system parameters on the secrecy outage performance. Finally, the proposed analysis is validated through Monte Carlo simulation results. / Nesta disserta¸c˜ao, a segurança da camada física de canais wiretap com múltiplas antenas e com informa¸c˜ao de estado do canal (CSI, do ingles, channel state information) desatualizada, ´e investigada em termos da probabilidade de outage de sigilo. O efeito conjunto de múltiplos sinais de interferência e ruído no n´o malicioso ´e estudado. Paralelamente, ´e analisado o caso especial para um canal em que apenas o transmissor ´e equipado com múltiplas antenas. Nestes modelos, o transmissor utiliza a técnica de sele¸c˜ao de antena (TAS, do ingles, transmit antenna selection); o receptor legitimo usa os esquemas de combina ¸c˜ao por sele¸c˜ao (SC, do inglˆes, selection combining) e combina¸c˜ao por raz˜ao m´axima (MRC, do inglˆes, maximal-ratio combining); e o n´o malicioso adota somente a t´ecnica MRC. Express˜oes anal´ıticas exatas e em forma fechada para a probabilidade de outage de sigilo e a taxa de sigilo n˜ao-nula s˜ao derivadas, tanto assumindo CSI perfeita como CSI imperfeita, sendo aplic´aveis para sinais de interferˆencia com distribui¸c˜ao de potˆencias arbitr´arias. As express˜oes obtidas s˜ao simplificadas para dois casos especiais: sinais de interferˆencia com distribui¸c˜ao de potˆencias distintas e iguais. Uma an´alise assint´otica da probabilidade de outage de sigilo ´e realizada, mostrando que o ganho de diversidade esperado n˜ao pode ser realizado para uma CSI imperfeita e a ordem de diversidade completa apenas pode ser alcan¸cada em condi¸c˜oes de CSI perfeita. Al´em disso, estes resultados mostram que o número de sinais de interferência, bem como o n´umero de antenas no n´o intruso, n˜ao afetam a ordem de diversidade do sistema. Exemplos num´ericos representativos s˜ao apresentados para ilustrar os efeitos dos principais parâmetros do sistema no desempenho de outage de sigilo. Finalmente, a an´alise proposta ´e validada através´es de simula¸c˜oes de Monte Carlo.

No description available.

All generation facilities have to report their generator un-availabilities to their respective Independent System Operators (ISOs). The un-availability of a generator is determined in terms of its probability of failure. Generators may serve the role of two kinds, base units which operates all the time and the others are peaking units which operate only for periods of time depending on load requirement. Calculation of probability of failure for peaking units using standard formulas gives pessimistic results owing to its time spent in the reserve shut down state. Therefore the normal two state representation of a generating unit is not adequate. A four state model was proposed by an IEEE committee to calculate the forced outage rate (unavailability) of such units. This thesis examines the representation of peaking units using a four-state model and performs the analytical calculations and Monte Carlo simulations to examine whether such a model does indeed represent the peaking units properly.

Transmission line is a crucial role in power transmission network which connects generating units to consumers. Some unpredicted failure events such as lightening or system faults can cause transmission line tripped, which may bring about a large interruption to the system and causes damage. When line outage happens, the power flow on the tripped line will be redistributed to the rest of lines in the system. It may cause risk of overload happens on other lines, and results in a cascading failure and system collapse. Reasonably, a single line outage will not affect all other lines in the system. Therefore, when a line outage happens, it is important for the system operator to have a preview of which lines will have serious impact and which lines will not, so that the operator can only focus on monitoring certain lines which will be seriously affected, rather than keeping monitoring the whole system. In this thesis, A Line Outage Distribution Factor (LODF) method is proposed and implemented in the IEEE 118 bus system to estimate active power flow redistribution after a line outage. After that, a definition of Thevenin electrical distance between two transmission lines is derived and applied to calculate electrical distances between the outage line and each line in the system. An exponential convergence tendency is found between maximum possible LODF predicted power flow variations and electrical distance, and an exponential regression method is applied to analyze this tendency. The contribution of this work is a rule has been found that starting from the outage line, the maximum possible active power flow variation on transmission lines exponentially decreases exponentially while the electrical distance increases. With only the information of system's normal operating condition and topological information, the maximum possible active power change on each lines caused by single line outage, and the margin of the impact of single line outage on power flow variations may propagate along electrical distance can be easily and quickly predicted. Ultimately, the goal of this work is to allow operators at the control center can concentrate on lines within a certain electrical distance instead of keeping monitoring the whole system when a line outage happens. / Master of Science

With the fast development of today’s multimedia services, engineers face a huge hurdle that is, the overwhelming need of highly reliable communication over long distances. Cooperative communication is a novel concept which tackles this problem effectively. The direct link is assisted by nodes called relays, which also reduce shadowing and pathloss effects in wireless networks. An added advantage of such a cooperative communication network is that when combined with multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna systems and cognitive radio networks (CRN), the system performance in terms of spectral efficiency and reliability, can be extremely enhanced without any extra power and spectrum.The concept of cooperative communications in MIMO and CRN systems has gained immense interest in the literature. Most of the research works have assumed Rayleigh fading conditions. In this thesis, the performance of cooperative communications with practical constraints of shadowing is studied. Analytical expressions for the outage probability of cooperative networks under different relaying protocols with selection combining are presented under the assumption of κ − µ shadowing fading. Specifically, the relaying protocols that are investigated are incremental relaying, opportunistic relaying, adaptive amplify-and-forward and decode-and-forward. Furthermore, this system model is simulated and the simulation results are compared with the analytical results. Mathematica, a technical computing tool, is used for numerical estimations using stochastic processes and probability theory. Simulation is done in MATLAB.In this thesis, along with the analytical framework for evaluating outage probability for the system is presented. Simulations are performed for various fading parameters and the results closely match with analytical results which validate the derivations.

" In telecommunications, a cooperative scheme refers to a method where two or more users share or combine their information in order to increase diversity gain or power gain. In contrast to conventional point-to-point communications, cooperative communications allow different users in a wireless network to share resources so that instead of maximizing the performance of its own link, each user collaborates with its neighbours to achieve an overall improvement in performance. In this dissertation, we consider different models for transmission and reception and explore cooperative techniques that increase the reliability and capacity gains in wireless networks, with consideration to practical issues such as channel estimation errors and backhaul constraints. This dissertation considers the design and performance of cooperative communication techniques. Particularly, the first part of this dissertation focuses on the performance comparison between interference alignment and opportunistic transmission for a 3-user single-input single- output (SISO) interference channel in terms of average sum rate in the presence of channel estimation errors. In the case of interference alignment, channel estimation errors cause interference leakage which consequently results in a loss of achievable rate. In the case of opportunistic transmission, channel estimation errors result in a non-zero probability of incorrectly choosing the node with the best channel. The effect of these impairments is quantified in terms of the achievable average sum rate of these transmission techniques. Analysis and numerical examples show that SISO interference alignment can achieve better average sum rate with good channel estimates and at high SNR whereas opportunistic transmission provides better performance at low SNR and/or when the channel estimates are poor. We next considers the problem of jointly decoding binary phase shift keyed (BPSK) messages from a single distant transmitter to a cooperative receive cluster connected by a local area network (LAN). An approximate distributed receive beamforming algorithm is proposed based on the exchange of coarsely- quantized observations among some or all of the nodes in the receive cluster. By taking into account the differences in channel quality across the receive cluster, the quantized information from other nodes in the receive cluster can be appropriately combined with locally unquantized information to form an approximation of the ideal receive beamformer decision statistic. The LAN throughput requirements of this technique are derived as a function of the number of participating nodes in the receive cluster, the forward link code rate, and the quantization parameters. Using information-theoretic analysis and simulations of an LDPC coded system in fading channels, numerical results show that the performance penalty (in terms of outage probability and block error rate) due to coarse quantization is small in the low SNR regimes enabled by cooperative distributed reception. An upper/lower bound approximation is derived based on a circle approximation in the channel magnitude domain which provides a pretty fast way to compute the outage probability performance for a system with arbitrary number of receivers at a given SNR. In the final part of this dissertation, we discuss the distributed reception technique with higher- order modulation schemes in the forward link. The extension from BPSK to QPSK is straightforward and is studied in the second part of this dissertation. The extension to 8PSK, 4PAM and 16QAM forward links, however, is not trivial. For 8PSK, two techniques are proposed: pseudobeamforming and 3-bit belief combining where the first one is intuitive and turns out to be suboptimal,the latter is optimal in terms of outage probability performance. The idea of belief combining can be applied to the 4PAM and 16QAM and it is shown that better/finer quantizer design can further improve the block error rate performance. Information-theoretic analysis and numerical results are provided to show that significant reliability and SNR gains can be achieved by using the proposed schemes. "