6LoPLC for smart grid applications

© 2015 IEEE. Reliable monitoring, intelligence and control achieved through Information and Communication Technology (ICT) will determine the success of next generation power grid. This paper proposes a Low Power transmission of Internet Protocol version 6 in PLC (6LoPLC) to provide network reliability with acceptable latency in Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI). The analysis presented here are preliminary results from an ongoing research that attempts to leverage existing wireless techniques to achieve energy efficiency in PLC. A model was developed using NS-3 to measure and analyze the performance of low-power Narrow Band PLC (NBPLC) in AMI services. Simulation results obtained so far are quite promising

Home energy management system over low-power narrowband PLC

The need for efficient use of energy has inspired intelligent load control strategies in the home area network (HAN) using the power of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). This paper investigates the use of low-power Narrowband Power Line Communication (NPLC) to support home energy management system (HEMS). Compared with low power wireless systems, it will be shown that using low-power Narrowband PLC (NPLC), packet success rate can be improved by approximately 85.32%, 208% and 85.32% in dense, sparse and large networks respectively. These results imply that low power NPLC is a feasible alternative for HEMS where low power wireless network is limited or inadequate

Channel characterisation of cooperative relaying power line communication systems

© 2016 IEEE. Power line communication (PLC) technology offers a promising platform for numerous communication applications. The power lines however can significantly attenuate communication signals operating in high frequency band. For this reason, multi-hop PLC systems become desirable. In this paper, we investigates the effect of multi-hop relaying on the power line channel transfer function. Measured results are compared with results obtained from sumulations in Matlab. Results show that the presence of relays between a transmitting and a receiving PLC nodes can intensify the attenuation and frequency selectivity. Measurements show that maximum attenuation increases with number of relays

Can 6LoPLC Enable Indoor IoT ?

Energy conservation and network longevity are key requirements of Internet of things (IoT) applications. However, these can be challenging in indoor environments such as dwellings with reinforced concrete walls and high-bay areas using battery-powered wireless devices. This paper presents a low-power power line communication over IPv6 network (6LoPLC) for in-building IoT applications. 6LoPLC adopts a PLC physical layer (PHY) and exploits media access control (MAC) features of IEEE 802.15.4 devices as well as 6LoWPAN to deliver low-power, low rate PLC. One of the unique advantages of 6LoPLC is that the nodes are mains-connected which eliminates the network disruption caused by battery depletion in wireless nodes. Furthermore, 6LoPLC saves the time and effort on battery recharge or replacement, simplifies network management and reduces wiring cost. The results reveal that the proposed system can yield about 5.05 dB reduction in energy requirement relative to HomePlug Green PHY without violating the delay tolerance of the IoT applications. It is further shown that using the 6LoPLC technique, delays of about 48 ms and 129 ms are feasible in residential and commercial buildings respectively

Smart street lighting over narrowband PLC in a smart city: The Triangulum case study

As municipalities continue to embrace digital revolution in a bid to become smarter cities, the unique intersection between ICT and development road map is inspiring new innovative applications. While this quest for smart city continues, the transformation of street lighting has become a topical issue. As part of ongoing investigation in Triangulum smart city project, this paper presents some simulation results on the use of narrowband powerline communication (NPLC) for street lights monitoring and control. The results show that, with low power, NPLC can support a 3.5km network of street lights without using a relay. It is also shown that, when the data packet size quadruples, latency degrades by up to 22.63% (242.03ms) in the worst case

Effects of traffic characteristics on energy consumption of IoT End Devices in Smart City

The rapid urbanisation in many parts of the world in the last few decades has intensified the challenges of urban living. Internet of Things (IoT) can be leveraged as a tool for transformation to provide technology-assisted city development and management. However, given that many of the nodes in smart cities are constrained devices, part of the medium-long term challenges is how to sustain the real-time monitoring capabilities of the city without disrupting services. This paper investigates the effects of data traffic characteristics on the active life of constrained devices in smart cities. The access network model employs two leading low-power wide area network (LP-WAN) technologies; long range wide area network (LoRaWAN) and Sigfox specifications in a star topology. The results show that in Europe, for lightweight applications such as smart street lighting that sends small payloads once a day, Sigfox and LoRaWAN can provide device lives of about 5.82 years and 13.25 years respectively. On the other hand, for intense applications such as smart bus stops, using payload of 12 bytes, if the number of messages sent per day is increased from 1 to 140, Sigfox device life reduces from 4.43 years to 0.8 years while that of that of LoRaWAN reduces from 13.1 years to 10.48 years

Bi-directional coordination of plug-in electric vehicles with economic model predictive control

© 2017 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. The emergence of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) is unveiling new opportunities to de-carbonise the vehicle parcs and promote sustainability in different parts of the globe. As battery technologies and PEV efficiency continue to improve, the use of electric cars as distributed energy resources is fast becoming a reality. While the distribution network operators (DNOs) strive to ensure grid balancing and reliability, the PEV owners primarily aim at maximising their economic benefits. However, given that the PEV batteries have limited capacities and the distribution network is constrained, smart techniques are required to coordinate the charging/discharging of the PEVs. Using the economic model predictive control (EMPC) technique, this paper proposes a decentralised optimisation algorithm for PEVs during the grid-To-vehicle (G2V) and vehicle-To-grid (V2G) operations. To capture the operational dynamics of the batteries, it considers the state-of-charge (SoC) at a given time as a discrete state space and investigates PEVs performance in V2G and G2V operations. In particular, this study exploits the variability in the energy tariff across different periods of the day to schedule V2G/G2V cycles using real data from the university's PEV infrastructure. The results show that by charging/discharging the vehicles during optimal time partitions, prosumers can take advantage of the price elasticity of supply to achieve net savings of about 63%

Broadband PLC for Clustered Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) Architecture

Advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) subsystems monitor and control energy distribution through exchange of information between smart meters and utility networks. A key challenge is how to select a cost-effective communication system without compromising the performance of the applications. Current communication technologies were developed for conventional data networks with different requirements. It is therefore necessary to investigate how much of existing communication technologies can be retrofitted into the new energy infrastructure to cost-effectively deliver acceptable level of service. This paper investigates broadband power line communications (BPLC) as a backhaul solution in AMI. By applying the disparate traffic characteristics of selected AMI applications, the network performance is evaluated. This study also examines the communication network response to changes in application configurations in terms of packet sizes. In each case, the network is stress-tested and performance is assessed against acceptable thresholds documented in the literature. Results show that, like every other communication technology, BPLC has certain limitations; however, with some modifications in the network topology, it indeed can fulfill most AMI traffic requirements for flexible and time-bounded applications. These opportunities, if tapped, can significantly improve fiscal and operational efficiencies in AMI services. Simulation results also reveal that BPLC as a backhaul can support flat and clustered AMI structures with cluster size ranging from 1 to 150 smart meters

Location prediction optimisation in WSNs using kriging interpolation

© The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2016. Many wireless sensor network (WSN) applications rely on precise location or distance information. Despite the potentials of WSNs, efficient location prediction is one of the subsisting challenges. This study presents novel prediction algorithms based on a Kriging interpolation technique. Given that each sensor is aware of its location only, the aims of this work are to accurately predict the temperature at uncovered areas and estimate positions of heat sources. By taking few measurements within the field of interest and by using Kriging interpolation to iteratively enhance predictions of temperature and location of heat sources in uncovered regions, the degree of accuracy is significantly improved. Following a range of independent Monte Carlo runs in different experiments, it is shown through a comparative analysis that the proposed algorithm delivers approximately 98% prediction accuracy