Title:  Cyber-Physical Security and Protection of Multi-Terminal DC Grids

Committee: 

Dr. Saeedifard, Advisor

Dr. Bloch, Co-Advisor   

Dr. Molzahn, Chair

Dr. Divan

Abstract: The objective of the proposed research is to investigate the cyber-physical security vulnerabilities and protection strategies for the emerging high-voltage multi-terminal dc (MTdc) transmission grids. In this context, false data injection attacks (FDIAs) that cause transmission line outages are studied, because FDIAs have already been demonstrated to be highly feasible to perform and line outages can produce cascading failures as shown by the 2003 Northeast blackout. This work is divided into two parts, in which each part investigates a FDIA that targets the control center and the substation of the MTdc grid, respectively. As the MTdc grids are gaining traction and will be inevitably adopted in the foreseeable future, the proposed research work addresses their cyber-security issues in a pre-emptive fashion as a step toward realization and implementation of the MTdc grids.