Performance Evaluation and Optimization of RPL in Broadband-PLC Network for Advanced Metering Infrastructure

Abstract

Power line communication (PLC) is one of the key fashions of communication for the Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) systems in most power utility companies due to saving the expense of installing communication media using existing power line infrastructure. It has been used in smart grid such as AMI systems in which embedded smart meters periodically transmit power consumption. However, the existing PLC Network stability was not enough to perfectly provide AMI services to customers such as on-demand, time of use, remote disconnection, and so on. Since the PLC environment looks like a wireless communication environment, some utilities and papers tried to present novel approaches for RPL and 6LoWPAN of IoT technology elements with these similarities in mind. These trials were almost only RPL basic function (OF0) implementation and showed the applicability of RPL and 6LoWPAN to the PLC network (i.e. confirmation that newIoT technology elements are applied to the existing PLC network). In this thesis, we propose a practical and novel approach to RPL technology in the field of AMI systems and evaluate RPL performance over PLC from the perspective of the power utility company (i.e. performance metrics: meter reading success rate such as timely, daily, and monthly). For this, we apply an RPL function to a multi-hop PLC network, implement an OF-PLC routing algorithm considered for PLC characteristics changed by power grid environment (impulse noise) and evaluate the AMI performance through an extensive real-world testbed. The performance evaluation includes the AMI performance of the PLC network based on RPL, compared to the existing PLC network through the real field.