Smart grid Synchrophasor SDK (S3DK) - A LabVIEW API and a Real-Time Data Mediator for PMU Application Development!

The Smart-grid Synchrophasor SDK (S3DK) is toolkit akin to a software development kit (SDK) for developing synchrophasor applications, providing a number of functionalities that enable high-level PMU application development within the LabVIEW environment. This Smart-grid Synchrophasor SDK (S3DK) proposes a paradigm based on the concept of distributed applications, which allows development and deployment to be independent of the existing software stack deployed in power system control centers and to leverage PMU data at any level of a synchrophasor system hierarchy. This software has been released as open source software to facilitate broader and fast prototyping of synchrophasor applications.

An open access paper that serves to introduce the S3DK, is provided in the following link. If you use any resources in this repository, please cite the paper:

M. Baudette, L. Vanfretti, and S. Tyagi, “S3DK: An Open Source Toolkit for Prototyping Synchrophasor Applications” in Electronics, 2024, 13 (8), 1513. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics13081513

• You can access the paper on this link: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9292/13/8/1513

In addition, please feel free to include a citation to the initial work that lead to the open source release of the S3DK was published in the following paper:

L. Vanfretti, V. H. Aarstrand, M. S. Almas, V. S. Perić and J. O. Gjerde, "A software development toolkit for real-time synchrophasor applications," 2013 IEEE Grenoble Conference, Grenoble, France, 2013, pp. 1-6, doi: 10.1109/PTC.2013.6652191.

• You can download the paper from the publisher's website: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6652191
• The paper is behind the publisher's paywall. A pre-print of the paper can be found on ResearchGate here.

• LabView 2018 SP1, 64 bit or LabView 2019, 64 bit
• Real-Time Data:
  • A PMU or PDC, PMU Connection tester, or
  • A PDC simulator (provided below)
• Familiarity with LabView.
• VI Package Manager from JKL

A quickstart guide is provided here.

A website with detailed documentation an all S3DK functions is available at https://alsetlab.github.io/S3DK/docs/S3DK.html

• Double click on the downloaded file. The JKI VI Package Manager will open.
• Click on Install, under the 2018 icon.
  • Go through the installation process.
    • Allow the S3DK to be connected to both public and private networks when prompted by a Windows pop-up screen
  • If your installation is successful you should see the following window. Click on Finish.
• Click on "Show in Palettes"
  • The following pop-up window should appear
  • This means the S3DK LabVIEW API is now properly installed with LabVIEW.
  • To find the full pallet click on the "up arrow" in the window above:
    • Overall Categories
    • Main Directory
  • To access the S3DK directly from the LabVIEW "palette", in a new LabVIEW VI Block Diagram right click on the blank screen and roll down to the Main Directory ("ALSET Labs"), as shown below:

• Access to a PMU or a Phasor Data Concentrator streaming data using TCP.
• The IP Configuration for the PMU or PDC, for example:
  • IP address: e.g. 127.0.0.1
  • Port Number: e.g. 4712
  • ID Code: e.g. 1
• Check that your PMU or PDC stream is sending data using PMU Connection Tester

• Download the following PDC Simulator: link
• Unzip and run the PDC simulator. Allow access to both private and public networks.
• Use the default configuration in PDC simulator, or modify it according to your preference:
  • Uncheck the "Enable UDP Unicast" option. It is not needed.
• Click on "Start"
• The simulator will stream output data as configured on the specified port:
• The IP Configuration for the PDC simulator is:
  • IP address: e.g. 127.0.0.1
  • Port Number: e.g. 4712
  • ID Code: e.g. 1

• Open LabView, and create a new project and a "Blank VI".
• In the "Block Diagram", left click to open the "Functions" Palette, and scroll down to the "ALSET Labs/S3DK/Buffer and Queues".
• Drag and Drop the "S3DK GUI" the "S3DK GUI" block to the "Block Diagram" of your new VI.
• Double click on the new block ("PMU" block with the red circle), this will open the GUI used to connect the S3DK and LabView to the real-time data stream:
• Click on the top bar of the GUI under Edit, "Run", and then "Config" on the bottom right hand side when the GUI is running.
• In the Connection tab, enter the IP Configuration for the PMU/PDC you have available, in this case, for the PDC simulator we have:
  • IP address: e.g. 127.0.0.1
  • Port Number: e.g. 4712
  • ID Code: e.g. 1
  • Click on "OK"
• Next, click on "Start Up" in the GUI.
• The dials above are about 18% and 18%, which corresponds to the CPU and memory resources being used. By clicking on the "Raw Data Panel" yellow button, you can display the raw data being received, as follows:
• You can modify the update rate to display in the "Raw Data Panel" by selecting the "Update Rate" on the top left (in this case we are displaying 1 Hz of the 30 Hz data). Note that this is only for displaying purposes, the data available to the S3DK can be configured to report at the full or other update rates for computations on the data parcels.
• To select the display form of the phasor quantities, i.e. either polar form (magnitude and angle) or cartesian coordinates (real and imaginary), move the button from "Re/Im" to "Amp/Ang".
• The "Channel Selector" yellow button (below the "Raw Data Panel" button), allows to select the different signals in the stream and to use them in an application.