SBIR Phase II: A Robust State Estimator For Power Grids

The broader impact/commercial potential of this project include 1) the targeted problem (power system state estimator) is extremely critical in modern power grids or smart grids which may help prevent system-wide failures or blackouts if properly handled, 2) the certainty of commercialization of the proposed approach warranting significant NSF support because the provided solution is fast enough for real-time application and the new state estimator does not ask for additional inputs or requirements compared with existing solutions, 3) the research team is formed by technical as well as marketing personnel which ensures the success of the sales of the products, 4) the uniqueness of the proposed approach which provides competitive benefits to the market that cannot be met by alternate technologies and can attract further funding from non-SBIR sources and result in direct sales to power industry, 5) the proposed approach develops a unique formulation/solution of state estimation which very possibly leads to further innovations, 6) the new procedure of the proposed approach based on unique formulation and unique philosophy can promote teaching, training and learning in the area of state estimation. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase 2 project contains intellectual merit that lies in 1) achieving a fast and robust solution to a 40-years' open problem of robustness in power system state estimation, which is a critical and challenging problem, 2) developing a unique formulation of state estimation which easily prevents robust problems suffered by the existing approaches to state estimation and which provides advanced knowledge and understanding in the area of state estimation, 3) a well-qualified team led by the PI who has research experience in state estimation for more than 15 years and has published actively and widely in state estimation and other related areas, 4) the high originality of the proposed solution which is developed based on a completely different philosophy than the existing ones, and is innovative even in the theory of statistics, 5) reflecting state-of-the-art in the area of power system state estimation ? presently a major research activity, and 6) easy integration of synchronized phasor measurements into the proposed state estimator.