Advanced State Estimation Approach for Partially Observable Shipboard Power Systems

Abstract

In instances where vessels encounter impacts or other factors leading to communication impairments, the status of electrical equipment becomes inaccessible through standard communication lines for the controllers. Consequently, the shipboard power system enters the partial observable state. Failure to timely ascertain and respond to the current state of the shipboard power system with appropriate restorative controls can result in irreversible damages to the electrical infrastructure and potentially precipitate a complete systemic failure. In this paper, an innovative fault-tolerant control and state estimation approach is proposed to address the partial observability problem of shipboard power systems, based on distributed control architecture and hybrid automata modeling, where controllers are unable to fully acquire equipment status due to device failures like sensor malfunctions. This approach infers the overall state of subsystems using data from intact equipment and discrete events from circuit breakers. Through fault-tolerant control techniques, it ensures that the subsystem state avoids invalid regions, effectively preventing the system from entering unhealthy operational states and significantly reducing the risk of performance degradation or systemic collapse due to faults. Simulation results confirm that this approach can quickly and accurately estimate the system’s current state under partial observation, enabling subsequent fault recovery strategies to accurately pinpoint fault locations and identify optimal recovery solutions.