Using DDS Based on Unified Data Model to Improve Interoperability of Smart Grids

Abstract

The connectivity of power domains is a key factor for realizing a smart grid. Different power domains in smart grid (SG) involves various types of applications and devices each of which comes with its own requirements. In addition, different communication protocols and data models have been already proposed to address those requirements. Due to the differences in communication technologies, interoperability challenges have been raised in SG. Interoperability issues not only deteriorate the connectivity of different domains, but also compromise the potentials of data sharing in SG. The Data Distribution Service (DDS) has emerged as a possible solution since it supports different features such as transport configuration and dynamic discovery mechanism. In this paper, we describe how DDS can be used to address both data interoperability and protocol interoperability in SG. We first describe interoperability issues in SG and then describe the use of a unified data model with DDS and configuring DDS for TCP/IP and UDP/IP. We also implement the configurations and present the results of the implementations for comparative analysis.