State-of-the-art in Power Line Communications: from the Applications to the Medium

In recent decades, power line communication has attracted considerable attention from the research community and industry, as well as from regulatory and standardization bodies. In this article we provide an overview of both narrowband and broadband systems, covering potential applications, regulatory and standardization efforts and recent research advancements in channel characterization, physical layer performance, medium access and higher layer specifications and evaluations. We also identify areas of current and further study that will enable the continued success of power line communication technology.Comment: 19 pages, 12 figures. Accepted for publication, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications. Special Issue on Power Line Communications and its Integration with the Networking Ecosystem. 201

Destination Scheduling for Secure Pinhole-Based Power-Line Communication

We propose an optimal destination scheduling scheme to improve the physical layer security (PLS) of a power-line communication (PLC) based Internet-of-Things system in the presence of an eavesdropper. We consider a pinhole (PH) architecture for a multi-node PLC network to capture the keyhole effect in PLC. The transmitter-to-PH link is shared between the destinations and an eavesdropper which correlates all end-to-end links. The individual channel gains are assumed to follow independent log-normal statistics. Furthermore, the additive impulsive noise at each node is modeled by an independent Bernoulli-Gaussian process. Exact computable expressions for the average secrecy capacity (ASC) and the probability of intercept (POI) performance over many different networks are derived. Approximate closed-form expressions for the asymptotic ASC and POI are also provided. We find that the asymptotic ASC saturates to a constant level as transmit power increases. We observe that the PH has an adverse effect on the ASC. Although the shared link affects the ASC, it has no effect on the POI. We show that by artificially controlling the impulsive to background noise power ratio and its arrival rate at the receivers, the secrecy performance can be improved

Relaying in the Internet of Things (IoT): A Survey

The deployment of relays between Internet of Things (IoT) end devices and gateways can improve link quality. In cellular-based IoT, relays have the potential to reduce base station overload. The energy expended in single-hop long-range communication can be reduced if relays listen to transmissions of end devices and forward these observations to gateways. However, incorporating relays into IoT networks faces some challenges. IoT end devices are designed primarily for uplink communication of small-sized observations toward the network; hence, opportunistically using end devices as relays needs a redesign of both the medium access control (MAC) layer protocol of such end devices and possible addition of new communication interfaces. Additionally, the wake-up time of IoT end devices needs to be synchronized with that of the relays. For cellular-based IoT, the possibility of using infrastructure relays exists, and noncellular IoT networks can leverage the presence of mobile devices for relaying, for example, in remote healthcare. However, the latter presents problems of incentivizing relay participation and managing the mobility of relays. Furthermore, although relays can increase the lifetime of IoT networks, deploying relays implies the need for additional batteries to power them. This can erode the energy efficiency gain that relays offer. Therefore, designing relay-assisted IoT networks that provide acceptable trade-offs is key, and this goes beyond adding an extra transmit RF chain to a relay-enabled IoT end device. There has been increasing research interest in IoT relaying, as demonstrated in the available literature. Works that consider these issues are surveyed in this paper to provide insight into the state of the art, provide design insights for network designers and motivate future research directions

HopScotch - a low-power renewable energy base station network for rural broadband access

The provision of adequate broadband access to communities in sparsely populated rural areas has in the past been severely restricted. In this paper, we present a wireless broadband access test bed running in the Scottish Highlands and Islands which is based on a relay network of low-power base stations. Base stations are powered by a combination of renewable sources creating a low cost and scalable solution suitable for community ownership. The use of the 5~GHz bands allows the network to offer large data rates and the testing of ultra high frequency ``white space'' bands allow expansive coverage whilst reducing the number of base stations or required transmission power. We argue that the reliance on renewable power and the intelligent use of frequency bands makes this approach an economic green radio technology which can address the problem of rural broadband access

A Comparison between Orthogonal and Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access in Cooperative Relaying Power Line Communication Systems

Most, if not all, existing studies on power line communication (PLC) systems as well as industrial PLC standards are based on orthogonal multiple access schemes such as orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing and code-division multiple access. In this paper, we propose non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) for decode-and-forward cooperative relaying PLC systems to achieve higher throughput and improve user fairness. To quantitatively characterize the proposed system performance, we also study conventional cooperative relaying (CCR) PLC systems. We evaluate the performance of the two systems in terms of the average capacity. In this respect, accurate analytical expressions for the average capacity are derived and validated with Monte Carlo simulations. The impact of several system parameters such as the branching, impulsive noise probability, cable lengths, the power allocation coefficients and input signal-to-noise ratio are investigated. The results reveal that the performance of the proposed NOMA-PLC scheme is superior compared to that of the CCR-PLC system. It is also shown that NOMA-PLC can be more effective in reducing electromagnetic compatibility associated with PLC and that increasing the network branches can considerably degrade performance. Moreover, optimizing the power allocation coefficients is found to be of utmost importance to maximize the performance of the proposed system

Smart Grid Communications: Overview of Research Challenges, Solutions, and Standardization Activities

Optimization of energy consumption in future intelligent energy networks (or Smart Grids) will be based on grid-integrated near-real-time communications between various grid elements in generation, transmission, distribution and loads. This paper discusses some of the challenges and opportunities of communications research in the areas of smart grid and smart metering. In particular, we focus on some of the key communications challenges for realizing interoperable and future-proof smart grid/metering networks, smart grid security and privacy, and how some of the existing networking technologies can be applied to energy management. Finally, we also discuss the coordinated standardization efforts in Europe to harmonize communications standards and protocols.Comment: To be published in IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorial

Energy Efficiency

This book is one of the most comprehensive and up-to-date books written on Energy Efficiency. The readers will learn about different technologies for energy efficiency policies and programs to reduce the amount of energy. The book provides some studies and specific sets of policies and programs that are implemented in order to maximize the potential for energy efficiency improvement. It contains unique insights from scientists with academic and industrial expertise in the field of energy efficiency collected in this multi-disciplinary forum

Wide-Area Time-Synchronized Closed-Loop Control of Power Systems And Decentralized Active Distribution Networks

The rapidly expanding power system grid infrastructure and the need to reduce the occurrence of major blackouts and prevention or hardening of systems against cyber-attacks, have led to increased interest in the improved resilience of the electrical grid. Distributed and decentralized control have been widely applied to computer science research. However, for power system applications, the real-time application of decentralized and distributed control algorithms introduce several challenges. In this dissertation, new algorithms and methods for decentralized control, protection and energy management of Wide Area Monitoring, Protection and Control (WAMPAC) and the Active Distribution Network (ADN) are developed to improve the resiliency of the power system. To evaluate the findings of this dissertation, a laboratory-scale integrated Wide WAMPAC and ADN control platform was designed and implemented. The developed platform consists of phasor measurement units (PMU), intelligent electronic devices (IED) and programmable logic controllers (PLC). On top of the designed hardware control platform, a multi-agent cyber-physical interoperability viii framework was developed for real-time verification of the developed decentralized and distributed algorithms using local wireless and Internet-based cloud communication. A novel real-time multiagent system interoperability testbed was developed to enable utility independent private microgrids standardized interoperability framework and define behavioral models for expandability and plug-and-play operation. The state-of-theart power system multiagent framework is improved by providing specific attributes and a deliberative behavior modeling capability. The proposed multi-agent framework is validated in a laboratory based testbed involving developed intelligent electronic device prototypes and actual microgrid setups. Experimental results are demonstrated for both decentralized and distributed control approaches. A new adaptive real-time protection and remedial action scheme (RAS) method using agent-based distributed communication was developed for autonomous hybrid AC/DC microgrids to increase resiliency and continuous operability after fault conditions. Unlike the conventional consecutive time delay-based overcurrent protection schemes, the developed technique defines a selectivity mechanism considering the RAS of the microgrid after fault instant based on feeder characteristics and the location of the IEDs. The experimental results showed a significant improvement in terms of resiliency of microgrids through protection using agent-based distributed communication