Performance evaluation of zigbee sensor network for smart grid AMI

Abstract

Smart Grid is a convergent system of the existing power grid and Information Technology (IT). In Smart Grid system, AMI (Advanced Metering Infrastructure) is a system with various sensors to evaluate data related with the usage of various utility resources such as electricity, gas, and water. In this paper, IEEE 802.15.4 MAC protocol for the AMI sensor networks is analyzed. Based on the analysis, OPNET simulator was implemented for the performance evaluation. Particularly, this paper focuses on the effect of protocol parameters to the performance. For these parameters, the simulation results are presented to achieve the most efficient usage of network under different traffic loads. Based on the performance evaluation results, it is revealed that real-time data transmission is possible if the total offered load is restricted under 50 % with 100 nodes and the offered load period from 20 to 50 % makes the best trade-off in terms of network throughput, average delay, etc. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht(Outside the USA).