2 1 Introduction

devices. In AC microgrids, renewable energy resources are integrated to the grid

through inverters while in DC microgrids, these resources are connected to the grid
through DC–DC converters. In both cases, the power electronic converters are
equipped with corresponding control circuits to meet the control objectives, such as
active and reactive power flow and voltage and frequency control in AC microgrids,
and power and voltage control in DC microgrids. This book discusses different
distributed control strategies exploited in AC and DC microgrids.
AC microgrids exploit a hierarchical control structure that contains three main
levels, namely primary, secondary, and tertiary control levels. The primary control
operates at the fastest timescale and maintains voltage and frequency stability of the
microgrid subsequent to the islanding process when switching from grid-connected
mode. It is essential to provide independent active and reactive power sharing
controls for the DGs in the presence of both linear and nonlinear loads. Moreover,
the power sharing control avoids undesired circulating currents. The secondary
control compensates for the voltage and frequency deviations caused by the
operation of the primary controls and restores frequency and voltage synchro-
nization. At the highest level and slowest timescale, the tertiary control manages the
power flow between the microgrid and the main grid and facilitates an economically
optimal operation.
The traditional secondary control of AC microgrids exploits a centralized control
structure. Central controllers command globally on the gathered system-wide
information and require a complex and in some cases two-way communication
network that adversely affects system flexibility and configurability and increases
the reliability concerns by posing single point of failure. The single point of failure
means that by the failure of the central controller, the whole control system fails
down. In this book, the distributed control structure is introduced to implement the
secondary control of microgrids. A microgrid can be considered as a multi-agent
system where its DGs are the energy nodes (agents). The distributed structure of the
communication network improves the system reliability. In this control structure,
the control protocols are distributed on all DGs. Therefore, the requirement for a
central controller is obviated and the control system does not fail down subsequent
to outage of a single unit.
Distributed networks of coupled dynamical systems have received much atten-
tion over the years because they occur in many different fields including biological
and social systems, physics and chemistry, and computer science. Various terms are
used in the literature for phenomena related to collective behavior on networks of
systems, such as flocking, consensus, synchronization, formation, and rendezvous.
The distributed cooperative control of multi-agent systems can be used to imple-
ment the secondary control of microgrids. The term “distributed” means that the
controller requires a communication network by which each agent only receives the
information of its neighboring agents. The term “cooperative” means that, in
contrast to the competitive control, all agents act as one group toward a common
synchronization goal and follow cooperative decisions. Distributed cooperative
control of multi-agent systems is mainly categorized into the regulator synchro-
nization problem and the tracking synchronization problem. In regulator