Intelligent Control Framework for Energy Storage
Management on MVDC Ship Power System
Samy Faddel, Mohamad El Hariri, Student Members, IEEE, and Osama Mohammed, Fellow, IEEE
Energy Systems Research Laboratory, Florida International University, Miami, Florida USA
mohammed@fiu.edu
Abstract—Modern ships are undergoing a migration to become
all electric ships (AES). Due to the nature and complexity of
modern ships, MVDC power system has arisen as a viable option
due to its economic and weight aspects. MVDC power system can
ensure efficient operation of the power sources on the ship,
eliminate the need for synchronization among the generators and
avoid the use of heavy bulky transformers. However, the
successful operation of a MVDC power system requires adequate
control algorithm to ensure load-generation balance. Accordingly,
this paper proposes a decentralized intelligent control algorithm
to control the storage devices on modern ship power systems,
considering pulsed loads. The controller is validated through
detailed simulations on MATLAB/Simulink and the results
showed that the controller could ensure load-generation balance
and proper power sharing among the storage devices.
Keywords—MVDC; Ship power system; Pulsed loads; Energy
storage; Decentralized control; Fuzzy
I. INTRODUCTION
Due to the different advantages offered by DC systems,
future ships are migrating from the currently adopted AC
systems to DC systems. The main advantage of DC ship power
systems include replacing bulky transformers with more
compact electronic converters, ease of parallel connection and
disconnection, eliminating the need for synchronization among
the generators, and avoiding problems of reactive power flow
[1]. Because of the high amount of energy and power required
in AES applications, MVDC systems have been proposed as
viable design options. Recently, MVDC control problems are
gaining more focus among researchers in this field. This is due
to the need to coordinate the different resources on the ship in
order to mitigate the different loads and state of operation of the
ship. Among the different types of loads, pulsed loads require
more attention since they consume a large amount of energy
within a small window in time (i.e. within seconds).
Given the slow response time of the gas driven generators on
the ship compared to the nature of pulsed loads [2], energy
storage devices will be a corner stone in the successful
operation of MVDC ship power systems. To study the operation
of MVDC ship power systems, researchers started to develop
models for the different components on the ship. Modelling of
Shipboard MVDC systems for the purpose of dynamic analysis
was considered in [3]. The authors proposed an analytical time
domain modelling methodology to facilitate the dynamic
analysis of the system. Authors in [4] studied the interaction
among the sources and loads in Marine MVDC power systems.
In their work, a dynamic assessment that includes the
Part of this work was supported by the US office of Naval Research. The
authors are with the Energy System Research Laboratory, ECE Department.
Florida International University, Miami, FL, 33174 USA. (E-mail:
mohammed@fiu.edu).
978-1-5386-5186-5/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE
contribution of the generator inductances, dc-bus capacitors,
cable effects, and the modeling of the constant power loads
(CPL) behavior were done.
In addition to the modelling of the MVDC power system,
different control algorithms have been proposed to ensure load-
generation balance and to maintain the stability of the system
under all conditions. The evaluation of power flow control for
warship power systems with pulsed loads were considered in [4].
The authors presented a hierarchical shaping control algorithm
to adjust the power flow through filtering to mitigate pulsed
loads. However, there was no consideration to the proper power
sharing among the storage devices. Many researchers have
considered centralized controllers to ensure adequate operation
of the system. Centralized controller for energy storage
management for AES power systems with pulsed loads was
considered in [5], [6]. In [5], the author proposed a PI controller
based energy storage management to handle the charging and
discharging of a hybrid storage system that consists of a
supercapacitor and a battery. The energy management is based
on a centralized controller that requires the knowledge of the
generators’ and the loads’ currents in addition to the voltage of
the MVDC bus. In [6], a fuzzy logic controller was proposed
to provide energy management of the hybrid energy storage.
However, it still requires the knowledge of the generators’ and
loads’ current. A centralized controller for the coordination
among the generators and hybrid energy storage devices were
considered in [7]. The main purpose of the controller was to
mitigate the pulsed loads on the ship power system. However,
no details about the nature and the type of the used energy
storage was presented.
Although centralized controllers ensure the optimal
operation of the system [8], [9], they suffer from the problem of
handling large amount of data exchange. That is, centralized
controllers have to collect large amounts of data from the
system, process this data, and send it back as reference values to
the different components of the system. This fact makes
centralized controllers vulnerable to single points of failure. The
bottleneck problem is further complicated when considering the
current state of cyber threats. In addition, centralized controllers
are complex and require heavy computational power to process
the large amount of data that they receive from different points
of the system. As an alternative, decentralized controllers were
developed. Decentralized controllers have the ability to make
decision on the local level, without the need for communicating
with other components of the system. Decentralized controllers
have not been widely explored in the application of MVDC ship
power systems. In [10], a fuzzy logic controller was used on a
simplified model of a MVDC ship power system. The aim of the MVDC
bus
controller was to maintain the voltage of the MVDC system by
controlling the DC loads on the low voltage side of the ship. Radar
Energy storage devices and pulsed loads were not taken into G Load
Gas
consideration. A decentralized Linear Quadratic Gaussian Turbine Main AC Port
(LQG) control approach for the control of the rectifiers Generator M Propulsion
connected to the generators was proposed in [11]. The objective Motor

of the controller was to maintain the stability of the MVDC LV DC

system in the presence of constant power loads. The pulsed loads Battery
Load

and storage system were not considered. Banks

LV AC
In this paper, we propose an intelligent decentralized control Load
LVDC
algorithm that ensures load-generation balance in the presence
G Starboard
of pulsed loads and maintains the voltage of the MVDC bus Gas M Propulsion
Auxiliary
within acceptable limits, according to the IEC 60092-101 Turbine AC
Motor

standards [12]. Also, the proposed controller ensures proper Generator

Pulsed
power sharing among the storage devices and avoids deep Load
discharging or over charging of the storage devices. The
proposed controller is validated on a notional MVDC power Fig. 1 MVDC ship power system
system that involves different sources and loads.
DC/DC
The rest of the paper is organized as follows: in section II, a brief Battery converter
description about the notional MVDC used in this work is given Ibat IL Vdc

MVDC Bus
followed by the controller description is section III. In section
IV, the results are presented and discussed. Finally, the paper is PWM Signal
concluded in section V.
Control
Algorithm
II. SYSTEM DESCRIPTION
The MVDC ship power system considered in this paper is
shown in Fig. 1. It consists of multiple generators and loads. State Machine Logic
Ship power systems are mostly isolated microgrids. Therefore, Ibat SOC
PWM Signal
the system designer tries to ensure that the ship has its own Estimator Fuzzy I Charge Iref PWM
DE PI
sufficient power sources in the most economical way. Usually, Controller
the MVDC ship power system is equipped with two large main Vdc
Discharge
generators, in the range of 36 MW, and two small auxiliary IL
Delay
generators, with 4 MW total power rating. However, due to the Del_V

fast response of the pulsed loads and the slow ramping rate of Fig. 2 Proposed controller block diagram
the gas driven generators, the ship is also equipped with a
To satisfy the formal requirements, an intelligent
storage system to feed the pulsed loads, as shown in Fig. 1. The
decentralized controller is proposed in this work. A
pulsed load considered in this work is rated at 2 MW and it is
decentralized controller was selected for this work because of
an intermittent load. The remaining loads are connected to the
its ability to make decisions on the local level, based on local
system for long periods of time. These loads includes the ship
voltage and SOC measurements, without the need to
propulsion system that consumes 80% of the ship power [13], a
communicate with other components of the system. This
radar system that consumes power in the range of 3 MW, and
reduces the computation burden, which makes the proposed
hotel loads that is fed through buck converters and inverters.
controller favorable for real-time operation.
The block diagram of the proposed controller is shown in Fig.
III. PROPOSED CONTROLLER 2. The controller is composed of 1) a fuzzy inference system
that decides on the charging/discharging reference set point of
The inevitable presence of pulsed-loads on an AES MVDC
the batteries present in the system and 2) a state-machine logic
bus requires its controller to possess certain functionalities to
that further decides if the charging/discharging will actually
maintain load-generation balance. As mentioned earlier, due to
occur based on the need of the system to avoid unnecessary
the slow response of gas driven generators (8-12 sec) on the
usage of the batteries. Here it is important to mention that due
ship, energy storage systems will be the main source for feeding
to the decentralized nature of the controller, it does not know
the pulsed-loads. Therefore, under all operating conditions, the
about the capability of the generators. For example, when a
controller must maintain load-generation balance, ensure
large load is added to the system, it will cause a momentary
proper power sharing among the storage devices on the ship and
voltage drop on the MVDC bus. This may prompt the batteries
avoid unnecessary charging/discharging of the batteries to
to start discharging regardless of the fact that the generators can
increase their lifetime.
supply this added load.
 The controller components and design strategy are detailed in of the battery. The third input is the rate of change of the MVDC
what follows. bus voltage.
Once it receives the reference current, the state machine will
A. Intelligent Fuzzy Inference System
initialize. It will then look at the SOC of the battery. If the SOC
First, a fuzzy controller is selected because of its ability to is less than 20%, the battery will not be allowed to participate
handle all possible uncertainties in the system via a simplistic in the discharging process. Also, if the SOC of the battery is
IF-THEN approach [14]. As can be seen from Fig. 2, the input greater than 80%, the state machine will not allow the battery
to the fuzzy block is the state of charge (SOC) of the battery to participate in the charging processes. If these two cases are
and the voltage of the MVDC bus. The SOC estimator estimates not present, the state machine logic will proceed as follows. If
the state of charge of the battery according to equation (1), the incoming reference current is to discharge the battery, the
whereas the voltage is directly collected through voltage state machine will enter the discharge decrementing block
measurement devices. shown in Fig. 5. In this block, the reference current will be
decremented and the rate of the change of the MVDC bus
(1) voltage is monitored. If this voltage decreases, then support is
needed from the batteries and the block will stop decrementing
Where Cbat, Ibat, and SOC(0) are the battery capacity, battery the reference current value and pass it to the PI controller.
current, and battery initial state of charge, respectively. The However, if the voltage did not change or it increased, then the
output of the fuzzy block is IDE, which represents the generators are capable of feeding the added loads. In such a
charging/discharging set point of the batteries. The decision of case, the charge decrementing block will decrease the reference
the output set point is a result of processing the inputs through current to zero. On the other hand, if the reference current is to
the two groups of membership functions shown in Fig. 3. The charge the batteries, the state machine will enter the charge
voltage membership functions are divided into three levels: incrementing block where the reference current will be
Low (L): V < 4975; Medium (M): 4975 ≤ V < 5025; and High gradually incremented.
(H): V ≥ 5025. This was done to ensure that the voltage of the
MVDC bus is kept constant. Low voltage levels are selected to
L M H
trigger the discharging of the batteries to support the system.
Medium voltage levels ensure that no action is required from
the batteries. High voltage levels trigger the charging of the
batteries to absorb the momentarily surplus power. Similarly,
the SOC membership functions are divided into three levels:
Low (L): SOC < 25; Medium (M): 25 ≤ SOC < 70; and High 4925 4975 5000 5025 5075 Voltage (V)
(H): 70 ≤ SOC ≤ 100. This was done to ensure proper power (a)
L M H
sharing among the batteries. It is required that the battery with
higher state of charge to contribute more in the discharging
processes. Contrary to that, the battery with lower state of
charge should have charging favorability over the others. This
helps increase the lifetime of the storage system devices.
The rules that govern the decision of the fuzzy block are 20 25 40
(b)50 70 75 SOC (%)
shown in the rule surface of Fig. 4. As can be seen in Fig. 4: Fig. 3 Proposed controller block diagram
• In case of low voltage on the MVDC bus, the batteries
are discharging. However, the contribution of each battery
is decided based on its SOC.
• In case of high voltage on the MVDC bus, the batteries
are charging. However, the rate of charge of each battery
is prioritized based on its SOC.
• In case of medium MVDC bus voltage levels, around
5KV, the batteries remain idle.
B. State Machine Logic
The charging/discharging set point decided upon by the fuzzy
block is passed for further processing as a first set of inputs into
a state machine logic. This is to avoid unnecessary usage of the
batteries due to momentarily fluctuations of the MVDC bus
voltage level that could happen because of the insertion or
removal of large loads that can be fed by the generators. This
ensures that the battery storage system is used only when Fig. 4 Proposed controller block diagram
needed. The second input to the state machine logic is the SOC
 Initialization

(Soc>=20) (Soc<20)
If SOC<20 Iref =0
Flag2=dV Flag1=del_V
Else Iref=IDE

((abs(Flag1)< abs(del_V))
&& Soc>20)
If SOC<20 Iref=0 If SOC>80 Iref =0
Else Iref=Iref-(0.1*Iref) (abs(Flag2)<abs(del_V))
Else Iref=Iref+(0.1*Iref)

(abs(Flag2)> (delay; (abs(Flag1)> (delay;

abs(del_V)) Iref<Imax&&Del_V<Vth) abs(Del_V)) Iref<Imax&&Del_
V<Vth)
Hold on Hold on

Discharge_decrementing charge_incrementing

Fig. 5 Flowchart of the state machine logic

Again, the rate of change of the MVDC bus voltage will be TABLE I. MVDC SYSTEM PARAMETERS
monitored. If this voltage decreases, then the charge Type Power Maximum
Quantity
incrementing block will stop increasing the reference charging (MW) Current (A)
current and will pass its final value to the PI controller. Main Generators 2 36 7200
However, if the voltage is increasing, then the block will keep Auxiliary Generators 2 4 800
incrementing the current till the maximum charging rate of the Propulsion Motors 4 32 6400
battery is reached. This value will be passed to the PI controller. Radar System 1 3 600
The full algorithm of the sate machine logic is shown in the Service Loads - 5 1000
flowchart of Fig. 5. Pulsed Loads 1 2 400
Batteries 2 - ±4800
It is to be noted that the perturbations of the reference current
values occur within microseconds. Finally, after the PI receives
the reference current, it will force the converter of Fig. 2 to generation balance and ensure proper power sharing among the
follow this reference current. batteries.

IV. RESULTS A. Case 1: Both Batteries Have Equal SOC

In this case, it is assumed that both batteries have 50% SOC.

The proposed controller is validated through simulation of
This is done to see ability of the controller to ensure equal
the MVDC ship power system shown in Fig. 1. The different
power sharing if the batteries are identical with the same SOC.
loads and storage capacities are given in Table I. All the current
The controller is tested under different loading conditions. Fig.6
values given in Table I are referred to the MVDC bus side
(a,b, and c) show the system performance under different
except the batteries, which are referred to the low voltage side
loading conditions with batteries having the same SOC. The
of the converter. Table I shows that the maximum current that
stepwise profile depicted in Fig. 6 (a) shows the loading
can be obtained from the generators is 8000 A, which is enough
condition at different time steps, where the propulsion system
to supply the propulsion system, radar system and the service
is first connected then at t=0.7 sec, service loads are connected
loads. However, it is not enough to supply the pulsed loads, and
followed by the radar system at t=1.5 sec, and the pulsed load
it is not economical to oversize the generators to feed loads that
at t=2 sec. The pulsed load is connected for one second, up to
consume energy for only few seconds. Also, the ramping time
t=3 sec, then it is disconnected followed by another partial
of the generators is not fast enough to match the response of the
disconnection of some of the service loads at t=3.5 sec. Fig. 6
pulsed loads. Therefore, a storage system that consists of two
(a) also shows that the voltage of the MVDC bus is kept
batteries is used to supply the pulsed load. The output current
constant at 5 kV. regardless of the different loading conditions
of the batteries is controlled using the PWM of the DC-DC
which indicates that the load-generation balance is maintained.
converter. The proposed controller is validated under different
Fig.6 (b) shows the current of the two batteries. It can be noted
loading conditions and SOCs of batteries to validate the ability
from the figure that the batteries are idle for between t = 0-2
of the controller to ensure load-
sec. This occurred because during this period, the total load of
 Batteries with the same SOCs
(a)
(b)
(c)
Fig. 6 Controller performance under different conditions
the system was below or equal to the 8000A, which can be fed
by the generators. However, for the period between t = 2-3 sec,
pulsed loads are added, and the generators cannot support this
extra load. Therefore, the batteries were smoothly inserted to
support this extra load. Since the two batteries have the same
SOC, both batteries feed the same amount of current to the
system, as shown in Fig. 6 (b). This proves the ability of the
controller to ensure equal power sharing among the batteries
and increases the life time of the storage system. For the period
between t = 3-3.5 sec, the pulsed loads are disconnected, and
since the generators can feed the remaining loads, the batteries
are automatically disconnected as well. For the period t = 3.5-
4.5 sec, another load is disconnected, and since there is a surplus
Batteries with different SOCs
(d)
(e)
(f)
power from the generators, the batteries are automatically
connected to absorb this extra power. Again, since the two
batteries have the same SOC, they charge with the same current,
which is highly desirable. The SOC accumulation of the
batteries is shown in Fig. 6 (c). This figure clearly shows that
the two batteries have identical SOC accumulation and equal
power sharing.
B. Case 2: Batteries Have Different SOCs
In this case, it is assumed that the first battery has 75% SOC
while the second battery has 45% SOC. This is done to realize
the ability of the controller to ensure proper power sharing
among batteries with different SOCs. The same loading
conditions are applied in this case, as shown in Fig. 6 (d). This
figure also shows that the load generation balance was
maintained and the voltage of the MVDC bus is kept constant.
Fig. 6 (e) shows that the batteries are idle during the period t =
0-2 sec. When the pulsed loads are added at t = 2 sec, the
batteries started discharging to support the system. Since the
first battery has higher SOC, it discharges at a higher current
(2000A) compared to the second battery which discharges at
(1000A), which is the desirable performance of the system.
When the pulsed loads are disconnected at t = 3 sec, both
batteries are automatically disconnected. When another load is
disconnected at t = 3.5 sec, the second battery started to charge
at 1500 A. However, the first battery remains idle to avoid
overcharging, since the battery already had high SOC. This is
done to increase the battery life time. Fig. 6 (f) shows the SOC
accumulation of the batteries. It is shown from this figure that
the slope of the SOC of the first battery is steeper than the
second battery for the period t = 2-3 sec. This is because of the
higher discharging current of the first battery. For the remaining
period, the SOC of the first battery remains constant since it is
idle. Since the second battery is charging for the period t = 3.5-
4.5 sec, its SOC increases, as shown in Fig. 6 (f).
Generally speaking, Fig. 6 proves the ability of the
controller to maintain the voltage of the MVDC bus constant
regardless of the different loading conditions. Also, Fig. 6
shows the ability of the controller to ensure proper power
sharing among the batteries which increases the system life
time.
V. CONCLUSION
This paper proposed a decentralized intelligent controller to
ensure load-generation balance on the isolated MVDC ship
power system. The controller takes decision on the local level
without the need to communicate with other components of the
system. The controller takes into consideration the voltage of
the MVDC bus and the state of charge of the storage devices.
The performance of the controller was validated, and the results
showed the ability of the controller to ensure load-generation
balance, maintain the voltage of the MVDC bus constant, and
ensure proper power sharing among the storage devices. The
controller was also tested under different states of charge of the
batteries. The results showed the ability of the controller to
ensure fair charging/discharging among the batteries.
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