A novel scheme for improving the reliability in smart grid neighborhood area networks

A smart grid, as its name implies, is an intelligent grid, which features two-way transmission for electricity and information. A smart grid can deliver various types of electrical services and streamlined, highly efficient energy consumption, but only if its communication systems are highly reliable. A smart grid can be based on wireless networks, which offer high speed and low cost, but problems with wireless technology can impair communications performance and destabilize the smart grid. Wireless local area network (LAN) mesh networks based on IEEE 802.11s can serve as the backbones of smart grids. IEEE 802.11s provides flexible, scalable, high-speed communications with low installation and management costs. In this paper, we first describe IEEE 802.11s, default routing protocol, Hybrid Wireless Mesh Protocol (HWMP); Even though HWMP has several shortcomings that destabilize smart grids, we propose a novel scheme to improve smart grid routing reliability. We present a simulation of our proposed scheme using ns-3 simulation software, and prove that our method can improve smart grid reliability.