Software Defined Networks based Smart Grid Communication: A Comprehensive Survey

The current power grid is no longer a feasible solution due to ever-increasing user demand of electricity, old infrastructure, and reliability issues and thus require transformation to a better grid a.k.a., smart grid (SG). The key features that distinguish SG from the conventional electrical power grid are its capability to perform two-way communication, demand side management, and real time pricing. Despite all these advantages that SG will bring, there are certain issues which are specific to SG communication system. For instance, network management of current SG systems is complex, time consuming, and done manually. Moreover, SG communication (SGC) system is built on different vendor specific devices and protocols. Therefore, the current SG systems are not protocol independent, thus leading to interoperability issue. Software defined network (SDN) has been proposed to monitor and manage the communication networks globally. This article serves as a comprehensive survey on SDN-based SGC. In this article, we first discuss taxonomy of advantages of SDNbased SGC.We then discuss SDN-based SGC architectures, along with case studies. Our article provides an in-depth discussion on routing schemes for SDN-based SGC. We also provide detailed survey of security and privacy schemes applied to SDN-based SGC. We furthermore present challenges, open issues, and future research directions related to SDN-based SGC.Comment: Accepte

Routing Protocols for Lossy Wireless Networks

Tato práce zkoumá vhodnost a požadavky návrhu simulací pro simulátor NS-3 pro případ bezdrátových sítí používaných v měřící infrastruktuře společnosti Kamstrup. V práci je popsán simulátor NS-3 a je vytvořena základní implementace dvou protokolů. Wireless M-Bus jako příklad jednosměrného protokolu pro zařízení napájené z baterií. Simulace Wireless M-Bus je porovnána s daty naměřenými v reálném systému. NS-3 poskytuje flexibilní prostředí pro vývoj simulací různých síťových protokolů, včetně těch určených pro sítě inteligentních měřidel.This thesis investigates suitability and design constraints of the NS-3 Simulator for simulations of wireless protocols used by Kamstrup metering infrastructure. An overview of NS-3 Simulator is given and preliminary implementations of two protocols are created. Wireless M-Bus as an example of a one-way protocol for battery-powered devices. The simulation of Wireless M-Bus is compared with measurements obtained in a real deployment. NS-3 proves to be a flexible framework for developing simulations of various network protocols, including the ones used for smart metering.

Secure and energy-efficient multicast routing in smart grids

A smart grid is a power system that uses information and communication technology to operate, monitor, and control data flows between the power generating source and the end user. It aims at high efficiency, reliability, and sustainability of the electricity supply process that is provided by the utility centre and is distributed from generation stations to clients. To this end, energy-efficient multicast communication is an important requirement to serve a group of residents in a neighbourhood. However, the multicast routing introduces new challenges in terms of secure operation of the smart grid and user privacy. In this paper, after having analysed the security threats for multicast-enabled smart grids, we propose a novel multicast routing protocol that is both sufficiently secure and energy efficient.We also evaluate the performance of the proposed protocol by means of computer simulations, in terms of its energy-efficient operation

Improving the reliability of optimised link state routing in a smart grid neighbour area network based wireless mesh network using multiple metrics

© 2017 by the authors; licensee MDPI. Reliable communication is the backbone of advanced metering infrastructure (AMI). Within the AMI, the neighbourhood area network (NAN) transports a multitude of traffic, each with unique requirements. In order to deliver an acceptable level of reliability and latency, the underlying network, such as the wireless mesh network (WMN), must provide or guarantee the quality-of-service (QoS) level required by the respective application traffic. Existing WMN routing protocols, such as optimised link state routing (OLSR), typically utilise a single metric and do not consider the requirements of individual traffic; hence, packets are delivered on a best-effort basis. This paper presents a QoS-aware WMN routing technique that employs multiple metrics in OLSR optimal path selection for AMI applications. The problems arising from this approach are non deterministic polynomial time (NP)-complete in nature, which were solved through the combined use of the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) algorithm and pruning techniques. For smart meters transmitting Internet Protocol (IP) packets of varying sizes at different intervals, the proposed technique considers the constraints of NAN and the applications' traffic characteristics. The technique was developed by combining multiple OLSR path selection metrics with the AHP algorithm in ns-2. Compared with the conventional link metric in OLSR, the results show improvements of about 23% and 45% in latency and Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR), respectively, in a 25-node grid NAN

Performance analysis of variable Smart Grid traffic over ad hoc Wireless Mesh Networks

Recent advances in ad hoc Wireless Mesh Networks (WMN) has posited it as a strong candidate in Smart Grid's Neighbourhood Area Network (NAN) for Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI). However, its abysmal capacity and poor multi-hoping performance in harsh dynamic environment will require an improvement to its protocol stacks in order for it to effectively support the variable requirements of application traffic in Smart Grid. This paper presents a classification of Smart Grid traffics and examines the performance of HWMP (which is the default routing protocol of the IEEE 802.11s standard) with the Optimised Link State Routing (OLSR) protocol in a NAN based ad hoc WMN. Results from simulations in ns-3 show that HWMP does not outperform OLSR. This indicates that cross layer modifications can be developed in OLSR protocol to address the routing challenges in a NAN based ad hoc WMN