A STANDARDS-BASED ENGINEERING FRAMEWORK FOR VIRTUALIZED PROTECTION, AUTOMATION, AND CONTROL SYSTEMS

This research work proposes a novel framework for engineering virtualized intelligent electronic devices (vIEDs) based on the existing IEC 61850 substation configuration language (SCL). SCL is complemented with hardware resources and virtual networking descriptors to represent a vIED image to be deployed. The descriptors are based on common information technology (IT) standards and are formalized in different data (meta) models. Complex configurations of vIEDs are automatically validated using machine-readable semantic constraints. The vIEDs will be integrated in platform-specific deployments for simulation purposes in laboratory or field environments. The framework's concepts have been initially tested for a digital substation case study where a simple IEC 61850 communication and protection logic is emulated using docker containers. First results show high promises in facilitating the engineering process and testing of vIEDs using a formalized methodology. Also, the works maintain interoperability and portability with platform-independent descriptors, which are essential for industrial vIED integration.