Planeación y despliegue de la red de sensores inalámbricos requerida para la medición inteligente de energía eléctrica usando restricciones de capacidad y cobertura

The electrical energy measurement (EEM), seeks to provide quality services without neglecting the reliability of the system. Therefore, a quality service must be closely linked to the wireless communication technologies, to technify the EEM, not only reading, but also cuts, reconnections, and other additional services that the intelligent measurement infrastructure provides through wireless technologies Such as cell or WiFi, increasingly common because of the reliability they provide in real-time data transmission. Wireless infrastructures allow us to provide coverage to the fixed terminals, determined by the electric meter, and in turn manage and plan the optimal deployment of wireless sensors (SI) in finite areas, whether urban, rural or suburban. This article proposes an optimal model for planning and deploying SI for the EEM in order to guarantee reliable wireless communication links at the lowest implementation cost. Therefore, the proposed algorithm gives global solutions within a finite scenario, making this a scalable model in time able to manage the use of available links. The SIs for the EEM are inserted into the Neighborhood Area Networks (NANs) covered by the mobile communications network.La medición de energía eléctrica (MEE), busca proporcionar servicios de calidad sin descuidar la confiabilidad del sistema. Por lo tanto, un servicio de calidad debe ir estrechamente ligada a las tecnologías de comunicación inalámbrica, para tecnificar la MEE, no solo lectura, sino también cortes, reconexiones, y otros servicios adicionales que la infraestructura de medición inteligente provee a través de tecnologías inalámbricas como celular o WiFi, cada vez más comunes debido a la confiabilidad que estas brindan en la transmisión de datos en tiempo real [1]. Las infraestructuras inalámbricas nos permiten brindar cobertura a los terminales fijos, determinados por el medidor eléctrico, y a su vez gestionar y planificar el óptimo despliegue de sensores inalámbricos (SI) en áreas finitas, ya sean, urbanas, rurales o suburbanas. Este artículo propone un modelo óptimo de planeación y despliegue de SI para la MEE con la finalidad de garantizar enlaces de comunicación inalámbricos confiables al menor costo de implementación. Por lo tanto, el algoritmo propuesto da soluciones globales dentro de un escenario finito, haciendo de este un modelo escalable en el tiempo capaz de gestionar el uso de enlaces disponibles. Los SI para la MEE, son insertados en las Redes de Área Vecindaria (NAN) cubiertas por la red de comunicaciones móviles

Data Compression Strategies for Use in Advanced Metering Infrastructure Networks

Internet of Things technology has advanced rapidly. For example, numerous sensors can be deployed in a city to collect a variety of data, and such data can be used to monitor the city’s situation. A possible application of such data is smart metering implemented by power suppliers for their consumers; smart metering involves installing a multiplicity of smart meters that, in conjunction with data centers, form a smart grid. Because a smart gird must collect and send data automatically, the establishment of advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) constitutes the primary step to establishing a smart grid. However, problems remain in smart metering: data traffic from smart meters flows rapidly at a huge volume, resulting in bandwidth bottlenecks. Thus, this chapter proposes some data compression technologies as well as a novel scheme for reducing the communication data load in AMI architectures

Secure Data Collection in Constrained Tree-Based Smart Grid Environments

To facilitate more efficient control, massive amounts of sensors or measurement devices will be deployed in the Smart Grid. Data collection then becomes non-trivial. In this paper, we study the scenario where a data collector is responsible for collecting data from multiple measurement devices, but only some of them can communicate with the data collector directly. Others have to rely on other devices to relay the data. We first develop a communication protocol so that the data reported by each device is protected again honest-but-curious data collector and devices. To reduce the time to collect data from all devices within a certain security level, we formulate our approach as an integer linear programming problem. As the problem is NP-hard, obtaining the optimal solution in a large network is not very feasible. We thus develop an approximation algorithm to solve the problem. We test the performance of our algorithm using real topologies. The results show that our algorithm successfully identifies good solutions within reasonable amount of time.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/111643/1/Uludag_IEEE_SGC_14.pd

Toward unified security and privacy protection for smart meter networks

The management of security and privacy protection mechanisms is one fundamental issue of future smart grid and metering networks. Designing effective and economic measures is a non-trivial task due to a) the large number of system requirements and b) the uncertainty over how the system functionalities are going to be specified and evolve. The paper explores a unified approach for addressing security and privacy of smart metering systems. In the process, we present a unified framework that entails the analysis and synthesis of security solutions associated with closely interrelated components of a typical smart metering system. Ultimately, the proposed framework can be used as a guideline for embedding cross-domain security and privacy solutions into smart grid communication systems

Wireless transmission of metering data from a photovoltaic solar home system via global systems for mobile communication (GSM) short message service (SMS)

This paper focuses on the area of remote solar home system metering in an effort to bridge solar energy management in the industry with information technology (IT). A wireless platform was designed using ordinary mobile phone handsets to relay real time digital metering data from a remote PV solar home system via a GSM short message services to a central server (private computer). Here, we experimentally demonstrate the concept of a wireless data transmission of digital direct current (DC) metering data, based on simple and cost‐effective telecommunication technologies through programmed microcontroller circuits that connects to two mobile phones (client and server sets). A set of data was obtained through direct cable connection (meter‐adaptor‐PC) and also through wireless connection (meter‐GSM‐adaptor‐PC). The microcontroller at the server end extracted and decoded data from the received SMS (for wireless connection) and relayed the data to the data adaptor. The applications software in the PC downloaded the data from data adaptor and grouped it into clusters. Statistical graphs were plotted from the clustered data and real time virtual metering data was displayed at the PC. From the results, data received from the wireless transmission mode matched the real time data on the meter display but with short time lapses due to SMS delivery delays. The data from direct cable connection was highly reliable because data streamed live from the meter to the data adaptor. It was also observed that the GSM‐SMS was practical to the extent that programming errors were eliminated and the network is reliable enough to reduce data transmission inefficiencies. Further work on a dedicated, efficient, and an all‐in‐one meter with wireless transmission capabilities is required for wide scale adoption of the technology. This technology can find applications in off‐grid electrification where investors can sell power through aggregated solar home systems instead of establishing grid connected solar farms. Solar energy can also be quantified to qualify for clean development mechanisms so as to benefit from carbon finances.Key words: PV solar home system, DC power meter, GSM, data adaptor softwar

Survey on Wi-Fi and Cellular Communication Technology for Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) in a Developing Economy

Traditional energy meters have suffered from a lack of automated analysis and inaccuracy in reading energy consumption, which has brought about smart metering systems. Developing economies such as in Africa. still experience a setback in electricity monitoring and load distribution because of existing traditional meter systems in use. Communication technologies play an important role to improve the monitoring of energy consumption and ensure a road map toward a smart grid. This paper reviews communication technologies used for Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) emphasizing Wi-Fi and Cellular technologies. Metrics used to evaluate their performance include cost, energy efficiency, coverage, deployment, latency, payload, and scalability. The review presents a benchmark for research on AMI communication technologies in developing economies. When adopted, the expected AMI benefits are reduced energy theft, cost efficiency, real-time analysis, security, and safety of energy supply in developing economies

Group Authentication Scheme for Neighbourhood Area Networks(NANs) In Smart Grids

A Neighbourhood Area Network is a functional component of the Smart Grid that interconnects the end user domain with the Energy Services Provider (ESP) domain. It forms the “edge” of the provider network, interconnecting homes instrumented with Smart Meters (SM) with the ESP. The SM is a dual interface, wireless communication device through which information is transacted across the user (a home) and ESP domains. The security risk to the ESP increases since the components within the home, interconnected to the ESP via the SM, are not managed by the ESP. Secure operation of the SM is a necessary requirement. The SM should be resilient to attacks, which might be targeted either directly or via the network in the home. This paper presents and discusses a security scheme for groups of SMs in a Neighbourhood Area Network that enable entire groups to authenticate themselves, rather than one at a time. The results show that a significant improvement in terms of resilience against node capture attacks, replay attacks, confidentiality, authentication for groups of SMs in a NAN that enable entire groups to authenticate themselves, rather than one at a time

Application of Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks to Achieve Intelligent Microgrids: A Promising Approach towards a Global Smart Grid Deployment

Smart Grids (SGs) constitute the evolution of the traditional electrical grid towards a new paradigm, which should increase the reliability, the security and, at the same time, reduce the costs of energy generation, distribution and consumption. Electrical microgrids (MGs) can be considered the first stage of this evolution of the grid, because of the intelligent management techniques that must be applied to assure their correct operation. To accomplish this task, sensors and actuators will be necessary, along with wireless communication technologies to transmit the measured data and the command messages. Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks (WSANs) are therefore a promising solution to achieve an intelligent management of MGs and, by extension, the SG. In this frame, this paper surveys several aspects concerning the application of WSANs to manage MGs and the electrical grid, as well as the communication protocols that could be applied. The main concerns regarding the SG deployment are also presented, including future scenarios where the interoperability of different generation technologies must be assured

An Efficient Authentication Protocol for Smart Grid Communication Based on On-Chip-Error-Correcting Physical Unclonable Function

Security has become a main concern for the smart grid to move from research and development to industry. The concept of security has usually referred to resistance to threats by an active or passive attacker. However, since smart meters (SMs) are often placed in unprotected areas, physical security has become one of the important security goals in the smart grid. Physical unclonable functions (PUFs) have been largely utilized for ensuring physical security in recent years, though their reliability has remained a major problem to be practically used in cryptographic applications. Although fuzzy extractors have been considered as a solution to solve the reliability problem of PUFs, they put a considerable computational cost to the resource-constrained SMs. To that end, we first propose an on-chip-error-correcting (OCEC) PUF that efficiently generates stable digits for the authentication process. Afterward, we introduce a lightweight authentication protocol between the SMs and neighborhood gateway (NG) based on the proposed PUF. The provable security analysis shows that not only the proposed protocol can stand secure in the Canetti-Krawczyk (CK) adversary model but also provides additional security features. Also, the performance evaluation demonstrates the significant improvement of the proposed scheme in comparison with the state-of-the-art

Application of service composition mechanisms to Future Networks architectures and Smart Grids

Aquesta tesi gira entorn de la hipòtesi de la metodologia i mecanismes de composició de serveis i com es poden aplicar a diferents camps d'aplicació per a orquestrar de manera eficient comunicacions i processos flexibles i sensibles al context. Més concretament, se centra en dos camps d'aplicació: la distribució eficient i sensible al context de contingut multimèdia i els serveis d'una xarxa elèctrica intel·ligent. En aquest últim camp es centra en la gestió de la infraestructura, cap a la definició d'una Software Defined Utility (SDU), que proposa una nova manera de gestionar la Smart Grid amb un enfocament basat en programari, que permeti un funcionament molt més flexible de la infraestructura de xarxa elèctrica. Per tant, revisa el context, els requisits i els reptes, així com els enfocaments de la composició de serveis per a aquests camps. Fa especial èmfasi en la combinació de la composició de serveis amb arquitectures Future Network (FN), presentant una proposta de FN orientada a serveis per crear comunicacions adaptades i sota demanda. També es presenten metodologies i mecanismes de composició de serveis per operar sobre aquesta arquitectura, i posteriorment, es proposa el seu ús (en conjunció o no amb l'arquitectura FN) en els dos camps d'estudi. Finalment, es presenta la investigació i desenvolupament realitzat en l'àmbit de les xarxes intel·ligents, proposant diverses parts de la infraestructura SDU amb exemples d'aplicació de composició de serveis per dissenyar seguretat dinàmica i flexible o l'orquestració i gestió de serveis i recursos dins la infraestructura de l'empresa elèctrica.Esta tesis gira en torno a la hipótesis de la metodología y mecanismos de composición de servicios y cómo se pueden aplicar a diferentes campos de aplicación para orquestar de manera eficiente comunicaciones y procesos flexibles y sensibles al contexto. Más concretamente, se centra en dos campos de aplicación: la distribución eficiente y sensible al contexto de contenido multimedia y los servicios de una red eléctrica inteligente. En este último campo se centra en la gestión de la infraestructura, hacia la definición de una Software Defined Utility (SDU), que propone una nueva forma de gestionar la Smart Grid con un enfoque basado en software, que permita un funcionamiento mucho más flexible de la infraestructura de red eléctrica. Por lo tanto, revisa el contexto, los requisitos y los retos, así como los enfoques de la composición de servicios para estos campos. Hace especial hincapié en la combinación de la composición de servicios con arquitecturas Future Network (FN), presentando una propuesta de FN orientada a servicios para crear comunicaciones adaptadas y bajo demanda. También se presentan metodologías y mecanismos de composición de servicios para operar sobre esta arquitectura, y posteriormente, se propone su uso (en conjunción o no con la arquitectura FN) en los dos campos de estudio. Por último, se presenta la investigación y desarrollo realizado en el ámbito de las redes inteligentes, proponiendo varias partes de la infraestructura SDU con ejemplos de aplicación de composición de servicios para diseñar seguridad dinámica y flexible o la orquestación y gestión de servicios y recursos dentro de la infraestructura de la empresa eléctrica.This thesis revolves around the hypothesis the service composition methodology and mechanisms and how they can be applied to different fields of application in order to efficiently orchestrate flexible and context-aware communications and processes. More concretely, it focuses on two fields of application that are the context-aware media distribution and smart grid services and infrastructure management, towards a definition of a Software-Defined Utility (SDU), which proposes a new way of managing the Smart Grid following a software-based approach that enable a much more flexible operation of the power infrastructure. Hence, it reviews the context, requirements and challenges of these fields, as well as the service composition approaches. It makes special emphasis on the combination of service composition with Future Network (FN) architectures, presenting a service-oriented FN proposal for creating context-aware on-demand communication services. Service composition methodology and mechanisms are also presented in order to operate over this architecture, and afterwards, proposed for their usage (in conjunction or not with the FN architecture) in the deployment of context-aware media distribution and Smart Grids. Finally, the research and development done in the field of Smart Grids is depicted, proposing several parts of the SDU infrastructure, with examples of service composition application for designing dynamic and flexible security for smart metering or the orchestration and management of services and data resources within the utility infrastructure