Page 24 - Modern Control of DC-Based Power Systems

PREFACE

Control Engineering is a very fascinating topic. The whole idea of shap-
ing the full behavior of a system thanks to a mathematical design process
is the heart of the engineering philosophy and of the engineering way of
thinking. Possible applications are in any field of our society and this also
makes control engineering a fascinating research and application field.
The requirements to be valuable in a large variety of applications made
the control theory evolve more and more in the direction of applied
mathematics. Such abstraction created incredibly powerful results that
found innumerable applications in every field.
On the other hand, this process of abstraction made the connection to
the real problems not so obvious, particularly from the point of view of
young engineers still trying to grasp the basics of a specific field. The goal
of this book is to try to fill this gap for the power engineering field.
This idea of the book started from the perception that many graduate
level engineers in power systems, while feeling educated in the control
area, did not find a good way to use their skills in a real design process. In
a nutshell, many students felt that they had great analytical knowledge in
the analysis phase and very little understanding of the design phase.
Filling this gap in a very generic way is basically impossible: on the other
hand, when the application field is fixed, it is much easier to find a way
to define a design approach and to link theory to practical considerations.
The main idea of this book is to help students in the process of under-
standing how to use control knowledge in the practical field of power sys-
tem engineering. A specific up-to-date challenge is used as a reference to
depict practical considerations in the application of a variety of modern
control solutions. In this sense, this book is not just another control the-
ory book but rather a process of educating power engineers to exploit
control knowledge.
From an education point of view, we use a problem-based approach.
Direct Current (DC) Technology is emerging as a valid alternative to
classical Alternative Current (AC) systems. This transition is also happen-
ing together with a growing penetration of power electronics in power
systems. The same process of transformation has already happened in
other power applications, such as ships. All in all, the transformation
means also that control is becoming a more critical skill for power

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