*5.1. Description of the Cyber-Physical Setup*

This section describes the implemented configuration of the testbed for the multi-agent RT-EMS experimentation in the Energy Systems Research Laboratory (ESRL), Florida International University.

The MG considered in this study is composed of a wind generator and PV system, each one is emulated by a synchronous generator, a storage unit emulated by a DC power supply, a controllable load, load, and connection to the grid.

Each generating station has five different types of motor drives, acting as five different prime movers to enable the implementation of various generation control strategies. These generators are equipped with frequency drives, Automatic Voltage Regulator (AVR) and synchronizer systems to control these different prime movers. The voltage regulators and automatic power control module controllers enable the system to operate as real-time generators. An automatic synchronizer connects each generator and controls the switching and measurement busses. The control and setup of each generation station are described in Figure 6.

**Figure 6.** Generation station hardware and control.

The DC zone that emulates the DC storage unit is represented by a DC bus, where its voltage was set to 380 V and XR SERIES DC power supply offered by the MAGNA-POWER ELECTRONICS, which emulates the charging/discharging battery characteristics. It is interfaced with the DC bus through the DC-DC boost converter. The converter controllers are implemented in SIMULINK environment and executed in the DSpace 1104 real time interface. The system topology can be changed by using eight controlled switches. The switches have two states on and off. A control signal is sent to these switches to change their state which changes the equivalent circuit. The control is initiated from a virtual instrument (VI) program implemented in LabVIEW environment. The card PCI 6025E sends the control command to the circuit. This circuit is an inverting buffer module sn7406n of TEXAS INSTRUMENT. This module contains six inverters with open collector output. The RMS values for the voltage in the AC zone is set to 208 V. The AC bus is connected to the utility grid at PCC. Also, different load models were designed to represent the AC load pattern. Figure 7 shows the control of the power supply.

**Figure 7.** Control of DC power supply.

The testbed is controlled and monitored through the LabVIEW SCADA interface, as shown in Figure 8. The connected components for this experiment have switches with light green color.

**Figure 8.** SCADA interface in ESRL.
