Transient-Safe and Attack-Resilient Secondary Control in AC Microgrids Under Polynomially Unbounded FDI Attacks

Abstract: This letter proposes a novel, fully distributed, transient-safe resilient secondary control strategies for AC microgrids, addressing unbounded false data injection (FDI) attacks on control input channels. Unlike existing methods that focus primarily on steady-state convergence, our approach guarantees transient safety, ensuring that system states remain within predefined safety bounds even during attack initiation a critical aspect overlooked in prior research. Given the reduction of network inertia by increasing the penetration of inverted-based renewables, large overshooting and intense fluctuations are more likely to occur during transients caused by disturbances and cyber-attacks. To mitigate these risks, the proposed control method enhances defense capabilities against polynomially unbounded FDI attacks, maintaining safe system trajectories for both frequency and voltage throughout the transient response. Through rigorous Lyapunov-based stability analysis, we formally certify the strategies to achieve uniformly ultimately bounded (UUB) convergence in frequency and voltage regulation, and active power sharing across multi-inverter-based AC microgrids. Numerical simulation studies verify the effectiveness of the proposed control protocols, demonstrating improved system reliability, safety and resilience under adverse conditions.