Internet of Things-aided Smart Grid: Technologies, Architectures, Applications, Prototypes, and Future Research Directions

Traditional power grids are being transformed into Smart Grids (SGs) to address the issues in existing power system due to uni-directional information flow, energy wastage, growing energy demand, reliability and security. SGs offer bi-directional energy flow between service providers and consumers, involving power generation, transmission, distribution and utilization systems. SGs employ various devices for the monitoring, analysis and control of the grid, deployed at power plants, distribution centers and in consumers' premises in a very large number. Hence, an SG requires connectivity, automation and the tracking of such devices. This is achieved with the help of Internet of Things (IoT). IoT helps SG systems to support various network functions throughout the generation, transmission, distribution and consumption of energy by incorporating IoT devices (such as sensors, actuators and smart meters), as well as by providing the connectivity, automation and tracking for such devices. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey on IoT-aided SG systems, which includes the existing architectures, applications and prototypes of IoT-aided SG systems. This survey also highlights the open issues, challenges and future research directions for IoT-aided SG systems

An open virtual testbed for industrial control system security research

ICS security has been a topic of scrutiny and research for several years, and many security issues are well known. However, research efforts are impeded by a lack of an open virtual industrial control system testbed for security research. This thesis describes a virtual testbed framework using Python to create discrete testbed components (including virtual devices and process simulators). This testbed is designed such that the testbeds are interoperable with real ICS devices and that the virtual testbeds can provide comparable ICS network behavior to a laboratory testbed. Two testbeds based on laboratory testbeds have been developed and have been shown to be interoperable with real industrial control systemequipment and vulnerable to attacks in the samemanner as a real system. Additionally, these testbeds have been quantitatively shown to produce traffic close to laboratory systems (within 90% similarity on most metrics)

Cybersecurity of Industrial Cyber-Physical Systems: A Review

Industrial cyber-physical systems (ICPSs) manage critical infrastructures by controlling the processes based on the "physics" data gathered by edge sensor networks. Recent innovations in ubiquitous computing and communication technologies have prompted the rapid integration of highly interconnected systems to ICPSs. Hence, the "security by obscurity" principle provided by air-gapping is no longer followed. As the interconnectivity in ICPSs increases, so does the attack surface. Industrial vulnerability assessment reports have shown that a variety of new vulnerabilities have occurred due to this transition while the most common ones are related to weak boundary protection. Although there are existing surveys in this context, very little is mentioned regarding these reports. This paper bridges this gap by defining and reviewing ICPSs from a cybersecurity perspective. In particular, multi-dimensional adaptive attack taxonomy is presented and utilized for evaluating real-life ICPS cyber incidents. We also identify the general shortcomings and highlight the points that cause a gap in existing literature while defining future research directions.Comment: 32 pages, 10 figure

Standards-based wireless sensor networks for power system condition monitoring

This paper assesses the industrial needs motivating interest in wireless monito ring within the power industry, and reviews applications of WSN technology for substation condition monitoring (Section 2). A key contribution is the identification of a set of technical requirements for substation - based WSNs, focused around security requi rements, robustness to RF noise, and other utility - specific concerns (Section 3). Section 4 comprehensively assesses the suitability of various IWSN protocols for substation environments, using these requirements. A case study implementation of one standar d, ISA100.11a, is reported in Section 5, along with deployment experience. The paper concludes by describing future research challenges for WSN protocols which are specific to this domain

DNA Feature Selection for Discriminating WirelessHART IIoT Devices

This paper summarizes demonstration activity aimed at applying Distinct Native Attribute (DNA) feature selection methods to improve the computational efficiency of time domain fingerprinting methods used to discriminate Wireless Highway Addressable Remote Transducer (WirelessHART) devices being used in Industrial (IIoT) applications. Efficiency is achieved through Dimensional Reduction Analysis (DRA) performed here using both pre-classification analytic (WRS and ReliefF) and post-classification relevance (RndF and GRLVQI) feature selection methods. Comparative assessments are based on statistical fingerprint features extracted from experimentally collected WirelessHART signals, with Multiple Discrimination Analysis, Maximum Likelihood (MDA/ML) estimation showing that pre-classification methods are collectively superior to post-classification methods. Specific DRA results show that an average cross-class percent correct classification differential of 8% ≤ %CD ≤ 1% can be maintained using DRA selected feature sets containing as few as 24 (10%) of the 243 full-dimensional features. Reducing fingerprint dimensionality reduces computational efficiency and improves the potential for operational implementation

Design of an industrial wireless sensor network for process monitoring and PLC control

Capstone Project submitted to the Department of Engineering, Ashesi University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, May 2022Sensors are used in industry to collect data from the field to regulate and monitor processes. Traditionally, these sensors have been wired from the field to a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) in a control room, which presents problems such as high cost of installing and maintaining cables and cable trays, as well as the necessity for large panels to house sensor wiring to PLC input-output (PLCs). A wireless sensor network was built for this project to collect sensor data from the field and wirelessly send it to a base station interfaced to a PLC in a control panel. Temperature, pressure, and level are all measured as part of the process. The latency, coverage range, and received signal strength indicator (RSSI), all critical wireless network performance characteristics, are assessed. A user web dashboard is created to visualize sensor readings over time for monitoring purposes. Finally, the data acquired by the sensors at the base station is used to control PLC output devices using ladder logic programming.Ashesi Universit

Integration of wirelessHART and STK600 development kit for data collection in wireless sensor networks

Offshore industry operates in world’s most challenging environment. Oil and gas facilities aim for continuous production to achieve the desired goals and a robust communication network is required to avoid production loses. The IEEE 802.15.4 specification has enabled low cost, low power Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) capable of providing robust communication and therefore utilises as a promising technology in oil and gas industry. The two most prominent industrial standards using the IEEE 802.15.4 radio technology are WirelessHART and ISA100.11a.These are currently the competitors in the automation and offshore industry. In this project, we have worked on Nivis WirelessHART development kit that has some on-board sensors. Our main goal is to integrate WirelessHART with external sensor board so that we can get the readings from external sensors and publish the data over web interface provided by Nivis. Since, Nivis WirelessHART field router is not an open source and un-programmable, therefore it is considered as a black box. Due to lack of such capabilities, we cannot connect external sensor directly to Nivis radio. We have chosen Atmel STK600-Atmega2560 development kit as an external sensor board. In order to establish communication between STK600 and Nivis WirelessHART, we have written an application in AVR studio and flash it to STK600 over the USB connection. We have implemented a serial communication protocol called Nivis simple API and made Nivis board able to get data from sensors interfacing STK600. Nivis radio will then forward this data to WirelessHART through HART gateway. Moreover, we have configured Monitoring Host to visualize the data from external sensors along with built-in sensors over the Monitoring Control System (MCS). Finally, we evaluate our implementation by various experiments and prove that the overall flow is working properly

Real-Time Sensor Networks and Systems for the Industrial IoT

The Industrial Internet of Things (Industrial IoT—IIoT) has emerged as the core construct behind the various cyber-physical systems constituting a principal dimension of the fourth Industrial Revolution. While initially born as the concept behind specific industrial applications of generic IoT technologies, for the optimization of operational efficiency in automation and control, it quickly enabled the achievement of the total convergence of Operational (OT) and Information Technologies (IT). The IIoT has now surpassed the traditional borders of automation and control functions in the process and manufacturing industry, shifting towards a wider domain of functions and industries, embraced under the dominant global initiatives and architectural frameworks of Industry 4.0 (or Industrie 4.0) in Germany, Industrial Internet in the US, Society 5.0 in Japan, and Made-in-China 2025 in China. As real-time embedded systems are quickly achieving ubiquity in everyday life and in industrial environments, and many processes already depend on real-time cyber-physical systems and embedded sensors, the integration of IoT with cognitive computing and real-time data exchange is essential for real-time analytics and realization of digital twins in smart environments and services under the various frameworks’ provisions. In this context, real-time sensor networks and systems for the Industrial IoT encompass multiple technologies and raise significant design, optimization, integration and exploitation challenges. The ten articles in this Special Issue describe advances in real-time sensor networks and systems that are significant enablers of the Industrial IoT paradigm. In the relevant landscape, the domain of wireless networking technologies is centrally positioned, as expected

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