A Bi-Level Differential Game-Based Load Frequency Control with Cyber-Physical Security

Load frequency control (LFC) is used in power systems to prevent frequency fluctuations caused by load disturbances and maintain power supply reliability. LFC utilizes communication channels to generate control signals, thus it is potentially vulnerable to cyber-attacks and faults. This work considers a cyber-physical model for LFC in which the adversary compromises the resources of the cyber layer to inject a stealthy false data injection attack (FDIA) vector. The FDIA injects the best-effort stealthy error into the data collected by the LFC, corrupting the control center's calculations and leading to incorrect control signals. To effectively manage this complex decision-making scenario, a game theory-based framework is established to analyze the interaction between the controller and the attacker. Based on the model, an FDIA defense mechanism based on a bi-level differential game is proposed. The experiments conducted on a three-region interconnected power system based on the IEEE 39-bus system demonstrate that the proposed strategy can effectively maintain the stability of the frequency and inter-regional power deviation within acceptable limits, even in the presence of FDIAs.