Improving performance of smart grid communications using multi-homing and multi-streaming offered by SCTP

Abstract

Since smart grid has grasped the attention of the industry sector, it has become a rapidly evolving technology. This process involves a solid foundation of communications to meet the expectations of both smart grid providers and consumers. TCP, which is the well known transport protocol used as a reliable transmission source, is a major player for smart grid communications. However, TCP lacks a fault-tolerant transmission that can overcome predicted failures that weaken the smart grid progress. Streaming Control Transmission Protocol SCTP is a connection oriented protocol similar to TCP. Unlike SCTP, UDP is a connectionless protocol with no connection control. SCTP shares TCP in many significant features such as: congestion and flow control. SCTP is characterized by significant features not offered by TCP or UDP which make SCTP the preferred option in applications that require more reliability. Accordingly, we propose utilizing SCTP as the principal transport protocol for smart grid communications by using the two important features offered by SCTP: Multi-homing, and Multi-streaming respectively. We proposed our assumption after conducting simulations in order to evaluate whether or not SCTP can work as the transport protocol instead of TCP. As we obtained our results by using Network Simulator ns2, we believe that SCTP can be used as a replacement of TCP for smart grid communications as potential transport protocol.