Network coding based reliable and efficient data transfer for Smart Grid monitoring

In this paper, we present a bandwidth-efficient data reliability mechanism for Smart Grid Wide-Area Monitoring communication networks. Reliable transmission of data packets, especially feedback control packets, is deemed a critical requirement. By sending multiple copies of data packets on node or edge disjoint paths, reliability can be achieved. However, this is inefficient in terms of bandwidth usage. We present a network-coding based algorithm that can reduce the bandwidth requirement while improving data reliability by combining multi-path transmissions and network-coding techniques. The performance of the mechanisms has been studied using discrete-event simulation models. The simulation results show that the proposed mechanism reduces the bandwidth requirement by 65-82% while achieving nearly 100% reliability, compared to existing multi-path redundancy mechanism.