John W. Simpson-Porco

John W. Simpson-Porco 

John W. Simpson-Porco, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Systems Control Group
University of Toronto

Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Control Systems Group
University of Waterloo

Email: jwsimpson [at] ece [dot] utoronto [dot] ca
Tel: +1 416-978-5185
Office: GB 340

Prospective Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Fellows: Please click here for more information.

Research Interests

  1. Analysis and design of feedback control systems

    1. nonlinear control

    2. distributed control systems

    3. optimization-based control

  2. Control, monitoring and optimization for smart grids

    1. bulk power systems analysis, control and optimization

    2. ac, dc, and hybrid microgrids

    3. active distribution systems

Recent News

Recent Papers

Integral Control Article Microgrid Article
Low-Gain Integral Control IEEE TAC , 2020 (pdf), (bib) Microgrid Stability, IEEE TPWRS, 2020 (pdf), (bib)

Fixed Point Power Flow Article Optimal Steady-State Control
Theory of Power Flow IEEE TCONS, 2017 (Part 1,Part 2), (bib1, bib2) Optimal Steady-State Control, IEEE TAC, 2021 (pdf), (bib)

Older News

  • August 2023: Etinosa Ekomwenrenren defends his PhD and begins post-doctoral fellowship at University of Laval / IREQ. Congratulations Etinosa!

  • March 2023: New papers on data-driven output regulation and automated analysis of primal-dual methods

  • October 2022: New paper on fixed-point power flow.

  • June 2022: I am now a Senior Member of the IEEE.

  • March 2022: New papers on data-driven frequency control and data-driven control of linear periodic systems.

  • March 2022: New paper on low-gain optimal steady-state control.

  • February 2022: New NecSys-submitted paper on game-theoretic feedback-based optimization.

  • November 2021: New paper detailing integration of our previous next-gen frequency and voltage

  • September 2021: Former post-doc Zhiyuan Tang starts as faculty at Sichuan University. Congratulaations Kevin!

  • September 2021: Enrique Espina defends his PhD, begins as Asst. Prof. at Universidad de Santiago de Chile. Congratulations Enrique!

  • August 2021: Our paper on diagonal stability and AGC is accepted to TCONS.

  • August 2021: Our paper on constrained integral control is accepted to LCSS/CDC.

  • October 2020: Two new submissions (TCONS, PEL) concerning automatic generation control.

  • August 2020: I am now a member of the IEEE PES Power System Dynamic Performance Committee.

  • August 2020: Our report on microgrid stability has won the IEEE PES Technical Committee Working Group Recognition Award for Outstanding Technical Report

  • July 2020: Joined the Systems Control Group at University of Toronto (short interview with me here).

  • March 2020: New paper in L-CSS on stability of distributed-averaging proportional-integral frequency control.

  • February 2020: New pre-print on low-gain integral control for nonlinear systems.

  • January 2020: I am now an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid.

  • December 2019: Our report on microgrid stability has won the best task force award from the IEEE PES Power System Dynamic Performance Committee.

  • December 2019: Ruiqi Li joins as a PhD student, jointly supervised with S. Smith. Welcome Ruiqi!

  • August 2019: Ilyas Farhat joins as a PhD student. Welcome Ilyas!

  • July 2019: Kevin Tang joins as a post-doctoral fellow. Welcome Kevin!

  • March 2019: New CDC submission on robust stability of feedback optimization methods.

  • February 2019: New ECC tutorial paper on control of power systems.

  • December 2018:New TSG submission on voltage-based frequency control of microgrids.

  • October 2018: EPRI project Wide-Area Hierarchical Frequency and Voltage Control for Next Generation Transmission Grids begins!

  • October 2018: New TAC submission on the optimal steady-state control problem.

  • August 2018: Etinosa Ekomwenrenren joins the group as a PhD student.

  • May 2018: Our paper on dissipativity has been accepted as a full paper in TAC.

  • May 2018: Task force paper on microgrid stability definitions.

  • April 2018: Our paper on algebraic graph theory for circuit analysis has appeared in Proceedings of the IEEE.

  • March 2018: New paper on input-output performance of saddle-point algorithms.

  • February 2018: New paper on estimation and control in platoons.

  • September 2017: New paper on equilibrium-independent dissipativity theory.

  • September 2017: Liam Lawrence (MASc) joins the group.

  • New paper on power flow solvability in homogeneous distribution networks.

  • New paper on low-inertia stability.

  • Submitted a two-part paper on solvability of lossless power flow equations.

  • Submitted paper on Lossy DC Power Flow.

  • My PhD thesis won the CCDC Best Thesis Award.

  • September 2016: New paper on L2-gain analysis of primal-dual algorithms

  • September 2016: Yousef Sawires (MASc) joins the group.

  • July 2016: We will have three papers appear at CDC 2016 in Las Vegas, NV, USA.

  • July 2016: New paper on robustness of k-nearest neighbour vehicle platoons.

  • March 2016: Here is some press on our Nature Communications paper.

  • March 2016: We sent three papers to CDC.

  • February 2016: Our paper on voltage collapse has appeared in Nature Communications.

  • February 2016: We submitted a journal paper on optimal voltage control to TCONS.

  • November 2015: I was named CCDC Student of the Month.

  • March 2015: We submitted a conference paper on H2 performance of microgrid controllers to ACC 2016.

  • August 2015: We submitted a journal paper on distributed monitoring of static voltage instability to TSG.

  • July 2015: We submitted a journal paper on quadratic voltage droop control to TAC.

Older Travel

  • May 2023: Presentation at 9th Meeting on System and Control Theory, Waterloo, ON, Canada.

  • December 2022: Presentation at IEEE Conf. Decision and Control, Cancun, Mexico.

  • November 2022: Invited talk at workshop on polynomial optimization at CWI, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

  • November 2022: Invited talk at TU Delft, Delft, Netherlands.

  • September 2022: Invited talk at Allerton Conference, Monticello, IL, USA.

  • June 2020: Canadian Operations Research Conference in Toronto, ON, Canada.

  • February 2020: CCDC Invited Seminar, UC Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA.

  • February 2020: ECE Invited Seminar, UC Riverside, Riverside, CA.

  • November 2019: Keynote talk at Energy Open workshop at J. C. Willems Center, Groningen, Netherlands.

  • June 2019: Tutorial session on distributed power system control at ECC, Naples, Italy.

  • May 2019: Invited talk at Issac Newton Institute, Cambridge, UK.

  • April 2019: Invited talk at NREL's Innovative Optimization and Control Methods for Highly Distributed Autonomous Systems Workshop, Golden, CO, USA.

  • April 2019: Invited talk at Michigan Power and Energy Lab, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.

  • March 2019: Invited talk at Conference on Information Sciences and Systems, John's Hopkins, Baltimore, MD, USA.

  • February 2019: Future Electric Power Systems and the Energy Transition, Champerey, Switzerland.

  • December 2018: IEEE Conference on Decision and Control In Miami Beach, FL, USA.

  • November 2018: INFORMS Annual Meeting in Phoenix, AZ, USA.

  • August 2018: PES General Meeting in Portland, OR, USA.

  • July 2018: American Control Conference in Milwaukee, WI, USA.

  • June 2018: Biennial Conference on Systems and Control, Toronto, ON, Canada.

  • March 2018: Visit to Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile.

  • April 2017: Seminar at Clarkson University in Potsdam, NY.

  • March 2017: Seminar at Control Strategies and Hardware Topologies for the Operation of Energy Storage System in Microgrids Workshop, Santiago, Chile.

  • January 2017: CCDC Seminar at UC Santa Barbara on January 20th (Slides).

  • January 2017: LANL Grid Science Conference in Santa Fe, NM.

  • December 2016: Presentations at IEEE Conference on Decision and Control In Las Vegas, NV (Slides)..

  • September 2016: Invited paper at Allerton in Monticello, IL.

  • July 2016: American Control Conference in Boston, MA (Slides)..

  • June 2016: Invited talk at the Workshop on Communications, Computation and Control for Resilient Smart Energy Systems in Waterloo, ON.

  • May 2016: 7th Biannual Meeting on System and Control Theory at Queen's University, Kingston, ON.

  • February 2016: Invited talk at the Centre for Power and Information, University of Toronto.

  • January 2016: Invited talk at ESIF Workshop on Frontiers in Distributed Optimization & Control of Sustainable Power Systems, NREL, Golden, CO, USA.

  • December 2015: Invited talk at Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Sweden.

  • November 2015: Invited talk at University of Groningen in Groningen, Netherlands.

  • October 2015: Three month visit to Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zürich, Switzerland.

  • May 2015: SIAM Conference on Applications of Dynamical Systems in Snowbird, UT.

  • January 2015: Grid Science Winter School and Conference in Santa Fe, NM.