Smart Grid communication using next generation heterogeneous wireless networks

In this paper, we present a Smart Grid Home Area Network communication infrastructure solution that is based on future next generation heterogeneous wireless systems. The heterogeneous wireless system is composed of several Radio Access Technologies (RATs) available at consumer premises. The smart devices that use Smart Grid applications are assumed to have reconfigurable radios. A centralized Global Resource Controller (GRC) instructs the smart devices to use a particular RAT at any given time. The device-to-RAT association is made by the GRC using a two-step scheduling algorithm that accounts for the requirements of both best-effort and real-time Smart Grid traffic. To make the solution scalable, the approach utilizes Dynamic Spectrum Access methods to obtain additional open spectrum. We show up to 80% increase in real-time traffic support and 726% increase in best-effort traffic support in our proposed heterogeneous wireless system that uses reconfigurable radios, compared to the homogeneous wireless networks used today by smart devices with static radios.