Marco Pignati

Marco Pignati is a researcher at the Distributed Electrical Systems Laboratory (DESL) within the School of Engineering at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). He is actively involved in advancing synchrophasor technologies for real-time monitoring, protection, and control of modern power systems. His research spans resilient communication infrastructures, state estimation, fault detection, and cyber-physical security in smart grids.

His research interests include:

• Real-time state estimation in active distribution networks
• Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) and their calibration
• Low-latency phasor data concentration
• Timing attacks and bad-data detection in power systems
• Hardware-in-the-loop validation of control mechanisms
• Information-centric networking for smart grids

The analysis of his recent publications reveals a strong focus on applying synchrophasor-based technologies to enhance grid resilience and security. His work integrates theoretical modeling with experimental validation in real-world and simulated environments, including 4G LTE and optical fiber communication infrastructures. A recurring theme is the development of robust, real-time solutions for fault detection, voltage control, and secure state estimation in both transmission and distribution networks.

Notable scientific contributions include:

• Development of a low-latency phasor data concentrator with experimental validation
• Identification of undetectable timing attacks on state estimation
• Invention of a method for faulted line identification using augmented network topologies
• Validation of the Grid Explicit Congestion Notification (GECN) mechanism via hardware-in-the-loop
• Design of an information-centric communication platform (C-DAX) for scalable synchrophasor data delivery

Marco Pignati has not been mentioned as advising any students in the provided texts. However, his collaborative work with Mario Paolone, Lorenzo Zanni, Paolo Romano, and others indicates active participation in funded research projects, likely supported by entities such as EU funding, CTI/Innosuisse, and FNS. He is involved in both theoretical algorithm development and practical system integration, particularly in real-time simulation and field deployment settings.

He is associated with advanced research infrastructure including real-time simulators (Opal-RT), GPS-synchronized systems, and dedicated hardware-in-the-loop test platforms. These labs and teams enable end-to-end validation of smart grid technologies from concept to implementation.