PSO based modal atom method and its application to track time-varying performance of low frequency oscillation modes

A novel method for analyzing low frequency oscillation modes was proposed to avoid the disadvantages of traditional methods that could not adaptively reveal the oscillation modes' time-varying performance. This method applied particle swarm optimization (PSO) to the atom decomposition process and the best modal atoms were selected by comparing the particles' best values. Thus, the process for selecting modal atoms was turned into solving the function optimization problems by PSO. Each modal atom was corresponding to an oscillation mode and the modal parameters were identified completely. This method has the abilities of anti-noise and robustness. Furthermore, the method can effectively track the oscillation modes' time-varying process and the time-frequency resolution is higher. The results demonstrate that the proposed method superior to HHT is effective and applicable. © 2013 Chin. Soc. for Elec. Eng.