Software defined neighborhood area network for smart grid applications

摘要

AbstractInformation gathered from the Smart Grid (SG) devices located in end user premises provides a valuable resource that can be used to modify the behavior of SG applications. Decentralized and distributed deployment of neighborhood area network (NAN) devices makes it a challenge to manage SG efficiently. The NAN communication network architecture should be designed to aggregate and disseminate information among different SG domains. In this paper, we present a communication framework for NAN based on wireless sensor networks using the software defined networking paradigm. The data plane devices, such as smart meters, intelligent electronic devices, sensors, and switches are controlled via an optimized controller hierarchy deployed using a separate control plane. An analytical model is developed to determine the number of switches and controllers required for the NAN and the results of several test scenarios are presented. A Castalia based simulation model was used to analyze the performance of modified NAN performance.Highlights•A novel SDN-based NAN framework built upon WSN.•Five different types of SG applications based on their traffic characteristics.•Network performance analysis to validate the feasibility of the framework.•Smart algorithms at the application layer to accommodate the SDN features.•Analytical model to find the optimal number of controller and switches.