Interfacing power system and ICT simulators: Challenges, state-of-the-art, and case studies

With the transition toward a smart grid, the power system has become strongly intertwined with the information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure. The interdependency of both domains requires a combined analysis of physical and ICT processes, but simulating these together is a major challenge due to the fundamentally different modeling and simulation concepts. After outlining these challenges, such as time synchronization and event handling, this paper presents an overview of state-of-the-art solutions to interface power system and ICT simulators. Due to their prominence in recent research, a special focus is set on co-simulation approaches and their challenges and potentials. Further, two case studies analyzing the impact of ICT on applications in power system operation illustrate the necessity of a holistic approach and show the capabilities of state-of-the-art co-simulation platforms

Machine type communications:key drivers and enablers towards the 6G era

Abstract The recently introduced 5G New Radio is the first wireless standard natively designed to support critical and massive machine type communications (MTC). However, it is already becoming evident that some of the more demanding requirements for MTC cannot be fully supported by 5G networks. Alongside, emerging use cases and applications towards 2030 will give rise to new and more stringent requirements on wireless connectivity in general and MTC in particular. Next generation wireless networks, namely 6G, should therefore be an agile and efficient convergent network designed to meet the diverse and challenging requirements anticipated by 2030. This paper explores the main drivers and requirements of MTC towards 6G, and discusses a wide variety of enabling technologies. More specifically, we first explore the emerging key performance indicators for MTC in 6G. Thereafter, we present a vision for an MTC-optimized holistic end-to-end network architecture. Finally, key enablers towards (1) ultra-low power MTC, (2) massively scalable global connectivity, (3) critical and dependable MTC, and (4) security and privacy preserving schemes for MTC are detailed. Our main objective is to present a set of research directions considering different aspects for an MTC-optimized 6G network in the 2030-era