Performance and applicability of candidate routing protocols for smart grid's wireless mesh neighbor area networks

Neighbor area network (NAN) is one of the most important segments of smart grid communications network (SGCN) since it is responsible for the information exchanges between the utility and a large number of smart meters (SMs) in order to enable various important smart grid (SG) applications. Greedy perimeter stateless routing (GPSR) and the routing protocol for low-power and lossy networks (RPL) have been considered as the most promising layer-3 protocols for wireless mesh NANs. This paper compares the system performance and investigates the applicability of these two protocols in practical NAN scenarios. Specifically, transmission reliability, latency and routing path details of GPSR and RPL are studied by extensive simulations. The advantages and disadvantages of each protocol with respect to the characteristics and required features of NAN are discussed in details. The effects of wireless channel characteristics and network offered load levels are also investigated.