Development of a Remotely Accessible Wireless Testbed for Performance Evaluation of AMI Related Protocols

Although smart meters are deployed in many countries, the data collection process from smart meters in Smart Grid (SG) still has some challenges related to consumer privacy that needs to be addressed. Referred to as Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), the data collected and transmitted through the AMI can leak sensitive information about the consumers if it is sent as a plaintext. While many solutions have been proposed in the past, the deployment of these solutions in real-life was not possible since the actual AMIs were not accessible to researchers. Therefore, a lot of solutions relied on simulations which may not be able to capture the real performance of these solutions. In this thesis, two 802.11s wireless mesh-based SG AMI network testbeds are developed with Beaglebone Black and Raspberry Pi 3 boards to provide a baseline for the simulations. The Raspberry Pi 3 testbed is also configured to be remotely accessible

Comprehensive Survey and Taxonomies of False Injection Attacks in Smart Grid: Attack Models, Targets, and Impacts

Smart Grid has rapidly transformed the centrally controlled power system into a massively interconnected cyber-physical system that benefits from the revolutions happening in the communications (e.g. 5G) and the growing proliferation of the Internet of Things devices (such as smart metres and intelligent electronic devices). While the convergence of a significant number of cyber-physical elements has enabled the Smart Grid to be far more efficient and competitive in addressing the growing global energy challenges, it has also introduced a large number of vulnerabilities culminating in violations of data availability, integrity, and confidentiality. Recently, false data injection (FDI) has become one of the most critical cyberattacks, and appears to be a focal point of interest for both research and industry. To this end, this paper presents a comprehensive review in the recent advances of the FDI attacks, with particular emphasis on 1) adversarial models, 2) attack targets, and 3) impacts in the Smart Grid infrastructure. This review paper aims to provide a thorough understanding of the incumbent threats affecting the entire spectrum of the Smart Grid. Related literature are analysed and compared in terms of their theoretical and practical implications to the Smart Grid cybersecurity. In conclusion, a range of technical limitations of existing false data attack research is identified, and a number of future research directions is recommended.Comment: Double-column of 24 pages, prepared based on IEEE Transaction articl

Resource Efficient Advanced Metering Infrastructure Model

Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) enables two-way communication between smart devices and utility control centers. This involves remote monitoring and control of energy consumption as well as other parameters in the electrical power network in real time. However, increasing technologies in AMI due to huge deployment of smart meters, integration of devices and application of sensors, demand a strong architectural model with the best network topology to guarantee efficient usage of network resources with minimal latency. In this work, a resource efficient multi-hop network architecture is proposed using hybrid media access protocols. The architecture combines queuing and random-access protocol to achieve optimal network performance. Numerical results show that the probability of delay incurred by an arbitrary smart meter depends on the mean and distribution of the queue switch over a period. It is also observed that for a single queued system, the throughput performance is equal to the existing hybrid method. As the number of smart meters increases to 500, the throughput of the proposed method improves by 10% compared to the existing method. Likewise, as the number of smart meters increases to 500, the delay reduced by 15% compared to the existing method. Keywords: Advanced Metering Infrastructure; hybrid media access protocols; Smart Meter; Smart Grid; Power Network

The role of communication systems in smart grids: Architectures, technical solutions and research challenges

The purpose of this survey is to present a critical overview of smart grid concepts, with a special focus on the role that communication, networking and middleware technologies will have in the transformation of existing electric power systems into smart grids. First of all we elaborate on the key technological, economical and societal drivers for the development of smart grids. By adopting a data-centric perspective we present a conceptual model of communication systems for smart grids, and we identify functional components, technologies, network topologies and communication services that are needed to support smart grid communications. Then, we introduce the fundamental research challenges in this field including communication reliability and timeliness, QoS support, data management services, and autonomic behaviors. Finally, we discuss the main solutions proposed in the literature for each of them, and we identify possible future research directions

Secure and Scalable Data Collection With Time Minimization in the Smart Grid

Deployment of data generation devices such as sensors and smart meters have been accelerating toward the vision of smart grid. The volume of data to be collected increases tremendously. Secure, efficient, and scalable data collection becomes a challenging task. In this paper, we present a secure and scalable data communications protocol for smart grid data collection. Under a hierarchical architecture, relay nodes [also known as data collectors (DCs)] collect and convey the data securely from measurement devices to the power operator. While the DCs can verify the integrity, they are not given access to the content, which may pave the way for third party providers to deliver value-added services or even the data collection itself. We further present optimization solutions for minimizing the total data collection time.This work was supported by the Department of Energy under Award DE-OE0000097Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/111642/3/Uludag2015Secure_ToSG.pd

Performance Optimization of Network Protocols for IEEE 802.11s-based Smart Grid Communications

The transformation of the legacy electric grid to Smart Grid (SG) poses numerous challenges in the design and development of an efficient SG communications network. While there has been an increasing interest in identifying the SG communications network and possible SG applications, specific research challenges at the network protocol have not been elaborated yet. This dissertation revisited each layer of a TCP/IP protocol stack which basically was designed for a wired network and optimized their performance in IEEE 802.11s-based Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) communications network against the following challenges: security and privacy, AMI data explosion, periodic simultaneous data reporting scheduling, poor Transport Control Protocol (TCP) performance, Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) broadcast, and network interoperability. To address these challenges, layered and/or cross-layered protocol improvements were proposed for each layer of TCP/IP protocol stack. At the application layer, a tree-based periodic time schedule and a time division multiple access-based scheduling were proposed to reduce high contention when smart meters simultaneously send their reading. Homomorphic encryption performance was investigated to handle AMI data explosion while providing security and privacy. At the transport layer, a tree-based fixed Retransmission Timeout (RTO) setting and a path-error aware RTO that exploits rich information of IEEE 802.11s data-link layer path selection were proposed to address higher delay due to TCP mechanisms. At the network layer, ARP requests create broadcast storm problems in IEEE 802.11s due to the use of MAC addresses for routing. A secure piggybacking-based ARP was proposed to eliminate this issue. The tunneling mechanisms in the LTE network cause a downlink traffic problem to IEEE 802.11s. For the network interoperability, at the network layer of EPC network, a novel UE access list was proposed to address this issue. At the data-link layer, to handle QoS mismatch between IEEE 802.11s and LTE network, Dual Queues approach was proposed for the Enhanced Distributed Channel Access. The effectiveness of all proposed approaches was validated through extensive simulation experiments using a network simulator. The simulation results showed that the proposed approaches outperformed the traditional TCP/IP protocols in terms of end to end delay, packet delivery ratio, throughput, and collection time

Towards Cyber Security for Low-Carbon Transportation: Overview, Challenges and Future Directions

In recent years, low-carbon transportation has become an indispensable part as sustainable development strategies of various countries, and plays a very important responsibility in promoting low-carbon cities. However, the security of low-carbon transportation has been threatened from various ways. For example, denial of service attacks pose a great threat to the electric vehicles and vehicle-to-grid networks. To minimize these threats, several methods have been proposed to defense against them. Yet, these methods are only for certain types of scenarios or attacks. Therefore, this review addresses security aspect from holistic view, provides the overview, challenges and future directions of cyber security technologies in low-carbon transportation. Firstly, based on the concept and importance of low-carbon transportation, this review positions the low-carbon transportation services. Then, with the perspective of network architecture and communication mode, this review classifies its typical attack risks. The corresponding defense technologies and relevant security suggestions are further reviewed from perspective of data security, network management security and network application security. Finally, in view of the long term development of low-carbon transportation, future research directions have been concerned.Comment: 34 pages, 6 figures, accepted by journal Renewable and Sustainable Energy Review

CPS Attacks Mitigation Approaches on Power Electronic Systems with Security Challenges for Smart Grid Applications: A Review

This paper presents an inclusive review of the cyber-physical (CP) attacks, vulnerabilities, mitigation approaches on the power electronics and the security challenges for the smart grid applications. With the rapid evolution of the physical systems in the power electronics applications for interfacing renewable energy sources that incorporate with cyber frameworks, the cyber threats have a critical impact on the smart grid performance. Due to the existence of electronic devices in the smart grid applications, which are interconnected through communication networks, these networks may be subjected to severe cyber-attacks by hackers. If this occurs, the digital controllers can be physically isolated from the control loop. Therefore, the cyber-physical systems (CPSs) in the power electronic systems employed in the smart grid need special treatment and security. In this paper, an overview of the power electronics systems security on the networked smart grid from the CP perception, as well as then emphases on prominent CP attack patterns with substantial influence on the power electronics components operation along with analogous defense solutions. Furthermore, appraisal of the CPS threats attacks mitigation approaches, and encounters along the smart grid applications are discussed. Finally, the paper concludes with upcoming trends and challenges in CP security in the smart grid applications

Integrated Distributed Authentication Protocol for Smart Grid Communications

In the smart grid, an integrated distributed authen- tication protocol is needed to not only securely manage the system but also efficiently authenticate many different entities for the communications. In addition, a lightweight authentication protocol is required to handle frequent authentications among billions of devices. Unfortunately, in the literature, there is no such integrated protocol that provides mutual authentication among the home environment, energy provider, gateways, and advanced metering infrastructure network. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a lightweight cloud-trusted authorities-based integrated (centrally controlled) distributed authentication protocol that provides mutual authentications among communicated entities in a distributed manner. Based on certificateless cryptosystem, our protocol is lightweight and efficient even when there are invalid requests in a batch. Security and performance analysis show that the protocol provides privacy preservation, forward secrecy, semantic security,perfect key ambiguous, and protection against identity thefts while generating lower overheads in comparison with the existing protocols. Also, the protocol is secure against man-in-the-middle attacks, redirection attacks, impersonation attacks, and denial-of-service attacks. Moreover, our protocol provides a complete resistance against flood-based denial-of-service attacks