ARTICLE IN PRESS

Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 21 (2008) 604–618

www.elsevier.com/locate/engappai

Robust neuro-identification of nonlinear plants in electric power

systems with missing sensor measurements
Wei Qiaoa,, Zhi Gaoa, Ronald G. Harleya, Ganesh K. Venayagamoorthyb
a
Intelligent Power Infrastructure Consortium, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology,
329156 Georgia Tech Station, Atlanta, GA 30332-0250, USA
b
Real-Time Power and Intelligent Systems Laboratory, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
University of Missouri-Rolla, Rolla, MO 65409-0249, USA

Received 18 May 2006; received in revised form 16 May 2007; accepted 28 May 2007
Available online 19 July 2007

Abstract

Fault tolerant measurements are an essential requirement for system identification, control and protection. Measurements can be
corrupted or interrupted due to sensor failure, broken or bad connections, bad communication, or malfunction of some hardware or
software. This paper proposes a novel robust artificial neural network identifier (RANNI) by combining a sensor evaluation and (missing
sensor) restoration scheme (SERS) and an ANN identifier (ANNI) in a cascading structure. This RANNI is able to provide continuous
on-line identification of nonlinear plants when some crucial sensor measurements are unavailable. A static synchronous series
compensator (SSSC) connected to a power system is used as a test system to examine the validity of the proposed model. Simulation
studies are carried out with single and multiple phase current sensors missing; results show that the proposed RANNI continuously
tracks the plant dynamics with good precision during the steady state, the small disturbance, the transient state after a large disturbance
and the unbalanced three-phase operations. The proposed RANNI is readily applicable to other plant models in power systems.
r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Auto-associative network; Missing sensor restoration; Particle swarm optimization; Radial basis function network; Robust neuro-
identification; Static synchronous series compensator

1. Introduction action network (called ANNC hereafter), in order to

The use of artificial neural networks (ANN) as neuro-
controllers to control nonlinear, nonstationary, multi-
variable plants in power systems have been reported by
many authors (Wu et al., 1992; Kobayashi and Yokoyama,
1996; He and Malik, 1997; Venayagamoorthy and Harley,
2001; Venayagamoorthy et al., 2002; Park et al., 2003; Park
et al., 2004). All of these neuro-control schemes basically
use an ANN as an identifier or a model network (called
ANNI hereafter), which is used to provide a dynamic
model of the plant at all times. This dynamic plant model is
then used by another ANN, i.e., an ANN controller or
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 404 894 5563; fax: +1 404 894 4641.
E-mail addresses: weiqiao@ece.gatech.edu (W. Qiao),
zhigao@ece.gatech.edu (Z. Gao), rharley@ece.gatech.edu (R.G. Harley),
gkumar@ieee.org (G.K. Venayagamoorthy).
provide an efficient control for the plant. The ANNI is
an essential part of these neuro-control schemes because
it provides a correct dynamic plant model, which is
crucial for the training and behavior of the ANNC, and
removes the need for a traditional mathematical model of
the plant.
The on-line training and identification of the ANNI
depends on the availability and the quality of sensor
measurements. Measurements can be corrupted or inter-
rupted due to sensor failure, broken or bad connections,
bad communication, or malfunction of some hardware or
software, etc. These corrupted or interrupted measure-
ments are referred to as missing sensors or lost sensors
hereafter in this paper. In contrast, uncorrupted measure-
ments are referred to as healthy sensors. If some sensors
fail to provide the correct information, the ANNI cannot
correctly track the dynamics of the nonlinear plant based

0952-1976/$ - see front matter r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.engappai.2007.05.010
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W. Qiao et al. / Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 21 (2008) 604–618
on the faulty input data and thus cannot continuously
provide a reasonably accurate model to the ANNC. As a
consequence, the ANNC cannot generate the correct
control signals for the plant. Therefore, it is important to
restore the missing sensor readings to provide a set of
complete input data to the ANNI. This guarantees a
correct identification of the plant and consequently a
correct control behavior.
For many systems, certain degrees of redundancy are
present among the data collected from various sensors.
A reliable missing sensor restoration (MSR) algorithm
should be able to closely reproduce the missing data from
the redundant data and the correlations between them.
Conventional methods in recovering missing data are
based on the analysis of the system model. By deriving
closed-form solutions for the variables corresponding to
the missing sensors, the missing data are explicitly
represented by the remaining available data. However, in
real system applications, closed-form solutions can be
difficult to obtain due to: (1) the difficulty to obtain an
accurate system model; (2) converging slowly, trapped in
local minima, or producing ill-conditioned solutions
when implementing these methods (El-Sharkawi and
Marks II, 2003).
By combining an auto-associative ANN (auto-encoder)
(El-Sharkawi and Marks II, 2003; Narayanan et al.,
2002; Bouland and Kamp, 1988) with a particle swarm
optimizer (PSO) (Kennedy and Eberhart, 1995; Eberhart
and Kennedy, 1995; Shi and Eberhart, 1998; Clerc and
Kennedy, 2002), a MSR algorithm has been proposed
by El-Sharkawi and Marks II (2003). The auto-encoder
is used to capture the correlations between all of its
input data, which are used by the PSO to search for the
optimal estimates of the missing data. This algorithm is
independent of system models and is fast and efficient
for on-line application. In El-Sharkawi and Marks II
(2003), the MSR was designed to restore the missing
sensor measurements, but they were constant values at
steady state; and only one such sensor measurement
was assumed to be missing in the test. This MSR algorithm
was extended to design a robust ANN identifier in Qiao
et al. (2005a), which combined a so-called static MSR
and an ANNI in a cascading structure. The inputs of the
auto-encoder in Qiao et al. (2005a) only consisted of
the sensor readings at the present time step. It meant that
the auto-encoder could only capture the cross-correlations
between different sensor measurements in its input vector
and therefore is called a static auto-encoder; the corre-
sponding static MSR was only good to restore the missing
data which were constant values at steady state. However,
in many applications, the sensor data are time varying
quantities, which are difficult to restore by the static MSR.
El-Sharkawi and Marks II (2003) and Qiao et al. (2005a)
did not specifically address the case of missing time varying
measurements or the case when multiple sensors were
missing. Moreover, the MSR relied on a sensor evaluation
scheme (El-Sharkawi and Marks II, 2003) or a sensor
605
monitor (Qiao et al., 2005a) to determine the integrity of
sensor data. In real system applications, such a sensor
evaluation scheme or sensor monitor might be difficult to
implement.
This paper extends the work of Qiao et al. (2005a) by
proposing a modified robust artificial neural network
identifier (RANNI) for continuous on-line identification
of nonlinear plants when multiple time varying sensor
measurements are missing. The example of a power system
is used to illustrate the results. A dynamic auto-encoder,
whose inputs are sensor readings at the present time step as
well as at the previous two time steps, is used to capture the
cross-correlations between different sensor measurements
as well as the auto-correlations of each sensor measure-
ment itself. In addition, if multiple sensors are missing,
searching sequentially in several one-dimensional spaces is
faster than searching in a high dimensional space. There-
fore, the sensor evaluation and (missing sensor) restoration
scheme (SERS) in this paper utilizes several MSR blocks in
a cascading structure with different priorities. Each MSR
only performs a one-dimensional search to restore one
missing sensor reading. The restored sensor measurement
from each MSR is then used by the next MSR as estimated
healthy data to search for the data from the next missing
sensor. If several MSR blocks end up restoring the same
missing sensor data, the finally restored value is chosen
from the MSR with the highest priority. This structure
enables the SERS to quickly on-line restore multiple
missing sensors. Furthermore, the sequential searching
structure enables the SERS to determine which sensor or
sensors are missing instead of using a sensor monitor. The
optimal estimates of the missing data from the SERS,
together with the remaining data read directly from the
healthy sensors, provide a set of complete inputs for the
ANNI. This completes a robust on-line identification of the
nonlinear plant.
A static synchronous series compensator (SSSC) (Gyu-
gyi et al., 1997) with energy storage devices (Zhang et al.,
2001) connected to a power system is used as a test system
to examine the validity of the proposed RANNI. This test
system is nonlinear and changes topology as well. Simula-
tion results show that the RANNI continuously tracks the
plant dynamics accurately when one or more sensors are
missing.
2. Robust ANN identifier
The nonlinear plants in power systems are normally
monitored and controlled based on a set of measurements,
which are read directly from sensors, and a set of abstract
mathematical variables calculated from these measure-
ments. These two sets of data contain the plant inputs,
outputs and state variables which describe the status of the
system. The operation and control of power systems
depend on the availability and quality of these two sets
of data.
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2.1. Overall structure
A schematic diagram of the proposed RANNI (the dash-
line block) connected to a plant is shown in Fig. 1. It
contains an ANNI and a SERS. The SERS in turn contains
several MSR blocks in a cascading structure with different
priorities. Each MSR is composed of an auto-encoder and
a PSO (El-Sharkawi and Marks II, 2003; Qiao et al.,
2005a). In Fig. 1, U and Y are plant input and output
vectors, respectively. The vector X, representing the state
variables of the system, consists of other measurements and
variables calculated from these measurements. The vector
Z consists of the crucial variables Z1 (read directly from
some sensors) which determine the behavior of the ANNI,
as well as other variables Z2 (measurements from some
sensors or variables calculated from these measurements)
which are irrelevant to the performance of the ANNI and
are only used to provide the necessary data redundancy
among the inputs of the SERS. The SERS only evaluates
and restores the missing data in the crucial vector Z1.
However, a necessary condition for the SERS to work is
that all variables in vector Z2 are available. This condition
can be determined by a sensor monitor. It evaluates the
integrities of the vectors Z1 and Z2. However, instead of
determining which sensor or sensors are missing as in Qiao
et al. (2005a), the function of the sensor monitor in this
paper is reduced to determine whether there is any sensor
missing or not. If the sensor monitor detects that some
sensor data in Z2 are missing, then the SERS module is
blocked. Otherwise, the SERS module is activated for
sensor evaluation and missing sensor restoration for the
crucial sensor data in Z1.
In this application, the plant inputs and outputs are two
sets of crucial variables to determine the behavior of the
ANNI. These variables can be those read directly from
some sensors (in this case, Z1 ¼ [Y,U]) or can be the
variables calculated from the sensor readings Z1 (in this
case, Z1CX). The auto-encoder of each MSR is firstly
trained without any missing sensor to capture the correla-
tions between all of its input data. If one or more sensors
U Y
PLANT
Z = [Z1, Z2]
SENSOR MONITOR
RANNI
Z1C
Plant Inputs
SERS Z1R and Outputs
Calculation
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the robust ANN identifier.
are lost, the SERS determines which sensor or sensors are
missing and which MSR or MSRs should be activated to
restore the missing sensor or sensors. Each MSR is only
responsible for restoring one missing sensor. Thereafter,
the PSO of each activated MSR searches in a one-
dimensional space for the optimal estimate of one missing
measurement. This is achieved by utilizing the correlations
established by the auto-encoder between the healthy sensor
data and the missing sensor data. If one missing sensor is
restored by several MSR blocks, the finally restored value
is chosen from the MSR with the highest priority.
A detailed design of the SERS is given in Section 4 for a
robust identification of an SSSC connected to a power
system. The restored sensor data, Z1R, together with the
healthy sensors data, Z1C, are used to calculate the plant
inputs, [UC,UR], and outputs, [YC,YR]. (If the plant inputs
U and outputs Y are measurements instead of variables
calculated from some measurements, then Z1C ¼ [YC,UC]
and Z1R ¼ [YR,UR], thus the Plant Inputs and Outputs
Calculation block is not required in Fig. 1.) These two
vectors, [UC,UR] and [YC,YR], provide a set of complete
plant inputs and outputs to be fed into the ANNI
and therefore completes a robust identification of the
plant dynamics. As shown in Fig. 1, with a suitably
designed SERS, the ANNI can be continuously trained on-
line to track plant dynamics with incomplete sensor
measurements.
Hereafter in this article, the subscript C represents the
variables whose values are read or calculated from the
healthy sensors; the subscript R represents the variables
whose values are restored by the SERS or calculated by
using the restored sensor readings.
2.2. ANN identifier
The ANN identifier is a three-layer radial basis function
(RBF) neural network with the Gaussian density function
as its activation function in the hidden layer (Haykin,
1999). The overall input–output mapping for the RBF
[YC, YR] +
TDL ˆ
Y- ∑
[UC, UR] ANNI
TDL EY
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W. Qiao et al. / Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 21 (2008) 604–618 607

network, f^ : X 2 Rn ! Y 2 Rm is follows:
! !1=2
Xh
jjx  C j jj2 1X h
y^ i ¼ bi þ vji exp  , (1) bi ¼ jjC i  C j jj2 , (2)
j¼1 b2j h j¼1
where x is the input vector, CjARn is the center of the jth where Ci and Cj are the ith and jth RBF centers. In (1) and
RBF units in the hidden layer, h is the number of RBF (2), ||  || represents the Euclidean norm.
units, bi and vji are the bias term and the weight between The ANNI is developed using the nonlinear autoregres-
hidden and output layer, respectively, and y^ i is the ith sive moving average with exogenous inputs (NARMAX)
output. model (Qiao and Harley, 2005b). Fig. 2 shows a schematic
Once the RBF centers are established, the width bi diagram of an ANNI connected to a plant during the
of the ith center in the hidden layer is calculated as training phase. The inputs of the ANNI are plant inputs U
and outputs Y at time k1, k2 and k3, which are fed
U (k) Y (k)
forward through the ANNI to estimate the plant outputs Y^
PLANT at time k. The difference between the actual output vector
Y and the estimated output vector Y^ at time k forms the
error vector EY, which is then used to train the ANNI
TDL before the next sampling instant.
TDL

2.3. MSR algorithm

+
ANNI Ŷ (k) Fig. 3 shows the structure of a MSR block (El-Sharkawi
∑
-
and Marks II, 2003; Qiao et al., 2005a). It consists of an
auto-encoder and a PSO.
EY (k) (1) Auto-encoder: The auto-encoder is a multi-layer
perceptron (MLP) neural network with butterfly structure
Fig. 2. ANN identifier connected to a plant during the training phase. (El-Sharkawi and Marks II, 2003; Narayanan et al., 2002;

W V

• • • -
S • • • Sˆ
Z • • • Σ
TDL • •
• •
• •
ES
Hidden Layer
Input Layer Output Layer
Auto-encoder

W V +

SC SˆC -
ZC Σ
TDL
• • •
• • •
• • • ES
• •
SM • • SR
Particle Swarm • •
Optimizer
Hidden Layer
Input Layer Output Layer
Auto-eccoder

Fig. 3. Overall structure of missing sensor restoration algorithm: (a) training phase of the auto-encoder and (b) on-line restoration of missing sensor data.
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608 W. Qiao et al. / Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 21 (2008) 604–618
Bouland and Kamp, 1988). It has the same number of
inputs and outputs, but the number of neurons in the
hidden layer is less than that of the inputs. This particular
structure creates a bottleneck or compression in the
feedforward path of the auto-encoder, enabling it to
capture the correlations between the redundant inputs.
The overall input–output mapping for auto-encoder
(Fig. 3(a)), g^ : S 2 Rp ! S^ 2 Rp is
X
q for the optimal solution. In many cases, the PSO algorithm
S^ i ¼ gðS;
^ W ; V i Þ ¼ V i dðS; W Þ ¼ V ij d j ðS; W j Þ, (3)
j¼1
where p is the dimension of the input and output vectors;
q is the number of hidden neurons; S is the input vector;
S^ i is the ith output; W and V are input and output weight
matrices, respectively; d j ðS; W j Þ is the sigmoid activation
function of the jth hidden neuron, given by
1
d j ðS; W j Þ ¼
1 þ eaj
, (4)
where
X
p
aj ¼ W j S ¼ W ji S i . (5)
i¼1
(2) Particle swarm optimizer (PSO): The PSO (Kennedy
and Eberhart, 1995; Eberhart and Kennedy, 1995; Shi and
Eberhart, 1998; Clerc and Kennedy, 2002) is an evolu-
tionary computational algorithm. It searches for the
optimal solution from a population of moving particles
which is randomly generated initially. Each particle
represents a potential solution and has a position
represented by a position vector ~ xi . A swarm of particles
moves through the problem space, with the moving
velocity of each particle represented by a velocity vector
~
vi . At each time step, a function f representing a quality
measure is calculated by using ~ xi as input. Each particle
keeps track of its own best position ~ xi;sbest , which is
associated with the best fitness it has achieved so far.
Furthermore, the best position among all the particles
obtained so far in the population is kept track of as ~ xgbest .
This information is shared by all particles. At each time
step k, a new velocity for particle i is updated by
~
vi ðk þ 1Þ ¼ w~ xi;sbest ðkÞ  ~
vi ðkÞ þ c1 f1 ð~ xi ðkÞÞ
xgbest ðkÞ  ~
þ c2 f2 ð~ xi ðkÞÞ; i ¼ 1; 2;    ; N, ð6Þ
where c1 and c2 are positive constants representing the
weighting of the acceleration terms that guides each
particle toward the individual best and the swarm best
positions ~xi;sbest and ~ xgbest , respectively; f1 and f2 are
uniformly distributed random numbers in [0,1]; w is a
positive inertia weight developed to provide better control
between exploration and exploitation; N is the number of
particles in the swarm. The velocity ~ vi is limited to the
range ½~vmax ;~vmax . If the velocity violates this limit, it is set
as the proper upper- or low-bound value. The last two
terms in (6) enable each particle to perform a local search
around its individual best position ~ xi;sbest and the swarm
best position ~xgbest . The first term in (6) enables each
particle to perform a global search by exploring a new
search space. Based on the updated velocity, each particle
changes its position according to the following equation:
xi ðk þ 1Þ ¼ ~
~ xi ðkÞ þ ~
vi ðk þ 1Þ i ¼ 1; 2;    ; N. (7)
The multi-agent (particles) searching and information
sharing mechanism in PSO enables a fast and efficient search
yields superior performance to other evolutionary computa-
tion algorithms, such as genetic algorithms. In this article,
the values of c1 and c2 are chosen as 2; the number of
particles N is chosen as 5; the inertia constant w starts with a
relatively large value at 1.4 and linearly decreases to 0.4
when the iteration number reaches a pre-specified maximum
number during the simulation. The fitness measure function
f for each particle is defined as (Fig. 3(b))
f ¼ jjE S jj ¼ jjS C  S^ C ð~
xi Þjj i ¼ 1; 2;    ; N, (8)
where SC represents the healthy sensor measurements;
S^ C represents the replicated healthy sensor data from the
auto-encoder; and
X
q
S^ Cj ð~ ^ C; ~
xi Þ ¼ gðS xi ; W ; V i Þ ¼ V ij d j ðS C ; ~
xi ; W Þ (9)
j¼1
is the jth variable in the vector S^ C ; ~
xi ¼ SM represents the
estimates of the missing sensor data.
(3) Training of the auto-encoder: The auto-encoder is
initially trained without any missing sensor as shown in
Fig. 3(a). The inputs of the auto-encoder, S, consist of the
vector, Z, at the present time step as well as at the previous
two time steps (i.e., S ¼ [Z(k), Z(k1), Z(k2)]). The use
of the time-delayed inputs enables the auto-encoder to
capture the auto-correlations of each variable in its input
vector Z. By feeding forward the data through the auto-
encoder and adjusting its weight matrices (using back-
propagation algorithm), W and V, the auto-encoder is
trained to map its inputs to its outputs. In this way, the
correlations between the input data are captured by the
auto-encoder. The detailed training process will be given in
Section 4 for a case study in a power system.
(4) Missing sensor restoration: It is assumed that some
sensor data are missing only after the training phase is
over. As a consequence, the outputs of the auto-encoder,
S^ C , no longer match its inputs SC when one or more sensor
measurements are missing, and the error signal ||ES||
becomes significant. In this case, the PSO module in the
feedback search loop of the MSR is activated (Fig. 3(b))
and only the healthy sensor data SC are fed directly into the
auto-encoder. The error signal, ||ES||, is then used by the
PSO as a fitness signal to search the solution space for
the optimal estimates of the missing sensor readings based
on the correlations established by the auto-encoder
between the healthy data and the missing data. In each
iteration, the outputs of the PSO, SM, which represent the
estimated missing sensor data, are fed together with the
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W. Qiao et al. / Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 21 (2008) 604–618 609

healthy sensor data, through the auto-encoder to reduce
the error ||ES||. Theoretically, good estimates of the lost
data should drive the fitness signal from the auto-encoder
to zero (i.e., ||ES|| ¼ 0), indicating a perfect match. In real
practice, once the error ||ES|| is below a pre-determined
small threshold value, the output of the auto-encoder, SR,
is regarded as a feasible estimate of the missing sensor data.
The use of the auto-encoder does not need an explicit
plant model. In addition, the PSO search algorithm is
simple, fast, and efficient due to its multi-agent searching
structure and information sharing mechanism. Therefore,
the overall MSR algorithm can quickly locate the optimal
estimates of the readings from the missing sensors.
3. SSSC in a SMIB power system
Fig. 4 illustrates an SSSC with its internal controllers
connected to a 160 MVA, 15 kV (L-L) single machine
infinite bus (SMIB) power system. The generator is
modeled together with its automatic voltage regulator
(AVR), exciter and turbine governor dynamics taken into
account. The three three-phase transmission lines represent
the different loops between the generator bus and the
infinite bus. The impedances of the three lines are
Z1 ¼ 0.02+j0.4 p.u., Z2 ¼ 0.03+j0.6 p.u. and Z3 ¼ 0.04+
j0.8 p.u., respectively. A three-phase balanced electric load
draws a constant active power of PL ¼ 0.1 p.u. with a
constant power factor 0.85 from the generator bus. The
system is simulated in PSCAD/EMTDC environment.
The SSSC is controlled by a P–Q decoupled power flow
control scheme using two conventional PI controllers (PId
and PIq, called CONVC) as described in Qiao and Harley
(2005b). In Fig. 5, P* and Q* are desired reference values
of transmitted real power and reactive power at the
receiving end of the line 3, which are used to determine
the reference values of the d-axis component id and the

vs rl1 xl1 vr
Line #1

rl2 xl2
Generator Line #2
Turbine-
Governor rl3 xl3 vc i
Line #3

AVR-
Exciter Infinite Bus

Three-Phase SSSC

Energy Storage
DC Interface
Electrical Load
Vdc
Control
GTO

CONVC Series VSI

Fig. 4. Single-line diagram of an SSSC in a SMIB power system.

vcq0
Plq
- +
Q* iq* + Δiq ki2 Δvcq vcq
÷ Σ kp2 + Σ mi
s + 2 +v 2
vcd cq
mi =
PRBS + vcqS Vdc
1.5 vr vcd0 Vdc
Pld
vcq
id* + Δid ki1 Δvcd +  = tan-1 
P* vcd
÷ Σ kp1 + Σ vcd
s
-
iq id PRBS + vcdS

+
Synchronously Rotating vra
 Vector Phase +
Reference Frame vrb
Locked Loop
Transformation vrc
ia ib ic
GTO Gate Control
Power System SSSC Control of Series VSI
PLANT

Fig. 5. P–Q decoupled internal control scheme for SSSC.

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q-axis component iq of the line current at the SSSC ac
terminal. The instantaneous three-phase currents of line 3
are sampled and transformed into d-axis and q-axis
components id and iq by applying the synchronously
rotating reference frame transformation (SRRFT) (Krause
et al., 2002). The actual d–q current signals are compared
with the corresponding reference signals to generate the
d-axis and q-axis current deviations, respectively, which are
then passed through the two PI controllers. The outputs of
the PI controllers in turn determine the modulation index
mi and phase shift a applied to the PWM module to drive
the GTO thyristors of the inverter. The main objective of
this SSSC is to control the transmitted real and reactive
power at the receiving end of line 3.
4. Design of a robust ANN identifier for the SSSC
4.1. Design specifications
In this section, a RANNI (as shown in Fig. 6) is designed
for continuous on-line identification of an SSSC connected
to a power system shown in Fig. 4. The plant model is
shown as the dash-line block in Fig. 5. The plant inputs
and outputs are U ¼ [vcq,vcd] and Y ¼ [iq,id], respectively.
The vector X, consists of other measurements and variables
calculated from these measurements. In this application, id
and iq are two crucial variables to determine the behavior
of the ANNI. They are calculated from the three-phase
currents ia, ib, and ic (I ¼ [ia,ib,ic]), which are variables
measured by the metering current transformers (called
current sensors hereafter). Therefore in this application, the
crucial sensor measurements are three currents ia, ib, and ic.
The vector V ¼ [vca,vcb,vcc], consists of the three-phase ac-
side injected voltages of the SSSC, measured by the
metering potential transformers (called voltage sensors
hereafter). The sensor measurements in V are irrelevant to
the performance of the ANNI and are only used to provide
Fig. 6. Schematic diagram of a robust ANN identifier for an SSSC connected to a power system.
the necessary data redundancy among the inputs of the
SERS. The use of V is necessary in order to restore two or
three missing currents in the vector I. The SERS only
evaluates and restores the missing sensors in the crucial
current vector I. However, a necessary condition for the
SERS to work is that vca, vcb and vcc are all available. This
condition is determined by a sensor monitor, which
evaluates the integrity of the sensor data and determines
whether there is any sensor missing or not in the vectors V
and I. If the sensor monitor detects that some sensor data
in V are missing, then the SERS module is blocked.
Otherwise, the SERS module is activated for sensor
evaluation and missing sensor restoration for the sensor
data in I. Here a reasonable assumption is that missing
measurements from multiple sets of sensor vectors, V and
I, is not considered.
In practice, the sensor monitor can be designed by using
the following relationships. During balanced operation,
e.g., the normal operation or a three-phase short circuit,
the three-phase voltages, vca, vcb and vcc, and currents, ia, ib,
and ic, should satisfy the following equations:
vca þ vcb þ vcc ¼ 0, (10)
ia þ ib þ ic ¼ 0. (11)
The real systems are not ideally balanced. A realistic
expression for (10) and (11) can be written as follows,
which are usually true at the transmission level where an
SSSC would be connected:
jvca þ vcb þ vcc jos1 , (12)
jia þ ib þ ic jos2 , (13)
where s1 and s2 are pre-determined small threshold
values. If the system is under normal operating conditions,
but the above relationships (12) or (13) conflict, it
indicates that one or more sensors in V or I are missing.
However, if vca, vcb and vcc are all missing, there might be
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W. Qiao et al. / Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 21 (2008) 604–618
vca ¼ vcb ¼ vcc ¼ 0 and therefore (12) is satisfied. To
distinguish this case from the case of no missing sensor,
another equation is used, given by
jvca jos3 and jvcb jos3 and jvcc jos3 .
Based on (12) and (14), there exists three cases of the
status of the sensor data in the vector V: if (12) is satisfied
but (14) conflicts, then there is no sensor missing; if (12)
conflicts, there are one or more sensors missing; if (12) and
(14) are both satisfied, then vca, vcb and vcc are all missing.
A similar equation can be used for the vector I, given by
jia jos4 and jib jos4 and jic jos4 .
The sensor monitor implements (12)–(15) to evaluate the
integrity of the sensor data in V and I.
4.2. Design of the SERS block
The SERS block in Fig. 6 consists of three cascaded
MSR blocks; each of them has the same structure as shown
in Fig. 3 and only performs a one-dimensional search to
restore one missing current sensor measurement. There-
fore, the input current vector I1 of MSR1 only consists of
one current measurement (i.e., I1 ¼ ia or ib or ic). If I1 is
missing, it is restored by MSR1 and the restored value I1R
is then used as the healthy input for MSR2. Consequently,
the input current vector I2 of MSR2 consists of two current
measurements: one is the same as I1, the other is any one of
the two currents not being used by MSR1. Finally, the
input current vector I3 of MSR3 consists of all of the three
current measurements, ia, ib, and ic. In addition, the input
vector of each MSR also contains the voltage vector V,
which provides the required redundancy for MSR. In this
design, the three current vectors at the inputs of three MSR
blocks are I1 ¼ ia, I2 ¼ [ia,ic] and I3 ¼ I ¼ [ia,ib,ic], respec-
tively. The variables I1R (I1R ¼ iaR), I2R (I2R ¼ iaR or icR)
and I3R (I3R ¼ iaR or ibR or icR) represent the restored
sensor data from MSR1, MSR2 and MSR3, respectively.
Since a necessary condition for the MSR to work is that
the number of healthy inputs must equal or exceed the
number of degrees of freedom in the hidden layer, in this
application, the dimensions of the input, hidden and
output layers of MSR1, MSR2 and MSR3 are chosen to
be 12–8–12, 15–10–15 and 18–12–18, respectively. The
output vector of the SERS, IR, contains the total restored
sensor measurements from all three MSR blocks; but IC,
contains other healthy sensor readings in the vector I. The
variables, [IR, IC], are transformed into the d-axis and q-
axis current components idR and iqR by applying the
SRRFT. In this application, missing any of the three
currents ia, ib and ic results in the loss of both id and iq.
Therefore, the calculated currents idR and iqR from the
SRRFT block, by using the restored currents from the
SERS, are then used by the ANNI as the desired plant
outputs for continuous on-line training and identification.
The estimated outputs from RANNI are Y^ ¼ ½i^q ; i^d  as
shown in Fig. 6.
611
The entire missing sensor restoration process of the
SERS is implemented in four stages as shown in Fig. 7. In
the first three stages, the SERS determines which sensor or
sensors are missing by checking the value of the Euclidean
(14)
norm of the error signal ||ES|| of each auto-encoder as
shown in Fig. 3. During a normal operating condition, with
a well-trained auto-encoder, ||ES|| should be acceptably
small. (In real applications, a threshold value can be
specified depending on the system properties.) If one or
more sensors are missing, the outputs of the auto-encoder
no longer match its inputs and the value of ||ES|| becomes
(15) significant.
The missing sensor determination process is illustrated in
Table 1, in which the positive sign, +, indicates that the
value of ||ES|| of the corresponding MSR is significant;
while the negative sign, , indicates that the value of ||ES||
of the corresponding MSR is below a pre-specified thresh-
old value, e. Table 1 gives all eight cases of missing
measurements which can be determined in only three stages
as follows. Stage I indicates that there is no restoration
action from any MSR and all the MSR blocks are only
used to check the value of ||ES||. Stage II indicates that
MSR1 is activated to restore the missing current ia, and all
the MSR blocks are also used to check the value of ||ES||.
Stage III indicates that MSR2 is activated to restore the
missing current ia or ic, and all the MSR blocks are also
used to check the value of ||ES||. In each stage, the restored
missing data is used as the estimated healthy data required
by the next stage.
The eight cases can be separated into four groups. The
first group contains cases 0 and 1, which can be determined
directly in stage I. The second group contains cases 2 and 3,
which can be determined by stages I and III. In stage I,
both cases indicate that ia is not missing but that ic is
missing, therefore moving to stage III. In stage III, ic is
restored by MSR2, therefore cases 2 and 3 can be
distinguished by the sign of MSR3. The third group
contains cases 4 and 5, which is determined by stages I and
II. The fourth group contains cases 6 and 7, which must be
determined by all three stages. In stage I, all of the four
cases in groups 3 and 4 indicate the same results, i.e., ia is
missing, therefore going to stage II. In stage II, ia is
restored by MSR1. Group 3 is distinguished from group 4
because ic is not missing, which is indicated by the sign of
MSR2. Thereafter, the cases 4 and 5 in group 3 are
separated directly by looking at the sign of MSR3. The
positive sign in stage II indicates the cases in group 4.
Therefore the checking procedure goes to stage III, in
which MSR2 restores the missing current ic. Finally, cases
6 and 7 are separated by the sign of MSR3.
After determining which sensor or sensors are missing,
the SERS procedure goes to the last stage IV, in which
MSR3 is activated to restore one missing sensor. Other
missing sensors (if they exist) take the values that are
restored in previous stages of the missing sensor determi-
nation process. Table 2 shows the restored missing sensor
by each MSR during stages II, III, and IV in each case. It is
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Fig. 7. Flowchart of missing sensor determination and restoration.

Table 1
Missing sensor determination

Group Case no. Missing sensors Stage I: no action Stage II: MSR1 action Stage III: MSR2 action

MSR1 MSR2 MSR3 MSR1 MSR2 MSR3 MSR1 MSR2 MSR3

1 0 None   
1 ib   +
2 2 ic  + +   
3 ib, ic  + +   +
3 4 ia + + +   
5 ia, ib + + +   +
4 6 ia, ic + + +  + +   
7 ia, ib, ic + + +  + +  - +

important to note that in any stage, each MSR only
performs a one-dimensional search for one missing sensor.
In addition, one missing sensor may be restored by more
than one MSR during the four stages, e.g., ia in case 4, or ic
in cases 2 and 6. In order to select only one restored value
for each missing sensor, the three MSR blocks are set with
different priorities. In this design, the priority of the three
MSR blocks decreases in the order of MSR3, MSR2 and
MSR1, which is explained in Part D of this section.
Since MSR3 has the highest priority, it is always
activated to restore one missing sensor in the last stage
IV. If the same missing sensor is restored by more than
one MSR, the finally restored value comes from the MSR
with the highest priority. In Table 2, the variables in the
blanks with  represent the restored sensor values which
are not used.
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4.3. An example of the SERS block—ia and ic missing
Fig. 8 shows an example of the SERS block in the case of
ia and ic missing, which is case 6 in Tables 1 and 2. Since the
sign of all three MSR blocks is positive, stage I defines that
ia is missing and the process goes to stage II. In stage II, ia
is restored by MSR1, shown as iaR in Fig. 8. The sign of
MSR1 now becomes negative, but the signs of MSR2 and
MSR3 remain positive. This indicates that ic is missing, and
the process therefore moves to stage III. In stage III, the
restored value of ia is used by MSR2 to restore ic shown as
icR in Fig. 8. The signs of all three MSR blocks now
become negative, which indicates that ib is not missing. In
stage IV, ic is chosen to be restored by MSR3 instead of ia
because ia must be restored before ic in this design. (If ia has
not been restored, there is no MSR which can restore ic by
only performing a one-dimensional search.) During the
entire four stages, ic is restored twice by MSR2 and MSR3,
respectively. Since MSR3 has a higher priority than MSR2,
the finally restored value of ic is chosen to be icR from
MSR3. The icR from MSR2 is then discarded, shown as the
dashed line in Fig. 8.
4.4. Other structures of the SERS block
Other structures can be used to design the SERS block
for MSR. For example, the simplest structure is to use one
MSR only, which is responsible for restoring all missing
sensor readings. Another structure is to use three MSR
blocks in parallel. The input vector of each of the three
MSR blocks then only contains one of the three currents ia,
ib and ic together with the vector V. For instance, MSR1
has the inputs [ia,V]; MSR2 has the inputs [ib,V]; and
MSR3 has the inputs [ib,V]. When one or more sensors are
Table 2
Missing sensor restoration
Case No. Missing sensors Restored sensors
MSR1 MSR2
1 ib
2 ic icR
3 ib , ic icR
4 ia iaR
5 ia , ib iaR
6 ia , ic iaR icR
7 ia , ib , ic iaR icR
lost, each sensor is restored by its corresponding MSR
simultaneously. Moreover, by combining the cascading
structure and the parallel structure, a hybrid structure can
be designed.
However, the use of three MSR blocks in cascading
structure is based on the following reasoning. First of all,
this structure ensures that each MSR only performs a one-
dimensional search to restore all missing sensors for any of
the seven cases, which is faster than only using one MSR to
search in a two- or three-dimensional space for some cases.
Secondly, this structure enables the SERS to determine
which sensor or sensors are missing. This function,
however, cannot be carried out by only one MSR for all
cases. Moreover, the performance of the MSR relies on the
data dependency at its input. Higher dependency among
input data means better performance of the MSR. As in
(11), strong dependency is present among the three current
variables ia, ib and ic. This relationship should be used for
designing the MSR. Assuming that the ia is missing, Fig. 9
shows the restored values iaR1 from MSR1, iaR2 from
MSR2, iaR3 from MSR3 as well as the corresponding
estimation errors ea1, ea2, and ea3 (ea1 ¼ |iaiaR1|),
ea2 ¼ |iaiaR2|, ea3 ¼ |iaiaR3|), respectively. In this test,
the PSO in each of the three MSR blocks uses the same
fixed number of iterations to search for the estimated value
of the missing sensor ia at each time step. These results
clearly indicate that the MSR3 has the best performance,
and the performance of MSR2 degrades a little compared
to MSR3 but is much better than MSR1 to restore the
same missing current ia. Therefore, the priority decreases in
the following order—MSR3, MSR2 and MSR1. In real
practice, the possibility of missing three sensors is much
less than that of missing two sensors, which in turn is much
less than that of missing one sensor. In the cascading
structure, missing one sensor is always restored by MSR3
with the best performance. However, if using the parallel
structure, each of the three MSR blocks will give the same
poor accuracy as MSR1 in the cascading structure.
Therefore, although complicated compared with the
MSR3 parallel structure, the cascading structure generally pro-
vides better performance than the parallel structure by
ibR
icR using the same set of sensor data.
ibR
iaR 4.5. Training of the auto-encoder of each MSR
ibR
icR
The auto-encoder in each of the three MSR blocks is
ibR
initially trained without any missing sensor. Two types of

[ia, ib, ic, V]

[ia, ib, V] IC = ib
icR icR
[ia, V] iaR MSR2 MSR3
MSR1
IR = [iaR, icR]

SERS

Fig. 8. An example of the SERS block in the case of ia and ic missing.

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4 ia

ia , iaR1 , iaR2 , iaR3 [kA]

iaR1
2 iaR2
iaR3
0

-2

-4

10.50 10.51 10.52 10.53 10.54 10.55

1.0
ea1
0.8 ea2
ea1 , ea2 , ea3 [kA]

ea3
0.6

0.4

0.2

0.0
10.50 10.51 10.52 10.53 10.54 10.55
Time [sec]

Fig. 9. The actual value ia, restored values iaR1 from MSR1, iaR2 from MSR2, iaR3 from MSR3 as well as the corresponding estimation errors ea1, ea2, and
ea3 (ea1 ¼ |iaiaR1|), ea2 ¼ |iaiaR2|, ea3 ¼ |ia-iaR3|).

training, i.e., forced training and natural training, are When the forced training is over, the auto-encoder captures
applied to the auto-encoder. During the forced training, the correlations Cor(Zj) (Cor is a function of the operating
the two PI controllers (PId, PIq) are deactivated as shown in point Zj) between its input variables for all Z j 2 Z̄ i . The M
Fig. 5 and the steady-state plant inputs vcqS and vcdS are operating points are selected such that the total training
disturbed by pseudorandom binary signals (PRBS) from an space for the forced training almost covers the whole
external source at each time step k, given by operating space of the auto-encoder, namely
PRBS_vcd ðkÞ ¼ 0:1jvcdS j½rand2ðkÞ þ rand3ðkÞ þ rand5ðkÞ=3, M
[ Z̄i  Z̄. (18)
(16) i¼1

PRBS_vcq ðkÞ ¼ 0:1jvcqS j½rand2ðkÞ þ rand3ðkÞ þ rand5ðkÞ=3, The forced training takes place repetitively several times
for each selected operating point in order to ensure that the
(17)
auto-encoder captures the correlations over a wide operat-
where rand2, rand3 and rand5 are uniformly distributed ing range. Thereafter, the auto-encoder is continuously
random numbers in [1, 1] with frequencies 2, 3 and 5 Hz, trained on-line by natural training as long as there is no
respectively; |vcdS| and |vcqS| are the magnitudes of vcqS and missing sensor.
vcdS, respectively. Once the weights of the auto-encoder
converge, the PRBS is removed and the two PI controllers
are again activated to control the plant. The system is now 5. Simulation results
operated at normal operating conditions and exposed to
natural disturbances and faults. During this time, the auto- This section presents simulation results by applying
encoder is continuously trained on-line without any forced the proposed RANNI to the system in Fig. 4. During
PRBS; this training is called natural training. In the the simulations, one, two and all of the three current
applications in power systems, it is feasible to determine the sensors are assumed to be missing, respectively, in
operating ranges of the auto-encoder input variables Z order to evaluate the performance of the proposed RANN.
(Fig. 3(a)), given by Z 2 Z̄. So the operating space of the In all three cases, the generator operates at a steady
auto-encoder is given by Z̄. M operating points {Zi} state with a rotor angle of 42.61, output real power
(i ¼ 1,2,y,M) are then selected from the operating space Pt ¼ 0.9 p.u. and output reactive power Qt ¼ 0.56 p.u. The
for the forced training. By using PRBS signals, the forced transmitted real power and reactive power at the receiving
training at each operating point Zi actually covers a end of line 3 are regulated by the SSSC at 0.45 and
subspace Z̄ i around Zi such that Z i 2 Z̄ i and Z̄ i  Z̄. 0.22 p.u., respectively.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
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ib ibR 4.2 id

id , idR , and id [kA]

idR
4.1 ^
4 id

^
4.0
2 3.9
ib , ibR [kA]

3.8
0
3.7
-2 3.6
15 16 17 18 19 20
-4
iq
9.99 10.00 10.01 10.02 10.03 10.04 10.05 -1.7 iqR

iq , iqR ,and iq [kA]

Time [sec] ^
-1.8 iq

^
Fig. 10. Test during the steady state in Case I—ib missing from 10.0 s. -1.9
-2.0
-2.1
-2.2
5.1. Case I—ib missing 15 16 17 18 19 20
Time [sec]
During this test, the system in Fig. 4 is firstly operated
under normal conditions. From t ¼ 10 s, the current sensor Fig. 11. Test during PRBS disturbance (from 15.0 s) in Case I—ib missing
ib is assumed to be missing and restored by the SERS. from 10.0 s.
Fig. 10 shows the actual value ib and the restored value ibR
from the SERS during this steady-state operation. The
restored value ibR is used with the healthy currents ia and ic 5.5
id
together, to calculate idR and iqR by applying the SRRFT.
id , idR , and id [kA]

5.0 idR
These two currents are then used by the ANNI as the 4.5
^
id
^

desired plant outputs for on-line training and identifica-

4.0
tion. From t ¼ 15 s, the plant inputs vcd and vcq are
disturbed by 720% PRBS signals from an external source 3.5
as shown in Fig. 5. Fig. 11 shows the actual values id and iq, 3.0
the restored values idR and iqR, and the estimated values i^d 2.5
and i^q by the RANNI, respectively. These results indicate 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44

that with a suitably designed SERS, the missing sensor is 0

restored with good precision. This guarantees a correct -1
iq , iqR , and iq [kA]

identification of the plant dynamics by the RANNI. -2

^

Thereafter, the PRBS is removed at t ¼ 25 s. At t ¼ 30 s, -3 iq

a 100 ms three-phase short circuit is applied to the receiving iqR
-4 ^
end of line 2. The results are shown in Fig. 12. Again, the iq
missing current ib is restored by the SERS therefore -5
providing a set of correct estimates, [idR,iqR], of the plant -6
outputs and a set of complete inputs to the ANNI. As a 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44
consequence, the RANNI tracks the transients of the Time [sec]
actual plant outputs id and iq with good precision during Fig. 12. A 100 ms three-phase short circuit test (at 30.0 s) in Case I—ib
the transient state after this large disturbance. missing from 10.0 s.

5.2. Case II—ib and ic missing
With the same initial conditions as in Case I, the current
sensors ib and ic are now assumed to be missing from
t ¼ 10 s and restored by the SERS. Fig. 13 shows the actual
values ib and ic, and the restored value ibR and icR from the
SERS during this steady-state operation. Clearly, the two
missing currents are both restored by the SERS correctly.
Form t ¼ 15 s, the same PRBS as in Case I is used to
disturb the plant inputs. Fig. 14 compares the results of the
actual values id and iq, the estimated values idR and iqR, and
the estimated values i^d and i^q by the RANNI. It clearly
shows that the RANNI correctly tracks the plant dynamics
with missing two of the three current sensors.
Thereafter, the PRBS is removed at t ¼ 25 s. At t ¼ 30 s,
a 100 ms three-phase short circuit is applied to the receiving
end of line 2. The results are shown in Fig. 15. Again,
the plant outputs are correctly estimated by using the
restored missing current ib and ic from the SERS as well as
only one healthy current ia. As a consequence, the RANNI
tracks the transients of the plant dynamics with good
precision.
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4 ib

2 ibR

ib, ibR [kA] 0

-2

-4

9.99 10.00 10.01 10.02 10.03 10.04 10.05

4 ic

2 icR
ic , icR [kA]

-2

-4

9.99 10.00 10.01 10.02 10.03 10.04 10.05

Time [sec]

Fig. 13. Test during the steady state in Case II—ib and ic missing from 10.0 s.

4.2 id 5.5 id
id, idR, and id [kA]
id, idR, and id [kA]

idR 5.0 idR

4.1 ^ ^
id 4.5 id
^

4.0
^

4.0
3.9
3.5
3.8
3.0
3.7 2.5
3.6 2.0
15 16 17 18 19 20 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44

-1.7 iq 0
iqR
iq, iqR, and iq [kA]

-1
iq , iqR ,and iq [kA]

-1.8 ^
iq
-2
^
^

-1.9 -3 iq
iqR
-2.0 -4 ^
iq
-5
-2.1
-6
15 16 17 18 19 20 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44
Time [sec] Time [sec]

Fig. 14. Test during PRBS disturbance (from 15.0 s) in Case II—ib and ic Fig. 15. A 100 ms three-phase short circuit test (at 30.0 s) in Case II—ib
missing from 10.0 s. and ic missing from 10.0 s.

5.3. Case III—ia, ib and ic missing
In this extreme case, for the same initial conditions as in
Cases I and II, all of the three current sensors ia, ib and ic
are assumed to be missing and restored by the SERS from
t ¼ 10 s onwards. Fig. 16 shows that all three missing
currents are restored by the SERS during the steady-state
operation.
However, comparing Fig. 16 with Figs. 10 and 13, shows
that the SERS performance degrades due to the missing of
all three current sensors. In this case, MSR2 has to use the
restored value iaR from MSR1 to restore ic; and MSR3 has
to use the restored value iaR from MSR1 as well as the
restored value icR from MSR2 to restore ib. Since the whole
process starts from the MSR with the worst performance, it
is not surprising that the entire performance of the SERS
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6 ia iaR iaC
ia
4 iaR
ia, iaR [kA]

2 4

ia, iaR, iaC [kA]

0 2
-2
0
-4
-2
9.99 10.00 10.01 10.02 10.03 10.04 10.05
-4
4 ib
ibR
ib, ibR [kA]

2 10.50 10.51 10.52 10.53 10.54 10.55

0 Time [sec]
-2 Fig. 17. Test during the unbalanced three-phase operation in Case IV—ia
-4 missing from 10.0 s: ia, iaR and iaC [kA].
9.99 10.00 10.01 10.02 10.03 10.04 10.05

4 ic generator, respectively. It is assumed that the SERS has

icR been trained for this unbalanced condition. Then the current
2
ic, icR [kA]

sensor ia is assumed to be missing from t ¼ 10.0 s. The

0
-2
-4
9.99 10.00 10.01 10.02 10.03 10.04 10.05
Time [sec]
Fig. 16. Test during the steady state in Case III—ia, ib and ic missing from
10.0 s.
degrades. This degradation problem can be solved by using
additional sensor data (such as the three-phase line-to-line
voltages or the three-phase currents of line 1 or line 2, etc.)
to the input vector of MSR1. This introduces more
redundancy among the input data of MSR1 therefore
improving its performance. However, the cost is that more
sensors have to be used and more computational cost has
to be taken.
5.4. Case IV—unbalanced three-phase operation
Under balanced operation, missing one sensor might be
simply restored using the relationship in (11). However, the
use of SERS is still necessary because it identifies which
sensor is missing. This cannot be achieved by only using
(11). Moreover, the transmission network of a power
system where the SSSC would be connected, might
experience unbalanced operation, although it rarely hap-
pens. In this case, strong dependency is still present among
the three current variables ia, ib and ic, but it cannot be
expressed in the simple form of (11). As a result, the
relationship in (11) cannot be used to restore the missing
sensor and the use of the SERS is justified.
To demonstrate the effectiveness of the SERS under
unbalanced operating conditions, the operating condition
of the system in Fig. 4 is now changed, with line 2 open
during the entire test. Phase A of the electric load is
open circuited causing an unbalanced operation, with
phases B and C drawing a constant active power of
PL ¼ 0.1 p.u. at a constant power factor 0.85 from the
results are shown in Fig. 17, in which iaC is calculated by
(11), namely, iaC ¼ 0ibic. Obviously, the missing current
ia could not be correctly calculated from (11) because this
relationship no long holds during unbalanced conditions.
However, the SERS is still able to capture the complex
correlations among its input sensor data, and uses these
correlations to accurately restore the missing current ia.
These results indicate that the SERS works independently of
system operating conditions as long as it has been trained.
6. Conclusions
This paper proposes a robust ANN identifier (RANNI)
model, which combines a suitably designed SERS and an
ANN identifier in a cascading structure. This RANNI is
able to provide continuous on-line identification of non-
linear plants in power systems when some sensor measure-
ments are not available.
An auto-associative neural network is employed as an
auto-encoder to capture the correlations between all of its
input sensor readings by applying appropriate training. If
some sensors are lost, a PSO is activated to search for the
optimal estimates of the missing data. This search is based
on the correlations established by the auto-encoder
between the healthy sensors and the missing sensors. This
completes a MSR algorithm. In this article, a dynamic
auto-encoder, whose inputs contain sensor readings at the
present time step as well as at the previous two time steps,
is used to capture the cross-correlations between different
sensor measurements as well as the auto-correlations of
each sensor measurement. This design enables the MSR to
continuously on-line restore the missing data which are
time varying quantities. A SERS is designed by applying
several MSR blocks in a cascading structure with different
priorities. This structure enables the SERS to identify
which sensor or sensors are missing, and ensure that each
MSR only searches in a one-dimensional space to quickly
locate the optimal estimate of each missing measurement.
If several MSR blocks end up restoring the same missing
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
618 W. Qiao et al. / Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 21 (2008) 604–618
sensor, the finally restored value is chosen from the MSR
with the highest priority. The restored missing sensor
readings are then used with the healthy sensor readings
together to provide a set of complete plant inputs and
outputs for the ANN identifier. This guarantees a robust
identification of the nonlinear plant dynamics.
A SSSC connected to a power system is used as a test
system to examine the validity of the proposed model.
During the simulations, one, two and all of the three
current sensors are assumed to be missing, respectively;
simulation results show that the proposed RANNI
continuously tracks the plant dynamics with good preci-
sion during the steady state, the PRBS disturbance, the
transient state after a large disturbance, such as a three-
phase short circuit, and the unbalanced three-phase
operating conditions.
The SERS does not need a mathematical plant model.
Therefore, the proposed RANNI is readily applicable to
other plant models in power systems.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported in part by the Duke Power
Company, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA and in part by
the National Science Foundation, Washington, DC, USA,
under Grants ECS # 0524183 and ECS # 0400657.
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