Evolving Optical Networks for Latency-Sensitive Smart-Grid Communications via Optical Time Slice Switching (OTSS) Technologies

In this paper, we proposed a novel OTSS-assisted optical network architecture for smart-grid communication networks, which has unique requirements for low-latency connections. Illustrative results show that, OTSS can provide extremely better performance in latency and blocking probability than conventional flexi-grid optical networks.Comment: IEEE Photonics Society 1st Place Best Poster Award, on CLEO-PR/OECC/PGC 201

Reliability Assessment of the Iraqi National Communication Network

The design of communication networks continues to progress rapidly in more suitable forms to meet the challenges of the present era. This paper presents a tentative study of the design of a reliable Iraqi National Communication Network (INCN). The INCN connects all major cities in Iraq with Baghdad as the central node. The followed subjected procedure is a general method which can be applied to all similar problems concerning any Wide Area Network design.  An optimal backbone is first designed by Prim’s algorithm which has distances between cities as input data. The INCN is subjected to reliability improvement by adding links to the initial backbone. An improved algorithm based on tie-sets method is developed for network reliability computation. Three chosen scenarios (Net1, Net2, and Net3) for the INCN are presented and underwent reliability estimation. Evaluation results show a successive improvement of the network reliability to yield to an optimal solution recognized as being Net3. The adopted topology for the INCN is based on two clusters having Baghdad as the common head cluster. Clustering will simplify the reliability evaluation by decreasing the number of tie-sets, and hence the computation complexity.

Analysis of the suitability of satellite communication for time-critical IoT applications in smart grid and medical grade networks

Satellite networks are seen as having the potential to play an important role in machine-to-machine (M2M) communications and the Internet of Things, which in turn is seen as being important to a number of service sectors. However, certain M2M application have bounded latency requirements that in some cases may be quite stringent. Satellite networks general much higher latency that wired networks and therefore may not be able to meet the requirements of all M2M applications. This paper compares the latency requirements of certain time-critical applications with reported satellite network latency and address the problem of latency evaluation of networks support these types of application including those involving satellite links

Control Strategies for Improving Energy Efficiency and Reliability in Autonomous Microgrids with Communication Constraints

Microgrids are a feasible path to deploy smart grids, an intelligent and highly automated power system. Their operation demands a dedicated communication infrastructure to manage, control and monitor the intermittent sources of energy and loads. Therefore, smart devices will be connected to support the growth of grid smartness increasing the dependency on communication networks, which consumes a high amount of power. In an energy-limited scenario, one of the main issues is to enhance the power supply time. Therefore, this paper proposes a hybrid methodology for microgrid energy management, integrated with a communication infrastructure to improve and to optimize islanded microgrid operation at maximum energy efficiency. The hybrid methodology applies some control management rules, such as intentional load shedding, priority load management, and communication energy saving. These energy saving rules establish a trade-off between increasing microgrid energy availability and communication system reliability. To achieve a compromised solution, a continuous time Markov chain model describes the impact of energy saving policies into system reliability. The proposed methodology is simulated and tested with the help of the modified IEEE 34 node test-system.Postprint (published version

Network level Quality of Service (QoS) challenges for smart grid measurement and control systems

This paper focuses on the firm real-time requirements of Time-Critical Wide Area Measurement and Control systems, that are expected to play a major role in future Smart Grids. It analyses the operation of these systems and identifies their communication traffic characteristics. It shows that these characteristics are significantly different to those of the current near real-time Wide Area Measurement applications that provide visualization to support manual grid control. It then discusses the performance evaluation of these time critical systems and presents the second stage in an ongoing body of work aimed at developing models and techniques to carry out the performance evaluation process. It presents some preliminary results and outlines the direction for future work

Evaluation of communication latency for future time-critical smart grid measurement and control systems

This paper focuses on the firm real-time requirements of Time-Critical Wide Area Measurement and Control systems for future Smart Grids. It outlines the findings from the first stage in an ongoing body of work aimed at developing models and techniques that will enable the performance evaluation of these systems to take place prior to their implementation. It then discusses the first phase in the second stage of this project that addresses the problem of evaluation in cases where the output from system's devices is variable. It then presents some preliminary findings and outlines the direction for future work

Advanced Metering Infrastructure Security with Software-Defined Network in Smart Grid

The Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) is the most important and basic element in the Smart Grid systems. Technologies grow complicated as the world becomes more convenient. Power grid, smart building, electric vehicles, and other technology need to be managed and maintained flawlessly in case of the possibility of cyberattacks to shut down all the systems and result in huge loss economically or potentially affect people\u27s life. It is important to use communication technologies to provide many functions including facilitate bidirectional communications and remote controls. Since AMI needs to be widely deployed to each home user, power companies are required to build a large number of data concentrators to manage neighboring networks uniformly to ensure that meter data reading can be accurately collected and ensure the security of the transmitting process. Besides, since data concentrators are mostly deployed in the public environment, the devices are vulnerable to the impact on outside physical attacks. Therefore, we plan to construct an improved AMI communication network to increase security and lower its cost. We will discuss on security standard, and how the architecture for the AMI communication network is implemented by using the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol based on the Software-Defined Network